Quarantine Stories: Schooling and Wellbeing.

We are now well into the third lockdown in London and the second stint of home-schooling. I remember how relieved I was when the children went back to school, thinking to myself: “I am never doing this again”, only to find myself there again less than six months later:

Home schooling five children

Navigating GCSE’s, A ‘levels, University application, a last minute sixth form application and GCSE options for next year.

Trying to support an eight your old that cried every morning during online lessons for weeks.

With one eye on a six-year-old little wildling that has no intention of sitting through a whole lesson.

Checking every hour between meetings on the boys to make sure they are not falling asleep mid class.

Trying to keep everyone talking to try and gauge how they are feeling.

Work with tasks piling up and meetings through the day (with various interruptions from various people, I have mastered the art of dirty looks and a viciously whispered “go away” now and again)

Trying to find a way to manage meals for five children and two adults, three times per day.

Studying for my Masters degree with online classes and research and reading for two assignments.

But something is different this time around.

At Christmas I took two weeks leave from work to coincide with the children winter holidays. I spent the time in rest, reflection, and to clear my head from work, study and home-school. It made a world of difference. It allowed me to get some perspective and set some boundaries:

No working long hours

Being clear on my priorities – worship and children

Weekly planning for things like meals, meetings and housework.

Protecting my “me time” for journaling, blogging.

Committing to learn to rest and not feeling guilty about it.

It takes me daily reflection and review of my day to try and stick to these principles, to stop myself working into the evening, stressing about home school and constantly overthink.

I have found doing less make me more peaceful and less stressed out, but also funnily, more productive.

I am still counting the days till they can go back to school. I am still very worried about my sons GCSEs and I still wonder how I am supposed to do everything I want at work and with my personal projects. But I am peace with the idea of imperfection, not finishing things, of a messy house and the art and practice of keeping my heart full of gratitude.

image source

Ramadan 2020/1441: Ramadan Gratitude Journal Day 14

What challenge did you overcome and be grateful for?

The challenge I overcome, that I am most grateful for, is finding a way to go to university.

I was the first in my family in this country and from a background where women’s education was completely discouraged at first, then de-prioritised over boys schooling in later generations. By the time it came to my turn, my dad was still not keen for me to study after GCSE’s and I barely got to go to sixth form. When the time came to go to university, I didn’t think there would be any chance.

When I did well in my GCSE’s, I recall my dad telling his friend with pride. His friend, a father of six girls, replied that was good, but wasn’t that enough now? Probably worried we would be a bad influence and give hid girls ideas.

It was only the encouragement of my mum, who knew what it was to miss out on schooling that led me to apply for the nearest university with great trepidation. I wasn’t planning on making a fuss but quietly continuing with my routine of study in the hope no one would notice or object. It was only when I realised I had to send a check for UCAS (the undergraduate application process), that I had to ask my dad to write me a cheque (some silly amount like £14 at the time), he frowned and glowered, then wrote me the cheque saying he was not at all happy.

It ended up being three happy, fulfilling years of learning, growing, making friends and becoming more confident and bolder. In hindsight I can see exactly why people didn’t want their girls to study if they needed to maintain some level of control over them. I will always be grateful for this.

Happily, my dad realised I wasn’t going to reject my faith or values, in fact I started wearing hijab at university and got engaged one year in.  Persisting also meant that my three younger sisters had the door opened for them to study further.

Twenty years later I hope to do my Masters in September, With babies and work, it has taken long enough to get to the next phase, but I hope that it is the start of many more years of learning and growth insh’Allah.

What challenge did you overcome and be grateful for?

You can find the original Ramadan Gratitude journal challenge here and my take on it here.

Quarantine Diaries: School Routines

We have been home for about four weeks now and fallen into an easy going school routine. Right in the beginning my youngest two and I sat down together and agreed what a school day should look like. I let them take the lead and they ended up with the following simple routine:

• Sports/PE
• English
• Lunch
• Maths
• Science or topic work (set by school)
• Creative
• Arabic

We kept the routine the same every day, so that they could move from one to the next independently if I was busy or in a meeting. We don’t stick to it too strictly, and my view is if we do 2-3 things a day, I am happy.

The lessons consist of the following things:

Sports/PE

We tried Jo Wicks PE in the beginning, but my older girl is lazy and wasn’t keen.

They both love Cosmic Yoga, so we do this sometimes

Our favourite is badminton which we can play inside and ball skills, which is basically passing the ball or dribbling around obstacles. If it’s cold outside we just play badminton in the living room.

English

At the moment, this is reading, with some reading comprehension, such as telling me about what they have read.

The next step is to introduce short book review.

Otherwise spelling homework from school or grammar and handwriting with a stack of books I found in a £1 shop.

The girls also really like Karate Cats on BBC Bitesize.

Maths

Again this is from the £1 shop books, but I have some ideas around games with money and telling the time (thanks to my sister who is a teacher alhamdulillah).

The girls also like Karate Cats maths lessons.

Fraction garden by Darling 

Science or topic work

This is pretty much set by the school via their Class Dojo app and is around one theme for a few weeks at a time. The girls will complete tasks and I take pictures to send to the teacher via the app.

BBC Bitesize have some amazing lessons across all subjects and ages

Creative

This is everyone’s favourite and the girls will suggest different things everyday: play dough, painting, junk modelling, paper crafts and collaging. This is also sometimes things like cooking or gardening.

We have a box each for play dough, chunky beads for jewellery making, paper crafts, paints and colouring pens and pencils. So it’s easy for them to take one out and then put I back when they are done.

Because our recycling isn’t being collected due to corona virus, but being added to the main rubbish collection, I save clean bits in a big bag in one corner of the kitchen. They take things like loo roll tubes and empty cereal boxes to make things from, whether a school project, an idea of their own, or something they have seen on a YouTube tutorial and want to try.

Jewellery making 

Towel teddy from a YouTube tutorial 

Arabic

This isn’t going so well. The girls were having two lessons a week online, I had to send more time that the teacher practicing every day and it was costing me lots. I have decided to suspend lessons for now and hopefully when things get better, they can join classes at the local masjid. They hired new teachers for the girls just before lockdown and they seemed amazing, so I am hopeful insh’Allah.

For now, it is a hit and miss process and a learning curve for all of us. My priority is for them to be occupied, feel like they are achieving something and to stay happy insh’Allah.

Older Kids

With my older children I have some respite because they all log on online to register attendance and then get on with lessons set by teachers. Luckily my oldest is sensible and keeps n top of her work. The boys are a bot more work and I spend a lot of time waking them up in time to register and attend some lessons. It helps the school will call now and again to tell them off. My oldest son has GCSE’s next year, so I am worried about how much he is missing, but keep cajoling and reminding him to log on and keep up.

How are others doing with their children’s learning journeys? What works or doesn’t work for you? What would your best tips for others be?

Happy Muslim Mama – GCSE’s, Fasting and Growing Up

Little Lady is currently in the middle of her GCSE exams and thankfully focused on her studies. As usual, she is being cool, collected and somewhat aloof in the face of my worrying.  As usual I am anxious and want to take away her tiredness and burden.  When I started blogging she was about 5 and my lovely, fierce little girl that I loved holding.  Along the way there have been some bumps, some tears and perhaps a reluctance on my part to let go and let her grow up.  The fact that she is now doing GCSE’s seems astonishing to me.  It also breaks my heart as a little reminder that she is 16, growing so fast and with so few years left under our roof until she sets out on her own life journey.  This is exactly the kind of thing that makes her roll her eyes at me…

I have stopped asking her to do her chores and I have been providing her with her favourite foods and sweet treats. She has been studying late into the night and then again after fajr (dawn prayers) for a while.  She has had about half of her exams and says she feels like they went okay.  I tell her she looks like she has lost weight and she rolls her eyes (I think she is secretly pleased). 

I am counting down the days (about three weeks) until she is done and can sleep, eat, rest and play without thought of studies for a few months and I can stop fretting.  Alhamdulillah I am so proud of her for taking her studies seriously and getting on with it and continuing fasting while she has exams.  Please remember her in your dua’s and may Allah (SWT) bless her and all the children sitting their exams absolute success insh’Allah.  May Allah (SWT) make them a source of joy and comfort for their parents and a source of benefit for their communities and this world insh’Allah. Ameen. 

I wanted to take a pic of her desk, but there was such a pile of food wrappers, clothes, makeup and stuff piled over her books, that I couldn’t find an angle that didn’t look like a junk pile, so this stock image will have to do – it’s exactly the kind of thing she would like.

Picture of the Day 21.01.19: Diorama Fun

This week I came home from a busy day at work to a litany of requests: my oldest two need new travel cards (one has broken his and the other lost hers a few days after I replaced her broken one), Gorgeous needed ingredients for his food tech class the next day and both of the babies had homework projects.  We were meant to do these over the weekend, but the trouble with a Tuesday deadline is that you end up leaving things for Monday evening.

I decided that everyone would get what they need insh’Allah, but that I would make a space for myself first.  So I unwound my hijab, took off my shoes, got changed, unpacked my work bag and in the process let go of the day and wound down.

I sent the kids to look for shoes boxes for their homework project and settled down with a good book and some the last few Ritz crackers the kids left for me.  I gave myself twenty minutes of quiet/quiet as it gets time and let my body and mind get some rest.

Once I was done, I called hubby and asked him to find me some boxes on the way home from the masjid. He has been on box duty for school projects since the oldest was little and always manages to come up with the goods.

We ended up with two diorama’s: one of the solar system and one of the Savannah (you get extra credit for adding a lion).  Neither are the best, but I wanted as much as possible to provide materials and let the girls do the drawing and sticking (I do the cutting).

It feels like ages since I have done projects with the children, they older batch got too old and the younger ones were too small.  So alhamdulillah I get to experience the fun years (post dependent baby, pre-hormonal teens) again insh’Allah, although I have to admit Gorgeous is still a big messy, fun kid.  Look forward to many more projects and lots more self-care insh’Allah.

Accident and Emergency Take Two

Gorgeous came home from school this week cradling his wrist and telling us it was causing him a lot of pain.  Two weeks into his first year of high school, one of the Year 11 boys kicked a ball into his hand with full force.  He tells me it’s not the first incident, one of his friends was hit with a ball by the Year 11’s and knocked clean out.

I didn’t fancy taking him to the Accident and Emergency on a busy Friday night, so gave him pain relief and sent him to bed. Instead, we went after Fajr (dawn) prayers when we found it empty and were seen without any delay and back home by eight in the morning.  It turned out he had fractured his wrist in two places.

After his older brothers fractured ankle earlier this year, where he got stomped on during a game of football, I don’t fancy having to go back to A&E again, nor to the ongoing fracture clinic appointments.

I might have a word with the school about overly boisterous football players. 

Dressing Up For Roald Dahl Day 2017

My children's primary school is celebrating Roald Dahl day today, which is odd because the late author’s website says it is on his birthday on 13th September.

I liked the idea anyway, I grew up devouring his books and always think of his irreverent and very funny books with lots of affection.

Gorgeous went as Charlie from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Darling went as Matilda.

Both of the babies (as they are collectively known in our house) woke up way too early and very excited at the prospect of dressing up:

Darling is in nursery and too young to know about Roald Dahl's books, so her teacher suggested we dress her up in something from one of her favourite books.  We ended up with the butterfly from The Hungry Caterpillar.

The wings were two pieces of card we spray painted silver.  Then everyone helped to finger paint (Little Lady’s idea) and sprinkle glitter into.  I made holes with a hole-punch and wove some ribbon through as you would shoe laces.

Then ribbon pushed through holes in the middle of the wings to make two loops to go over the wearers arms.

I suspect Gorgeous' favourite part of his costume was the chocolate bar...I wonder if it will come home.

Picture of the Day 24.11.17: Butterfly Wings

 The children had to dress up as book characters this week for school.  So of course the cardboard, paints and spray paint were out.

Baby's costume is going to be the butterfly from the much loved The Hungry Caterpillar. 

Looking Inwards, Sadness, Anger and Reflection

The last few weeks have been the hardest weeks of my life.
Trouble with the children, bad habits they have picked up, bad behaviour I am trying desperately to manage and counteract
Doubts about myself as a mother and my approach to parenting.
Misunderstandings with my better half
Long soul baring talks with him
Finding my feet again with my health and self-care
Exhaustion that lead me to drop into bed and fall into a stupor of immediate sleep at the end of the day

I have found myself doubting every decision I have made and questioning the foundations that we have built our life on.

I have veered between wondering if Allah (SWT) is angry with me and punishing me or if in His love he is testing me.

It has made me lose interest in my work and in the good things in life.
I have had weeks of anxiety and sadness and just utter misery.

I have wanted to blog, to journal and vent.
But I have just not been able to.
I thought I could not find the words.
But in reality I had lost not the words, but the heart and my courage.
Some things cut too deep and are too private to share.

So after weeks of trying to set things straight, cajole and keep people calm, I have gotten very angry. The anger has led me to make some strong decisions

I have decided to take Little Lady out of Islamic school. She has hated it almost from the beginning and has begged us to let her change to a different school. She dropped out of her Alimah (scholar's) course at the end of her second year which was pretty painful for us and railroaded our plans for how we wanted to raise our children: as pople of knowledge and people of the Quran insh'Allah (hafiz and alim).

Instead, I have found her change into a rude, grumpy child (yes I know she is a teen now), but also one that isn't as close to her faith as she was before, which is very hard for me to accept. Almost every girl in her class apart from her has a smart phone and access to Snapchat and Instagram. They are heavily influenced by the "kardashian culture" and the fake rubbish they see everywhere: mansions, parties, haram(i) fashion, enough make up to cover ten faces, pouting and singing along to songs on their Snapchat, flirting with boys, being out at night. Hell - I saw one girl her age on her Snapchat driving a car at night with her boy cousins.

All Little Lady saw was that everyone else was doing this stuff and she was missing out because her parents were too strict. So despite our best efforts to show her beautiful a clean, Islamic life can be, other influences have seeped in. Her friends at school have been letting her use their phones to create a Snapchat account, which gives her a window onto this world.

I would challenge any parents to ask their child to share their smart phone and let them into all of the apps if they have nothing to hide. Work out how to view Snapchat snaps, streaks and messages. If you don't know what a streak is, find out. Take a look at their Instagram messages and their Instagram feed. I think these will be an eye-opener and for some Muslim parents devastating that their little Asiya or Khadija could be looking at or doing these things. People think their kids are not on Facebook or Twitter so they are safe from the worries that social media can bring. But kids are not interested in Facebook or Twitter, but apps that are far more transient with everything disappearing as they view it.

In any case, Little Lady felt that all these girls looked beautiful with their stylish (I would say skanky) clothes and with their hair down, while she was wearing hijab and modest clothes. It really made me question the work I had put in to teach her to be modest and love the hijab. It also made me very angry that my work could be undone by this pernicious culture.

So at the end of the year I am taking her out of school and sending her to a regular school with her brother if she gets a place insh’Allah, at least he is happy and achieving well alhamdulillah.

The anger has seeped wider, I am putting my foot down with the kids and have decided to give them minimal or no access to the internet this summer. They need to find useful things to do and they need to help me a lot more. Much more. I am finding five children, a household to look after, work and everyone at my doorstep with things for me to do quite exhausting. As my sister says, I need to learn to start saying no to people. I love to help people, I am aware of the blessing of hosting guests – but it has to be done with happiness rather than in a state of frantic stress.

I am also in a place of questioning this peaceful parenting business. I always thought that our parent’s physical discipline of us made us angry and less able to deal with things in a mature way. But it also seems that constantly negotiating, persuading and explaining to our children has made them a bit lazy and entitled. So sod that. I may come back to peaceful parenting when I am in better space, but at this time, I will be introducing some old fashioned authoritarianism – people will do what they are told, people will do chores and then more chores. Some people who thought they could be grumpy and not listen will be respectful and super, extra respectful to their grandmother (my mother in law, my mum brooks no nonsense from anyone alhamdulillah). I may even introduce daily leg massages for their gran to teach them a little care of elders. Certainly they all need to take turns to help me clean, cook and launder.

Children coming to my house will have to leave their smart devices at home or and them in to me. I will take them out places during summer holidays, but not more than I can afford. I have long given into moaning, guilt tripping and all out harassment. Little Man can spend days haranguing me to get what he wants. My kindness and easy going nature has been taken advantage of for quite some time.

Hubby has travelled to Pakistan for two months for dawah work (with Tablighi Jamaat) and to see his family. I spent about two days feeling lost and weak and wondering if it was sadness from him being gone, until I almost fell over twice and realised it was low blood pressure. I am absolutely terrible at listening to my body and understanding what is happening until I faint or fall over or the Doctor tells me I need treatment for something I thought was just me being not tough enough.

These weeks of self-doubt, revelations about my children and missing hubby have been tough. It is not in my nature to stay down, but to take action and do what it takes to rectify the situation. But there are some things you can’t just fix and that take time, patience and reflection and so you just have to persevere through the anxiety and tears.

Then there is anger, there is something delicious and empowering about righteous anger that washes away the anxiety and assuages some of the pain. It gives you the strength to do the things you need to do and take the steps you might have felt are too big for you to take alone. It also puts the fire in your words that makes people sit up and listen and think – “I better do as I am told”. I think I will hold onto it a little longer until I have my home and life back in order and I no longer feel taken advantage of insh'Allah

Dealing with Bullying

When Little Man started secondary school, I was worried that he would be an easy target for bullies. He is gentle natured, friendly and likes to tell stories. His school is very big with children from a very mixed catchment area. It was my old secondary school and I remember how rough it was at that time, although much less so now. Alhamdulillah his friendly and easy going nature helped him settle in to his school. He knew some of the older boys from our local masjid and has been joining them to pray at school.

In fretting about Little Man starting school, I missed completely what was going on under my nose. Gorgeous had been less than his usual sunshine-y self in recent days. I put this down to his growing up a little and becoming quicker to answer back and argue. I found him becoming sullen at times and angry at others. 

It is my habit to check in with the children to ask how their day was, what they had eaten and what they had been doing. When my older children were little, they would happily tell me about their day. As they have gotten older they have become less forthcoming. It takes longer for them to open up and they need space and silent company from me to start talking. Over time, I have learned to ask and then wait with patience for them to loosen up and make their complaints or share their exploits that day.

Gorgeous is no exception, except he is quicker to tell you what he is thinking or feeling. If you haven’t got round to asking, he will let you know by declaring that clearly no one cares about what happens to him. Then on asking, will vent about how horrible his teacher, the boys who are not his friends and all the girls in his class are.

Over the last few weeks, I reacted in the change in his behaviour by reminding him that I expect him to treat me with respect and asking him to behave kindly to his siblings. During this time there were a few high profile cases in the news where children had been bullied, including one particularly devastating incident that we discussed and which particularly seemed to stay with Gorgeous and which he kept coming back to.

It was only a few weeks ago when I picked up from school and saw him looking utterly miserable instead of his usual chirpy self that I asked him what was wrong. After much prompting, he told me one of the boys in his class had been beating him up. I was taken aback and approached the cover teacher who was in charge. Both she and the classroom assistant were very clear that this couldn’t have happened as the child in question had sat next to them all afternoon. I would have been stumped had a boy in the class not piped up that he had seen the child earlier in the day kick Gorgeous and punch him in the face twice.

The supply teacher said she would mention the incident to Gorgeous’ normal teacher. I took the classroom assistant aside and told her about the change I had seen in Gorgeous and that I was unhappy that this hadn’t been caught. The classroom assistant told me that she had noticed Gorgeous moping and dragging his feet in the classroom. She had told him he should improve his attitude or she would complain to his mum.

On the way home, I gave Gorgeous a hug and told him that we would sort out his problem and that he should let me know the instant that anyone bothers him. The bullying had been going on since the end of the previous year. I remember telling the teacher a boy had hit him and he told me that it stopped after that, but after the holidays it had started up again this year.

The following week I met with Gorgeous’ teacher and talked the situation through. He had met with the headteacher to work out how they could manage the other child’s behaviour. He indicated that the child was an abused child and they were working with the appropriate agencies to help him. I advised that I believe in being understanding and compassionate to those that had suffered, but that Gorgeous could not go into school to be hit every day. He had to agree with that.

In the intervening time there have been a few incidents with the boy, but I have seen him come back to his cheeky, lively self. A few things stand out from this experience. I was so focussed on Little Man who was dealing with the bigger change, I didn’t expect that Gorgeous, one of the biggest, loudest kids in his class could be a target, I could have been more open-minded. 

The other is that I assumed the changes in him were due to his getting older. I realise now that his fundamental nature is upbeat and extrovert. I think in future I might be more sensitive to any departure from his usual self, rather than assume that he is growing out of his usual nature.

You Said it Would Be Awesome

Little Man started secondary school this week. I have been fretting for days about getting his stuff together. His school is so strict that having a missing item of equipment means detention. We also missed his induction evening before the holidays where all of the information we needed was handed out to parents. It was during the last days of Ramadan and I was fatigued and preoccupied. So I have been worrying all through the holidays about what we missed. I could have asked for the pack during the holidays, but the invite was very stern about not missing the event and the head teacher is incredibly intimidating almost to the point of rudeness, so I avoided the issue like a wimp.

On his first morning, I dropped him off, gave him a little side hug (nothing too blatant) and told him he would be awesome. He looked suitably embarrassed. My sisters asked if I had caused a scene, or yelled at him across the car park that I loved him, or whether he had gone toilet. As if I would do such a thing…I left him as his friends from primary school gathered around to see who would be in the same classroom. 

I needn’t have worried. He came home and exclaimed “Mum you said it would be awesome and it was really awesome” I suspect this has more to do with the amount of junk food that is available in the canteen than anything else. Alhamdulillah I’m looking forward to being back in the school routines and rhythms and I am relieved he is settling in.

How to Make Friends and Influence People - Little Man Style

Little Man is due to start High School this September. I am amazed at how this milestone in his life has come around already and I have also been a little worried about how he is going to manage. Little Lady was always tough and vocal. Gorgeous is big and loud – everyone knows if he is not happy. Little Man in between is both physically slight and quiet. Probably not that quiet, but definitely in comparison to some of the other big gobs in our house. His new secondary school is very good alhamdulillah but also very big and full of tough kids (Little Lady spent a term there before going to Islamic School). I have visions of him being bullied or becoming very lost amongst so many children.

Watching him over the holidays has really helped assuage some of my fears though. There have been a few incidents where he has handled himself really well and shown how he can get on with people. A few weeks ago at the park, a much larger boy came over to him, immediately making me think he is a bully (my bad for judging, although Little Man had told me earlier that a boy had been threatening towards him). The boy had come over to ask about a mutual friend and once they got talking I realised he was from the school LM would be attending and they knew lots of boys in common from previous years that had moved from his primary school to the secondary. I was happy knowing he had a new friend at his school, especially one that looked so tough.

Yesterday on the way home from my office, we took the kids to the park. Little Man brought something called Fun Snaps with him. They are little twists of white paper with something like gun powder in them. You throw them on the floor and they make a loud bang. They are banned inside my house, because they also make a big mess. LM threw one on the floor and a little kid nearby freaked out – he was in awe because he had never seen such a thing. So LM explained what they were and poured him out a handful only for the boy to go into meltdown, jumping up and down, giving us all the thumbs up and yelling excitedly “You are my best friend!” You are my best friend!” This prompted LM to go back and give him the whole box. We could see him as we left, surrounded by his friends, testing out his snaps.

The little boy’s reaction made my day. I love people who are easily pleased or who are quick to show happiness or appreciation. But what made me happier was how LM had behaved and how easily he won this boy over. It reminded me of times he had done it before in different ways and it made me feel a lot easier about his move from being a big fish in a little pond at primary to being the little fish in a big lake at secondary

SATS: Why I Disagree with Too Much Testing

My older son is sitting his SAT’s this week and as every year the debate has kicked off about whether the SAT’s are a good idea or not. These are Standard Assessment Tests that are given at the end of Year 2 and then again in Year 6 of primary school. The children are tested over the course of a few days in maths and English (reading and spelling, punctuation and grammar). The tests started out in an attempt to gauge how well teachers and schools are doing and grew into the tests we have today where schools are under pressure to push the children to make them do well at the tests.

My daughter did hers two years ago and my advice to her was relax and try your best. With my son, I noticed his teacher was really pushing the kids to prepare, so I asked him if the results were used anywhere (I know a bit naïve). He confirmed they were used by high schools to determine which ability streams/levels children should be working it. I arranged for a few hours of tuition for my son and encouraged him to have a go at some practise books. Beyond that I was not keen to put pressure on him.

The whole process of testing young children and then using results gained at a young age to determine the child’s learning in completely different subjects seems entirely wrong to me. The children get tested again when they start high school (CAM tests), but both sets of results are taken into consideration.

At the same time there are the changes in GCSE’s which children take at age 15-16 at the end of high school. We were recently invited to my daughter’s secondary school for the teachers to give us a run through of the changes and what it will mean for my child. It means tougher subjects, for instance part of the maths A ‘level curriculum will be in the GCSE and you will have to memorise passages of Shakespeare for English as you can no longer take your books into the exam. There will be no testing at the end of Year 10 (4th year of high school) and no coursework to spread the marks out so that children with different learning styles can have a chance at a decent grade. Five years of intensive study and then one test at the end of Year 11. These poor kids better have good memories for their one shot at getting the grade they need. Oh, and the grades are also changing to numbers instead of letters.

When I look at the wealth of learning and knowledge around us today, it makes me wonder why we have to learn and retain chunks of knowledge. Google can tell you anything in seconds, YouTube has tutorials for everything and there are numerous experts, free courses and coaches for whatever you need to learn. So what makes someone stand out as an employee, an entrepreneur or an activist is not the knowledge they have, but how they use it. Their innovation, how creative they are, their confidence in coming forward with their ideas and collaborating with others, even their self-belief will propel them forward into the world.

I believe that these tests are stifling our children and creating stress for them unnecessarily. The GCSE’s will leave us with kids trying to cram their heads with knowledge, but not able to challenge what they have learned or be creative with their learning, two truer signs of real learning. Then we will have the inevitable complaints from employers and industry saying that young people are leaving schools unfit for work.

More and more this is why approaches to learning such as “unlearning” appeal to me: less structured, allowing the child to take the lead, learning as something you do constantly, not in set periods or with a set curriculum. I also believe that a happy childhood sustains you for the rest of your life. The opportunity to play, to investigate the world, to let your curiosity lead you teaches you how to behave as an adult. The memories sustain you through the toughest times. 

For these reasons, I have been supporting my son through this week, asking him how his day and the test went, but allowing him to enjoy his evening relaxing and reminding him that if he gave it a good shot, then that is enough for me.

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Can Islamic School Fix Your Messed Up Kids?

Last weekend I spent a morning with Little Lady shopping and talking. She had insisted that she did not want to come and we should leave her at home. I insisted that she should get out and get some air and spend some time with us. When we got there, we ended up splitting up, with the younger four children going with their dad and me and Little Lady drifting off. We spent a few hours browsing for bargains and chatting. I let her moan about whatever came to mind. Once she had let go of her numerous and ardent complaints, I found that she opened up and started talking about school and things that other girls were doing.

I noted at how much the girls were like thise in any other school - they loved clothing, make-up, social media, music as well as nasheeds and all had their little crushes on celebrities  

So really all things that are evident in schools across the country every day. I suspect that parents don’t expect them to ever happen in Islamic schools. One of my cousins is a scholar and studied in a boy’s madrassah (school). He once described to me how he got a lift back to London for my sister’s wedding with some boys from his school and how they managed to crash the car on the way. Thankfully no one was hurt, but on asking him what happened, he told me some of the boys, including the driver had been texting their “girls” and not paying enough attention to the road. I had to mull over that one – was I being naive to be shocked?

I put my child into an Islamic school for one reason: to study Islamic scholarship. This is a course that will result in her becoming a scholar, alongside the national curriculum that all children follow. My intention is for her to benefit herself and her family with what she learns. I hope to inspire her to benefit other people wider than her family and have concern for the wider ummah insh’Allah. At the very least I hope she is well equipped with the knowledge to raise her children in the best possible way with a sound understanding of their faith.

I think some of the parents with children in her school value the scholarship, but I think a number of them place their kids in Islamic school in the hopes that it will keep them safe and protect them the fitnah (evils) of wider society in general. Then I think there are a small number who see their children starting to misbehave or feel that they are unable to control them and think Islamic school might be the answer and in some way will fix them.

Little Lady and I had a long conversation about some of the things she was saying. I told her that I didn’t expect her to be perfect and that she was allowed to make mistakes. I also told her that I trust her to make sensible choices if she comes across things such as drugs, misbehaving in school, truanting or bullying. At the same time, I told her that I understood that at her age the hormones kick in and make the most sensible kids do silly things, so we had to keep talking and she had to tell me when something was bothering her.

She shared that someofthe girls felt stressed because they were under immense pressure from home and had limited freedom. Little Lady felt that some of her friends parents were too strict. I asked if I we were too strict with her and she felt that we were a little bit strict. The girls in her class are on Instagram and Snapchat, have smartphones and hang out after school in the shopping mall or go for ice cream at a dessert place. She has to come straight home and doesn’t have a phone. I also think she is too young for social media as I am wary that kids put things out there not realising that once it is public it is no longer in their control and can have all sorts of repercussions (it’s a shame that adults don’t understand that sometimes). I honestly don’t see why 13 year old girls should be hanging out alone in malls and dessert places. I am happy to take her wherever she wants to go and she can go with her very cool aunties if mum is too embarrassing. At the same time I can see that she feels she is missing out.

This will be an ongoing negotiation and discussion between us. I have told her that she can always disagree with us respectfully and that we will listen to her and consider her reasons. I did suggest that she can have a WhatsApp group with her friends on my phone so she doesn’t miss out on her friends after school conversations, but she looked horrified at that suggestion. Another option is a phone that she has for the day and gives back to me in the evening, but my husband is not keen on her having a phone at all.

Sometimes I wonder at what the other parents are thinking. Many of them are born here like me, went through the schools here and should know what goes on. They seem to think that they can carry on as normal and that the school will instil Islamic tarbiyyah (correct upbringing) in their children. So you can have music in the house, you can have people that do not pray, you can have free mixing between sexes in your family. You can have children that are exposed to and mix with people in the family that are not practising and have all sorts of freedom that we don’t, thereby setting them up to feel as if they are missing out and their parents are unfair. You can have a family that do not wear Islamic dress, but then have the children in a school where the girls wear hijab and abayah whilst their cousins can go out in nice dresses and with their hair done stylishly. We can lecture the kids all we like about modesty, but at 13 or 15 you don’t want to be the one that is different and your hormones are naturally telling you to preen like a peacock (hence mine and Little Ladies ongoing argument for the last year over mascara).

What this means is that children have to deal with the disconnect between their home and school life. It also means that you have kids from religious homes brought up in their faith that can be heavily influenced by children that have been raised in a very different environment and don’t see the value of their Islamic education and just see it as a burden. Little Lady recently quoted a statistic to me about mental health which said that teenagers today experienced more stress and anxiety than a mental patient. The world seems to have become a very complex and stressful place to navigate for children and young people without them getting mixed messages about life from home and school.

I believe that you need to think long and hard before you send your child to an Islamic school. I have realised that there is a reason why the parents of the scholars and huffaz (people who memorise Quran) are promised such big rewards. It is because whilst the scholar does the work, the parents must also make sacrifices: in their lifestyle, the way they live, their social life, who they interact and surround themselves with and in their mind-set. They will have to constantly coach and encourage the student and act as a patient sounding board when the child needs to vent.

As parents you have to review your life, way of living, environment and beliefs and consider how consistent it is with the environment of the school you are placing your children in. Are you placing restrictions on your kids that you can’t live with for yourself? Are they learning one thing at school and then completely going against it at home (i.e. learning about restrictions around music at school and listening to pop music at home?). Have you put the work in to help the child understand the benefits and rewards of Islamic study? Or does it feel like punishment to them because they cannot see the purpose behind it? 

The school can impart information about Islam, it can give the child knowledge and some tools to apply it. Tarbiyyah is not the schools job, it is the parents. It is for the parents to grown their children’s iman, to encourage taqwah and to impart Islamic values to the child. Little Lady’s year at school is split into form groups, or more informally as she calls them: the Directioners and the Beleibers. The girls idolise singers, Youtubers and Viners. They are selfie crazy and adept at Snapchatting and Instagramming what they are up to. I have no idea how much of this the parents are aware of or agree to. How many have discussions about this with their child? 

Enrolling your child in an Islamic school should not be seen as an easy option. It isn’t just about sending your child and thinking “job done”. Certainly if you are not willing to adapt your home life to create consistency with the schools environment and ethos, then it may not be for you. Because it will not fix your messed up child, it will not do your job of raising your child properly for you, it will just mess up other people’s children or it will mess your child up completely.

Note: I don't have complaints about my child's school, I am more than happy that she is there and that she is in a halal environment.  I think the teachers have a tough job and teenage girls are not the easiest people to deal with.  I am grateful for everything my child is learning and the environment she is being placed in.  I would seriously encourage parents to look into Islamic education for their children as we are definitely benefiting from it, but I would also encourage parents to prepare themselves and their family for it.