Iced webs

Habits of Mind

I went to a very inspiring meeting at Clyro School yesterday evening. It was mostly a presentation for new parents about how they have integrated the 'Habits of Mind' into the everyday language and practice of the school.

Headmistress, Dorothy Davies, gave us the background on Professor Art Costa, who developed the Habits of Mind, which has been turned into a teaching plan. She explained how the staff team use it at Clyro School. It's not a tag-on, but something that impacts everything that they do in the school.

The 16 habits of mind have equal weight and fit together like a jigsaw, so here they are, in no particular order:

Listening with understanding and empathy
Persistence
Managing impulsivity
Gathering data through all senses
Applying past knowledge to new situations
Finding humour
Questioning and problem posing
Thinking independently
Responding with wonderment and awe
Creating, imagining and innovating
Thinking flexibly
Striving for accuracy and precision
Thinking about your thinking (metacognition)
Taking responsible risks
Remaining open to continuous learning
Thinking and communicating with clarity and precision

The idea is that they are using these 16 Habits of Mind to train the kids to be problem solvers, decision makers and creative thinkers.

They showed a DVD of the Habits of Mind in practice in the school, which had loads of great quotes from the kids, and showed lots of examples of them using the Habits of Mind in practice. So, for 'applying past knowledge to new situations' they divided a class into groups and gave them ingredients to bake a cake, but no recipe. They had to work together, using previous baking experience, to to make a cake. (One group used nine eggs!) Amazingly they were all edible and then they talked through how they'd turned out and why.

Every activity or task they do at the school is framed within one or more of the Habits of Minds, so they're continually getting the kids to think which Habit/s would be best for a particular task or situation. It's part of the language that the teachers, and the kids, are using all the time, so these ideas are embedded in their minds as their language is developing.

As part of their learning journey, they consider for each Habit what a Novice, Apprentice, Practitioner and an Expert in that Habit would look like, and they start as a Novice in each one and are trying to work upwards in each one.

Using the Habits of Mind the staff team have developed four principles that they use in a discipline context which are integrated into their whole way of working with the kids:

1. Respect for others, ourselves, property and possessions.
2. For every action there is a consequence.
3. A fresh start every day.
4. I reflect and improve.

The staff are so enthusiastic about the Habits of Mind approach and I was so impressed by this and how much thought they put into everything that they are doing with this kids, nothing is standard teaching practice. They're not doing things as they've always done, or are required to do, but they're really thinking through everything they do at the school by fully immersing the Habits of Mind into every area of school life to try and make the school the best it possibly can be.

There was much more too it, but I've used up enough space here and I'm sure I haven't explained it anywhere near as well as they did at the meeting. I was hugely impressed by the evening and what they're doing at the school. I feel that we've lucked out moving so close to this school, and that it's a great place for Sethie. He's so happy there anyway, and just loving it and has soaked up so much even in this first half-term. Unfortunately his teacher goes on maternity leave from tomorrow (her baby is due tomorrow!), as she's done a wonderful job of settling him in.

Yep, it's half-term already and we're off to visit Granny in Coggeshall, and take the boys to Cambridge to see 'Papa's school' so Bo can stop telling everyone that his 'Papa lives in a railway station'!

Street view

Here's the wall shaping up from the street view. The neighbours in the converted schoolhouse came round today asking if they can paint their back wall (the brickwork shown in this photo) a mushroom white. I'm very happy about that, and it will make a good background for the flower beds I'm planning in that south facing side of the garden.

Door delivery

This is how the back of Pottery Cottage looks as of today. The exterior walls have been stripped back, ready to be rendered once the folding doors are in place.

The folding doors have been delivered. I think they look great! They need to be painted (gray) before they are fitted - the smaller, three-door one in the foreground will go in the kitchen, and the larger one with four doors is for the playroom.

We need to talk about Herman

I brought Hernan home with me today. I am not a Herman-type at all. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, read this article about A Friendship Cake called Herman. It all feels a bit seventies to me, a bit WI, and the sort of thing the not-as-young-as-me women in my pottery class talk about (they actually do talk about Herman, and their hens, every week). Anyway, my lovely friend Jules, who had very kindly looked after Seth and Bo so I could go to the school open evening, asked if I'd like a bit of Herman, so I couldn't really say no. So now I have a third responsibility for the few days as Seth, Bo, Herman and I go away for half-term. I'll let you know how I get on, with Herman and his sprogs.

Bikecation!

Sort of local (Abergavenny) author, and cycling-mad Rob Penn, had launched a UK cycle tours business called Bikecation. Brilliant name, brilliant idea. Author of 'It's all about the bike', the idea of this related business is to comprehensively cover some of the UK's most popular cycle tours, providing both guided and self-guided trips around locations such as the Cotswolds, Cornwall, the Highlands, Hadrian's Wall and more.

When we were thinking about moving to this area I read Rob Penn's article in the Guardian about cycling from Cardigan to Hay with his family (in fact, I think I blogged about it) and thought it could be a fun idea to set up a company called Balch's Big Bike Rides, organising family-friendly bike rides from Hay. The name comes from Ollie's mother who used organise the Balch's Big Bike Ride every summer, taking her three kids and any others who would join on a bike ride from Coggeshall to Frinton. Across the North Sea, I grew up going on cycling holidays with my family in Holland, where you can rent every type of bike/trailer/seat/tandem combination you can think of for families. So, I was thinking I could combine the two and have a shed full of bikes to hire and have all these family-friendly bike tours from Hay.

That was until I saw how steep the hills are around here.

Anyway, love the idea of a Bikecation and might even go on one. I'm thinking Norfolk though...

Hay in the news

Good to see a full-page splash in The Times today about Hay's supermarket battle, and I was the one who told Mrs Hood (owner of Clyro Post Office, the source of all local knowledge!), thanks to my brother-in-law who read it on his commute into London at 5.30am!

Fighting to stop the rubber stamping of plans for a supermarket, while coming up with an alternative plan led by the community - Plan B for Hay

Church Barn Farm Shop & Cafe

At 9am and 3pm Tuesdays to Fridays a convoy of cars sweeps around off the Brecon-Hereford road and down a small lane to Whitney Village Hall, to do the drop off/pick up of pre-schoolers at Crocodiles. It's a very rural location, surrounded by just a handful of houses, woodland, a church and the Whitney Court estate. The school commute got a whole lot better yesterday when the Church Barn Farm Shop opened on the corner where we turn off from the main road. We now have a handy place to stop off to buy bread from Talgarth Mill, eggs, butter, honey, veggies (displayed in wooden drawers, a nice touch) and loads of other locally produced healthy food.

There's a cafe too, a perfect spot for us parents to stop for a cuppa and natter, and for Crocs sub-committees to meet (maybe they should have a loyalty card or a special Crocodiles parents deal for coffee and cake?).

Personally I am very happy they've opened as Seth, Bo and I now have a perfect place to go for breakfast on Tuesday mornings after taking Ollie to Hereford and before Crocodiles start, rather than having to drive back up to the farm for half an hour and then driving back to Whitney.

So, the opening times: 8am-5.30pm, every day. They're having an open morning on Saturday 3rd March 10am-12.30pm which is an opportunity to sample local producer and meet some of the producers, as well as supporting this new family-run local business.


www.churchbarnfarm.co.uk
They're also on facebook and twitter.

Landscaping

It's getting too cold for the work at Pottery Cottage this week. The doors are due to arrive today but it's too cold to paint them, and even the block work in the garden is slowing up. Mind you, I am really happy with how the wall is shaping up, with a new curve stretching around to the drive. This will be covered by stonework. The back wall of the cottage has been stripped back to stonework as that exterior wall needs to be re-rendered, so the wall chippings have gone behind the garden wall to help with the drainage. Work then grinds to a halt until we hear from the engineer about what to do next. 

Upstairs downstairs

17th century style

21st century style

 

Work has slowed up at the cottage this week as we're waiting on the structural engineer on alternatives for supporting the roof. I'm conscious that soon everything will be covered in plasterboard and we won't be able to see where most of the work has been done, so I'm snapping away taking photos of every angle. I've really enjoyed seeing the bones of the place, and I want to remember every detail before they're hidden from view. 

At the top of the cottage, the original beams and rafters are still in place, mostly short pieces of wood nailed together, warped and sagging in places, but still standing, 400+ years later. Down below it's rather more solid, and supported by steel beams. 

The structural issue is not actually the original timber frame, but later work that was done to it, where one of supporting beams was cut to make way for a doorway (show in the top photo, towards the top right of the photo). Probably there was a very low doorway previously, and they cut the spanning beam to make way for a regular height door, which leaves us with a double headache of replacing the beam and avoiding a hobbit-height door.

Countdown!

We had just a little snow this weekend. Pottery Cottage looked sad and abandoned, I felt, with a thin covering of snow and the air icy and sharp. On March 29 last year we arrived back from Argentina to set up home here. Ten months on and we're still living out of our suitcases.

So, looking at these photos I've set myself March 29 as our moving in date. That's seven weeks to go from bleak-looking building site to cosy cottage. Do-able? I hope so. I'd love for Seth to wake up on his fourth birthday in the bunkbed he's been dreaming of, in our new home: Pot'ry Cottige, as the boys call it.

Well, I like them...

I bought a pair of ankle-length yellow wellies yesterday. I LOVE THEM. I have been wondering about a pair of bright yellow shoes for a long time, but was thinking more along the lines of Converse trainers...until I spotted these wellies for a bargain fourteen quid.

This morning Seth told me he didn't like them and asked me to put my old dark blue wellies on instead, rolling his eyes like an embarrassed teenager. I can tell I haven't lived here that long because while most of my mates did comment on them, they all were pretty polite (to be fair, I didn't see either of my northern friends, so I should really get ready for them to laugh in my face tomorrow morning). Anyway, I figure this is Hay, where there's a shop called Murder and Mayhem and another that is basically a house clearance shop but feels like a cool film set, so perhaps I can just about get away with walking around in a pair of sunshine yellow ankle wellies?

Big Pit

On Sunday afternoon we drove over the Heads of the Valleys Road and down to Big Pit, Wales' National Coal Museum. It's a brilliant place for kids, a really good free museum. Unfortunately Seth and Bo were too small to down the underground mine, but we went in the simulation which they really enjoyed. The guides at the museum are all ex-miners, tough Welshmen and big characters. The boys tramped around in the snow, enjoying throwing snowballs at me while I looked out over the bleak industrialised valley, like a scene from The Full Monty.

On our way back to Abergavenny, to drop Ollie at the railway station, Seth pointed at a radio mast and asked what it was. How do you explain radio waves to a three-year old? We made a feeble effort,  talking about the mast receiving our phone conversations and sending it on to the phone of the person we're speaking to......  Seth tried shouting at the mast to see if it would pass on his message. 'It's not remembering my words', he perks up! 'The trees aren't hearing me either!' [not echoing]. Ah well, maybe he won't be a scientist, but perhaps poetry will be his thing?

A hole in the roof

The last of the chimney stack was taken down today, so we had light beaming through the rafters. The rest of the work is now on hold until the structural engineer finds an affordable solution for supporting the roof. Assuming we can resolve that issue this week, we're looking at five more weeks until we can move in.

It's all Welsh to me

 Translation: 

Clyro Church in Wales School

Welsh Speaker of the Week

Bo today

Bo today, struggling to take his coat off: 'Mama, please take my jacket off, I'm flapping like a parrot.'

Door-to-door

So these are the two bi-fold doors that will slot into the back of the cottage. The sepele wood frames will be painted Manor House Gray by Farrow and Ball. The door above is for the kitchen, and as the photo shows, it functions as a single door as well as well as being able to fold right back.

Seth had great fun exploring the carpenter's workshop and thought it was very cool that he was able to walk through doors.

Below is the large frame that has four doors that fold back completely. This is for the playroom, also leading out onto the garden. Hopefully we'll have more than three days of sunshine this summer so we can open both out fully and and feel like we're back in Buenos Aires again.

Double trouble: trusses and purlins

 

Oh yikes, just as I thought it was about to get better they've taken the ceiling off to reveal this! They're trying to agree with the structural engineer on a way to support the roof with new trusses and beams without having to scaffold the whole interior. The roof purlins rest on that rickety chimney breast. It's all a complete mess. On the upside, once this headache has been sorted we're on the homestretch and they'll be onto wiring the place, doing the plumbing, and plasterboarding throughout.

Gallop and Rivers

Not your typical scuzzy reclamation yard, Gallop and Rivers on the edge of Crickhowell, is nestled in the hills and the yard is surrounded by a eclectic collection of old buildings. I was there today to collect an rusted iron table I'd reserved before Christmas and to take a look at their huge oak beams. We need a 400mm beam (that's huge!) to go in the kitchen to support the structure of the building when we take out the current beams and supports to make way for the staircase.

With both boys snoozing in the car, I had time to rummage and although it's mostly architectural salvage, I came home with a old wooden coat hooks for the boys and a wire basket.

Contact details, directions and opening hours on their website: www.gallopandrivers.co.uk

Old meets new

 Timber frame, cerca 1640, given a 21st century insulation makeover.