Do You Want The Good News Or The Bad News First?

Here's the BAD news ~ Angus failed TAFE this year. How on earth he failed is beyond me. He wasn't the only kid in his Automotives course that failed either. ALL the kids from his school that were in his course failed. What let them down is the fact that they never did all their assignments and handed them in.

Their TAFE teacher said that Angus is to come in on Wednesday of this week so that he can attempt to complete as much work as possible in order to save his butt. That way he might be able to go back to do the second year of his course next year. That is no guarantee that he will be able to do so. Angus will need to write a letter outlining why he should be allowed to continue with his course. He will also need to include steps that he will follow to ensure that this wont happen again.

What annoys me is that whenever I asked Angus if he had assignments for TAFE to work on he said that he had done them all at TAFE and that he didn't need to do them at home. What a silly person I was to take him at his word. I feel so disappointed and hurt over all of this. I feel that I failed as a parent. I know it is not my responsibility to do his school work and that the onus is all on Angus but I still feel I made a mistake somewhere.

Angus didn't want to tell us what happened. His excuse was that he 'forgot' to mention it last Thursday when he got home from school because we had given him his new computer. We only found out because one of the co-ordinators at his high schooled phoned us.

Angus thought that Mark & I would yell at him when we found out. Why would we do that? Yelling at him wont make a difference. Angus will still have to face the consequences of his actions (or rather in this case inaction). Computer time has been severely restricted (2 1/2 hours per day) and his computer signs him out when his time is up. There is NO can I have another 5 minutes. I think it's pretty fair. I am sure that's a lot more than other kids would get in these circumstances. In fact one of Mark's friends said that we should just take the computer away for a while. If there's a next time maybe that's exactly what we will do.

Needless to say I am being a mean Mum making sure that Angus does his work. I will not have him slacking off again. I am tired of getting phone calls, letters or emails from the school stating that he is well below par. Although I am grateful that the school lets me know. I want Angus to pass but if this keeps up he might not get to do the classes he wants next year. Perhaps frightening him by stating he will have to repeat some Yr 10 classes night do the trick...

Time for some GOOD news ~ I ordered the dress that I wanted for my wedding last week. It's being sent from the US. I was given a tracking number so that I could check up on my order. The good news is my dress is now in Australia! Woohoo. So hopefully it will arrive within the next couple of days. I'm still crossing my fingers that it will fit properly. But YAY it is almost here!