I’ve been having a bit of a wobble recently about Belle leaving primary school, it being the end of an era, me practically being old enough for Saga car insurance etc etc, but last night I had one of those moments that reminded me why saying goodbye to primary school isn’t perhaps such a bad thing.

At 10.30pm last night I was presented with a selection of notes. One required me to send in £12.34 (?) for a school trip on the penultimate day of term (!). One was an invitation to a party tonight that required me to bring drinks and provide a selection of ‘whacky wigs and hilarious hats’. View Post

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Hands up if you’ve ever asked your child ‘What did you learn at school today?’

Now keep your hands up if they normally answer ‘nothing’.

*looks out over sea of hands*

I thought as much.

Belle is the worst for it. I’m pretty sure, given that she can read and write and do basic maths, that she must actually have learnt something and some point, but on a day-to-day basis you’d be forgiven for thinking that I was sending her to school simply for free childcare. (This is the main reason obviously).

Now Bee is doing A-levels, her learning does tend to be a little bit more focussed, so normally she has something a little more helpful to say. Like today.

“He-ey!” I called to her as she walked in the house, doing my best to make the word into two syllables, as this infuriates her and I am mean. “What did you do at college today?”

“Well,” she said, “we had a lesson this morning about why you shouldn’t stereotype and be prejudiced against chavs.”

“OK,” I said, “well that sounds good.”

“But then on the way home,” she added, “I saw a man in a tracksuit steal a copy of The Sun from outside a shop.”

(I feel I should say something here by way of conclusion, but all I want to do is hit myself in the face with my hand, so I will stay quiet.)

 

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This week I got disproportionately excited by a box file.

For ages I’ve had various piles of Important and Useful Documents, waiting to be sorted out, looking at me accusingly every time I walked past them, with that ‘we’re still here…’ look in their eyes.*

And then I found this box file, for only three pounds, but which turned out, when I got to the till, to be only ONE POUND! I love it when that happens. So for just a pound I got to spend a very satisfying hour arranging all my credit card bills and bank statements into nice neat sections. I also discovered I had three copies of Bee’s birth certificate. I’m not sure how that happened, but I figured it showed I was prepared at least.

Imagine though how your life might be different if you’d never had a birth certificate at all.

If Bee had been born somewhere else in the world, then by the age of sixteen she could well have been forced into marriage already, and have been denied an education.

It’s really just luck when you think about it isn’t it?

Plan UK’s ‘Because I am Girl’ campaign wants to change this, and they’ve created a nifty little facebook app to help fight for the rights of the 75 million girls worldwide who aren’t in school. The “Plan Your Story” application takes your key facebook information and creates a personalised video story book, looking at what your life would be like if you hadn’t been registered for a birth certificate.

“The aim is to put people in the shoes of the millions of girls around the world whose births are not registered,” says Justin Wylie, Head of Business Development at the international children’s organisation Plan UK.

“Without a birth certificate, the user sees how key events in their life would change – for example an inability to prove their age could result in being married off whilst they’re still a child, or being denied the right to go to school.”

Why not have a go and see how lucky you really are?

*I do appreciate that they don’t actually have eyes. I’m not mad or anything.

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