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One of the regular long-distance journeys that we’ve done on the train since selling our car is the trip to and from Plymouth in Devon to stay with family. By regular, I mean twice a year, although it would’ve been more without the pandemic.

Potted history of our transport to/from Devon

Tom grew up near/in Plymouth, and his parents and extended family still live there. When we lived in Cambridge before the children were born, we used to take the train for this journey every time, which involved a train to London, a tube from Kings Cross to Paddington, and then another train to Plymouth. We’d go in the evening after work and enjoy a meal together on the longer train, and I’d sometimes do some work on my laptop. I was insured on my mother-in-law’s car, so that we had use of that to get around when down there if we weren’t with them. When Andrew was born, we decided to start driving this trip, for a few reasons, including not wanting to take a baby plus luggage on the tube before I knew about decent sling options, and we would go via my parents in Coventry and stay overnight, to break up the journey; this also avoided the dreaded M25. Taking our own car meant we didn’t need another car seat down in Devon to use when we got there for days out to rural locations like the beach and moors.

We carried on with this as our family expanded from 1 to 4 children, and our car got bigger to cope. One reason to move from Cambridge to Birmingham was to be nearer to Devon (and Coventry). We owned the smallest 7-seater car that we could get away with, and used a roof box for the Devon trips as there was little extra space in the car with 4 car seats. It never really crossed our minds to take the train whilst we owned a car – long distance trips were the main reason why we owned a car. And besides, having another set of 4 car seats down there so that we could go to the beach seemed ridiculous, particularly after I learned more about the safety of extended rear facing seats which don’t come cheap.

The kids went through ages and stages, and we’d time the drive as best we could to work around naps or bedtime, in an attempt to avoid the incessant “are we nearly there yet?!” from the back seats. We tried screens attached to the headrests so that they could watch cartoons, and thankfully none of them have ever been affected by travel sickness, which is some mean feat given my continued queasiness unless I’m driving or looking forward. Often we’d plan to take the whole day and break it up with a stop at a National Trust property. That’s when we weren’t driving at night, which came with its own anxiety of whether we were going to be awake enough.

When we were toying with the idea, several times, of selling the car, it was definitely on our minds about how we’d do this particular trip. If there had been a large 7-seater car club car near us, I think we’d have taken the leap sooner, to be honest. At the time we sold our car after it broke down and needed a really expensive repair, we’d said that we were hoping to get another year or so out of it, because then the twins would be able to safely go in high back booster car seats (we used extended rear facing seats until they were 5 years old). By that point the older boys wouldn’t need car seats at all (or maybe just a simple booster for Joel), so it would be feasible to just store a couple of (relatively cheap) high back boosters at the grandparents’ house, for use in their cars on days out when staying with them. It didn’t work out that way, but with a combination of my parents coming with us, taking the twins with their rear facing seats in their car, and using cousins’ seats when they didn’t come, we worked it out. The twins are now in boosters, and we have the brilliant Trunki Boostapaks for them (secondhand bargain), which double up as rucksacks – see below for more detail.

Outward journey

So now I’ve set the scene that led up to the train journeys which we went on this week before Christmas, a trip that we’ve been doing by train since summer 2020. We hadn’t even been sure if we would go at all this time until the last minute. Rail strikes had been announced a few weeks beforehand, and we weren’t sure what to do – should we hire a car or risk trains? I’d been looking at the peer-to-peer car sharing sites and found a few large 7-seaters in Birmingham with HiyaCar. I’d also looked at just hiring one to get down and back again, from a traditional car hire place, not keeping it for the days we were there. We kept an eye on the availability of these options, but finally decided to go by train, and change the dates we planned to be away so as not to travel on strike days, but cutting it a bit finer to get back before Christmas. Neither of us like doing the driving, and overall we prefer the train even with some disruption. It’s not like we’ve never encountered disruption on the motorway either. We didn’t buy any tickets in advance; we generally don’t anyway, as we don’t want to be tied to exact trains with the unpredictability of family life (random illness/injury/incident at the worse possible time, for example). We use split-ticketing sites to get the best deal on on-the-day prices – a weird quirk of the UK rail fare system that’s worth knowing about (see more below). If it looked terrible on the day, we just wouldn’t go or we’d hire a car last minute if possible.

The day of the outward journey from home in Birmingham to the grandparents’ house in Plymouth arrived. The alarm woke us up at 6am, so we all got up and dressed, then checked trains online. There was one cancelled local train, the West Midlands Railway Cross City Line from Selly Oak, but later ones seemed to be running fine, though we knew we could get the bus into town if that changed. However, we saw that the direct Birmingham New Street to Plymouth train, run by CrossCountry, was only going as far as Bristol Temple Meads due to flooding near Plymouth, but that replacement buses were due to go from Exeter to Plymouth if it wasn’t sorted soon. So we decided that this was reasonable, and we left the house, at 7am, as planned. Overall the journey turned out to be good, better than we expected. “Let’s do this”, I said as we left, fully expecting some disruption. The journey wasn’t without incident, but as well as some things going wrong, some other things went right. It took about 6 hours door to door.

We just about made a slightly earlier train than planned from Selly Oak station, so had a bit of a wait at New Street, also because there was a bit of a delay on the train to Bristol. But once we were on that one, we had breakfast and the kids cracked out the various entertainment they’d taken – everyone was happy. It was a roomy HST rather than a cramped Voyager (I only know train types because Andrew is a train geek and points this out to me), and there were plenty of seats. One of the fantastic things about train travel is all the options for entertainment; we had Lego, colouring, board games, card games, books and the Nintendo switch (belongs to Joel, who saved up his money to buy it). Nobody got bored!

After we pulled into Bristol, everyone piled off the train. We’d been told there was a quick connection on the adjacent platform that was apparently going all the way to Penzance. And as if by magic, it appeared! It was another HST, run by GWR; it was shorter, and busy, but still there were enough seats for us as we walked right to the back of the train. It was a stopper, so very slow, but the kids were still happy with all their entertainment, and we’d had a change of scenery and a stretch of the legs when we changed trains.

When we pulled into Exeter St David’s, an announcement was made that they were waiting for replacement train crew to arrive. From what we could see online, the flood had been cleared and trains were now able to run beyond Exeter, which was the original problem when we left home. 5 minutes later, they cancelled the train and again we all had to pile off. But again, it meant we got to move and get some fresh air, to break up the journey, although of course one of the reasons we like the train is that the kids can get up and move around, stretch legs and go to the toilet on the train itself.

We honestly thought we’d just have to extend this break and hang around in Exeter for lunch, and then try to get on a later train, as we didn’t think we’d get on the next Plymouth-bound train due to the sheer number of people on the platform. After less than 5 minutes, it arrived, and again, as if by magic, it was practically empty! So we all fitted on with no problem, and we whizzed on to Plymouth in no time as it was a fast train this time, a long GWR service. The grandparents picked us up from the station in their cars and we were at their house in time for a lovely lunch. As well as breakfast, we’d taken plenty of drinks and snacks on the train, which also help to keep the kids happy. They all agreed that it was a good journey. It feels like such an adventure, especially to the children, when things go awry but no so much so that we are severely delayed. Of course predictability is good for them, but a certain amount of surprise and spontaneity can actually lead to a very memorable trip to look back on, as long as it doesn’t all end in tears.

Homeward journey

We enjoyed three full days in Plymouth, one day involving more (local) trains and buses. It was slightly concerning that on the day after we’d encountered the flooding issue on the way down, exactly the same thing happened again at the same point on the line, so we were apprehensive about that being an issue on the day we were due to leave, as more rain was forecast by then. On the morning that we left, I woke up at about 5am and couldn’t get back to sleep, thinking about trains and if they’d be running. By about 5:30am, I could see online that some services were running from Plymouth, and there didn’t appear to be any issues. Everyone else woke up around normal time (6-7:30am), and we got ourselves ready to leave around 8:30am. At that point there had been several trains in and out of Plymouth with no reported problems on the line.

If you’re reading this and thinking that something must go wrong at some point, you have an insight into what I was thinking too! However, I can happily recount that everything ran absolutely smoothly. In fact so much so, that it’s a boring story compared to the journey down, so there’s little point in writing much. It took about 5 and a quarter hours door to door. The worst that happened was that the toilets at each end of our coach were both broken, so we had to walk to the next coaches, which meant explaining this to the twins in case they did that “suddenly needing the toilet right now” thing. The train was busy, with no spare seats, but our reservations worked out fine (by which I mean no train or part-train cancellations nor scrapping of reservations!). The luggage storing capacity of the Voyager trains leaves a lot to be desired, so there were loads of bags all over the place as we walked to the toilets. But if that’s the worst that I can say, this is a good sign.

The children suddenly got very tired and some of them were near meltdown on the local train to Selly Oak, but it’s only a 10 minute journey and the train wasn’t very busy at all. I think the excitement of the past few days suddenly came crashing down. Otherwise they had kept themselves amused well on the journey, including a new game on the Nintendo Switch, which we now have two of thanks to my ineptitude in keeping track of what I’ve said to whom about what the kids would like as presents. We also had a nice picnic including some sweet treats from Grandma on the longer train.

Our tips for family train travel

Family and Friends Railcard

This is a no-brainer! You only have to do one long journey like this a year and it’s worth the cost of buying it. This then means we get one third off all fares (national and local) when we travel as a family. You can even take up to two friends with you, as we discovered when we took the grandparents with us over into Cornwall for the day.

Split tickets

Sites such as trainsplit.com use an algorithm that works out how to get the cheapest fare on long distance travel by adding together several local fares. You can buy through the site (they take a bit of commission), or we can just buy the individual tickets ourselves once we know which to get. With a railcard too, this means even on-the-day fares are reasonable, and still cheaper than the car was costing us per year when we were hardly using it except for occasional long journeys.

Pack light

We are lucky that we go to the same place every time, where we can use the washing machine, and we can also store things there. We don’t have to take as many clothes as we otherwise would, although we mainly keep adult clothes there rather than children’s ones as they grow so much! We try to keep bags to just rucksacks – we adults have a big and a medium hiking one, and the kids have smaller ones. This means we have our hands free to hold onto kids when getting through busy stations and stepping on/off trains with large gaps to the platform. We can use stairs easily and avoid the need to queue for lifts. The rucksacks tend to squish more easily into luggage racks than suitcases, usually overhead rather than fighting for the limited end-of-coach spaces. Entertainment for the train needs to be small and light, but there are so many options, particularly card games.

Trunki Boostapaks

These are rucksacks that convert into booster seats that can be used in cars, taxis and rail replacement coaches. They even have a strap that makes sure the shoulder strap of the seat belt fits correctly, making them like a high back booster. The kids can also sit on them on the train if they like, particularly if we don’t get actual seats and need to stand in vestibules, or when waiting on benches at stations that often aren’t comfortable when you have little legs. It also means that if all goes pear-shaped and we need to catch a coach, taxi or even hire a car, we have car seats for the twins with us.

All the snacks

We always take plenty of drinks and snacks, which could go against the “packing lightly” tip above, although at least the weight goes down as the journey goes on. But I always think children are harder to deal with if they’re hungry or thirsty, as am I! It’s unlikely that we would be literally stuck on a train for hours, though I know this can happen, so we could always buy something if we ended up hanging around at a station or town centre, but if we have things with us then we can be flexible with getting on the next train, whenever that might turn up.

It’s another long period of time since I last wrote a blog post. Well, actually, I posted recently with photos of two year’s worth of birthday cakes, but I mean this blog has generally been very neglected since we emerged from pandemic restrictions. I have been posting on social media with smaller snippets of how life is going for us as a family; Instagram in particular is almost a blog in itself these days, and sometimes I ramble on over there without much editing. However, I had an urge to write something longer on here this week – how old-school is that?!

The theme of this blog post centres around my work, but of course family life is complex and nothing we do is just about one of us at a time. Today I have some time to sit and write (which is something I enjoy but rarely feel I have the time to do) because cycling instructor work is very seasonal, with fewer freelance sessions coming my way over the winter months – today it is too icy to risk running a learn to ride session, for example.

This isn’t the first time I’ve talked about work on this blog. When Andrew was a baby, I wrote about my decision to go back to academic research work part-time after maternity leave, and then to become a stay-at-home mum after Joel was born. More recently (but still years ago!) I blogged about what even is work, and how as a society we don’t value unpaid care work because it doesn’t directly contribute to GDP, which is the way we measure “success” in an economy rooted in neo-liberal principles. Throughout the past (nearly) 12 years of being a parent, I have always worked, whether that was paid or unpaid, for an employer or self-employed, in the home or out of the home – it’s all work. My “career” has been eclectic so far, but I don’t see that as a problem – I have had plenty of experience of different roles and gained transferable skills.

The most recent chapter of my working life began in the summer of 2021. One day I noticed a post on a WhatsApp group, several of which I joined in the pandemic as that’s how we were able to keep communicating, an advert from The Active Wellbeing Society (TAWS), who were looking for women who wanted to train as Bikeability instructors. If you’re not aware of Bikeability, it’s the updated version of the old cycling proficiency training. The course was being offered for free (although we’d have to pay it back in voluntary hours whilst building up experience). This immediately caught my eye, and I felt drawn to fill in the expression of interest form, on which I included my experience of and passion for family cycling as a means of transport, as shown on my social media channels and also on this blog. I asked my parents if they could look after the children for a few days in the summer holidays whilst I did the course. When I was offered a place, I was so excited; and the rest, as they say, is history.

I completed the in-person course and the online coursework in the summer holidays, and then started to build up experience delivering Bikeability in schools from September, which led to me completing the final practical assessment in November 2021. I really enjoyed the work, particularly as it was a way to go out and meet people after months of life being restricted with few opportunities to do this. When the children were younger, I had been happy working alone at my sewing machine with the door closed whenever I got the chance, because this was time away from the almost constant need to give someone my attention; it was some time to myself, to think and use my creative skills. But as they grew and developed, and the pandemic limited our contact with others, I realised that I was grateful for some work outside of the home again.

By this point the twins were receiving their 15 hours free nursery in term times. They had completed one year and were going into another, thanks to our successful application to get them a Reception start at compulsory school age. I had hoped that the instructing work would fit around these hours, but sadly it didn’t work out that way. Although I was working on behalf of an organisation, it was a freelance contract, so I was still self-employed with no guarantee of specific work hours every week, particularly not over winter as I said above. This meant I couldn’t pay for wrap-around care for the children, because I needed to pay in advance and couldn’t be sure that I would make that money back at the end of the month, so I couldn’t work school hours at other schools around Birmingham which involved travel. I was stuck in a Catch 22. It’s all well and good wanting to diversify the workforce, to include more women in a predominantly male industry, but that means you might need to re-think how things are run in order to retain people with different responsibilities in their lives. Thankfully my parents helped out where they could, and I managed to get some freelance cycling instructing work with a couple more organisations (Cycling UK and Pedal Ahead) in the middle of the day and at weekends. We muddled through as best we could.

Whilst we were away with family during the Easter 2022 school break, I saw an advert on Twitter for a job at Sustrans – the charity making it easier for people to walk and cycle. I knew a couple of local people who worked for this charity, and I had come across them in my walking and cycling campaigning activity, both personally and with other groups I’m part of. It sounded right up my street! There would be the opportunity to use my instructor and ride leader skills, but also skills from all the other work I’d done over the years (paid and unpaid), for an organisation whose mission and vision totally match up with my interest in and passion for SUStainable TRANSport.

They were also very open from the start in the advert about flexible working, both the number of hours a week and the location as hybrid – home, office, out and about. I had time to think about it during the holiday, including whilst out riding on the National Cycle Network (of which Sustrans are the custodians), and I put in an application when we got back. To my delight, I got through to interviews and was then offered a job. I had expressed a preference for part-time work, and initially I was offered 15 hours (40% full-time equivalent) a week. I started on the twins’ 5th birthday, which was a nursery day anyway. 

For a while up to that point I had been mulling over the future of my sewing business. I had set it up about a year after my research job contract had ended, which had given me a nice length of maternity leave after Joel’s birth, and in that time we had relocated to Birmingham (via a short stay in Coventry). It was only ever my intention to run the business for the years I was based at home with the children. It meant we had a small amount of income to add to Tom’s modest salary, although we didn’t budget to rely on it for everyday essentials, and it gave me something extra to focus on that wasn’t just the enjoyable, albeit sometimes stressful, role of mum. As I started to work outside of the home and the children were growing up (and out of nappies and baby wearing items), this gradually became less important for me. It was with a heavy heart, but ultimately a feeling of relief, that I announced that I’d be closing down the business and selling off all the remaining stock, not long after my Sustrans contract was signed. I’m now down to the last few remaining items and some supplies in my online shop.

A combination of getting stuck into my salaried Sustrans role, doing some freelance instructing work and selling stock from my business worked brilliantly over the last half term of the school year and throughout the summer holidays in 2022. The three youngest children started at a childminder for wrap-around care before and after school/nursery on two days a week, and we did a combination of church-hall holiday club, our annual leave, and the generous support of my parents during the holidays.

It became clear that 40% wasn’t quite enough to really do the Sustrans role justice, and my manager agreed, so we were able to increase my hours to 22.5 a week (60% FTE), which I’ve been doing since September. My job title is Project Officer, and in broad terms I do community engagement (talking with people) in the Delivery team. This includes so many different things: standing at event stalls, delivering learn to ride and cycle skills sessions, travelling to other cities in the region (on a train on my own or with other adults!) for meetings and events, office/admin days, various training days and learning about the organisation, online meetings, organising events, risk assessments, posting on social media, auditing restrictive barriers on the National Cycle Network, led walks and rides, presentations on active travel at workplaces …. and more! There are never two days the same; and if you do what you love, you never work a day in your life, so they say. I’ve also been doing some freelance work, which tops my hours up to around 25-30 a week.

This first term of the school year 2022-23 has gone really well for us as a family, although we are looking forward to a restful break (with annual leave for me for the first time in 10 years!) Andrew has taken to secondary school like a duck to water; he absolutely raves about his lessons, teachers and clubs. He recognises that he was bored at the end of year 6, although he was still happy, but enjoys the challenge now. He’s got quite a number of achievements to celebrate, including getting to go to Oxford for a day next year because he scored one of the highest in his year for a computational thinking challenge, which I can tell he will love. He used the (public) bus for his commute before half term, although in November their reliability plummeted and he decided to switch to bike most days. The bus has been a bit better in December, and as it’s been cold an icy, he’s switched back to bus most days – we don’t want to risk a broken arm again like Tom did falling from his bike on black ice 3 years ago! In any case, Andrew has been relishing the freedom and independence we give him to get around on his own. As the eldest of four children, this is something he has had to encounter right now.

The twins were also new school starters this term, and they too have solidly settled in. They have made friends (here we go with all the all-class parties again!) and are very enthusiastic about all the activities they get to do at school. They have been going to the childminder (with Joel as well) before and after school on three days a week. We wanted them to still have this homely environment with one adult rather than the after-school clubs whilst they are in Reception. It’s only another couple of terms until Joel will be in year 6 and can start to have some independence himself, so we can reassess then. 

Recently my Sustrans days have flexed beyond the three full days and into four shorter days, due to events, meetings and training on certain days. So I have decided, from January, to extend my hours over four days and to not routinely send the children to the childminder in the mornings before school. We may occasionally need the odd morning of childcare if I am travelling early and Tom can’t do school run for some reason. This is thanks to the truly flexible working understanding of my employer, I cannot fault them on this at all, and it is a breath of fresh air compared to my previous experiences of the workplace. Of course there are always logistical challenges with this number of children in the family, and we have to think carefully about how many activities each of them can commit to in a week, but so far I am enjoying a great “work-life balance” (to use a buzz word) that allows us to all juggle what we need/want to do. We also owe a big thank you to my parents, who help us out for some of the more challenging logistical scenarios that crop up, when we really need an extra pair of hands or two!

Looking forward into 2023, I am feeling positive about the next chapter that has just started for us in the past year or so. The funding for active travel work is rarely on a very long term timescale, so I don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing in another year from now, but I am excited for the possibilities that are coming up within Sustrans. Ultimately I would love to use my research skills in the field of active/sustainable travel, because it feels so relevant and applicable to daily life. If I manage to get a permanent contract within the field of active/sustainable travel, then Tom would be happy to drop his work hours a little (or maybe a term-time only contract would work well) to enable me to work more and we’d still get a good work-life balance as a family. He’s been doing very similar work (university admin, nothing managerial) for as long as we have been parents, and he too would like a change if we could make it work between us.

We’re really hoping to get down to Plymouth to see family between the schools breaking up and Christmas, although the rail strikes are causing us stress on that. There’s also a possibility of hiring a car on peer-to-peer site HiyaCar, but we’d rather not have to drive if possible – now we’ve done trains with the kids we know how relaxing it is in comparison. Then we will come home for Christmas itself, because the Covid years taught us that it’s much less chaotic on the actual day if we spend it just the six of us, so we’re sticking with that for now.

Wishing you a Happy Christmas from all of us.

It’s been a while since I blogged about birthday cakes! In fact we’ve had 8 birthdays since then, so here are all the cakes that the children all asked for…

Andrew’s 10th birthday

He has always been into science and maths. He’d been learning some complicated chemistry with my parents online over lockdowns, and his job was to work out what this molecule is (TNT!). The jelly babies and strawberry straws made up some DNA and RNA. He doesn’t like fondant icing, so all his cakes now have buttercream – vanilla is how he likes it.

Samuel and Naomi’s 4th birthday

They were very much into Numberblocks around the time of their birthday, and I saw this as an opportunity to do another separate-but-combined cake. After all, 2 + 2 = 4!

Joel’s 9th birthday

This was the year that his video games fandom took off. Minecraft was the first one he got into, and I was pleased to do a square cake, as it was pretty easy, if time-consuming cutting all the small squares of fondant.

Andrew’s 11th birthday

He asked for a strawberry laces cake…. and he got strawberry laces on steroids! I grabbed any (fake-)strawberry flavoured sweets that I could find in the supermarket, and threw them onto a buttercream (of course) iced cake.

Samuel and Naomi’s 5th birthday

By this age, they were starting to assert their differences quite dramatically. They couldn’t agree on one theme for a party, so, with some discussion with Granny and Grandad, they came up with a Bitz and Bob plus Minecraft mash-up! It was an interesting party, and the first time they had two completely different cakes – I’ve always done two cakes, but usually two of a pair. The pink cake looked just like one from the cake episode of Bitz and Bob, and the Minecraft one was like I’d done previously for Joel (Samuel wants to do anything that Joel is into; he really looks up to him).

Joel’s 10th birthday

After the video games phase started, along came the Pokemon phase too. I was more than happy to do this “Great Ball” that he asked for, as it’s an easy round shape with not much decoration needed. Inside was a marble cake, but I forgot to get a picture of that!

In my last blog post about the twins starting school in Reception at compulsory school age, I referred to the decision from school 3, St Francis C of E Primary and Nursery School, who had decided to not support our request for admission out of normal age group. At that point I was in the process of trying to get them to give me a lawful answer to the correct question. I am pleased to say that, after going through two stages of a complaints process, I managed to achieve this, and they reversed their decision. 

This blog post goes through all my correspondence with them in order, because it could be useful for others who are going through the same battle with other schools. It’s really important, if you find yourself in this position, that you know the law and your rights, and how to ask them the right question, which they are legally obliged to answer. 

To recap, here is the question that I asked in my initial contact with them, which was the same as with the other two schools:

I am a parent of twins who were born in June 2017; therefore we are eligible to apply for a school place in the forthcoming admissions round which ends in January 2021, for them to start reception aged 4 years in September 2021. However, as I note that you’re aware from your admissions policy, compulsory school age isn’t until the beginning of the term after a child’s 5th birthday. Furthermore, the School Admissions Code (December 2014) section 2.17 states that “the parents of a summer born child may choose not to send that child to school until the September following their 5th birthday and may request that they are admitted out of their normal age group – to reception rather than year 1.”

I strongly believe that it is in our twins’ best interests to start school at compulsory school age, for a variety of reasons which I am happy to discuss. Therefore they won’t be attending school until the September after their 5th birthday (2022). Moreover, I strongly believe that reception is a vital year of education for children, and therefore it is in their best interests to not miss out on this important foundation, to not go straight into year 1 when they start school at compulsory school age. 

So my question is: would St Francis CofE Primary School support a request for our summer born children to be admitted out of their normal age group, to start school at compulsory school age in reception?

Thank you for your time in reading, and I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

At that point they said that I should apply first, and then they would give me a response (which was what school 2 said too). School 3 required me to submit a separate application form as well as the council’s one, so here’s the statement that I submitted as part of that:

As their parents, we have decided that they will be starting school in September 2022, which is the September after they turn 5 years old (compulsory school age), as is our legal right. We feel that their social and emotional development would not be at a stage that is compatible with education within a school setting at just turned 4 years old. In particular, Samuel still has difficulties with toileting and often soils his underwear. But, as it states in the School Admissions Code 2014 section 2.17, just being summerborn is reason enough to request admission out of normal age group.

We feel very strongly that they should not miss out on the vital year that is Reception when they start school at 5 years old, and to go straight into Year 1 at CSA would not be in their best interests. According to the Bold Beginnings report conducted by Ofsted, reception is a “unique and important” year: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/663560/28933_Ofsted_-_Early_Years_Curriculum_Report_-_Accessible.pdf

A good Reception class would prepare our children for their years of schooling ahead, making sure they were well equipped to go into Year 1 and beyond. Friendship groups are formed in reception class, so our children could find it harder to integrate with peers if they started in Year 1. Reception is a gentle introduction to formal learning and school life through play, which is really important to bridge the gap between their play at home/nursery and their more formal education that follows in Key Stage 1 and beyond. Reception provides the early foundation of literacy and maths, which is particularly emphasised in the Bold Beginnings report, and it would be detrimental to their future education if they missed out on this foundation.

As I wrote in my last blog post, it was four days after school places offer day that I received a short response from one of the governors. It simply said:

The St Francis CofE Primary School and Nursery Admissions Panel met last week to discuss your request to defer entry to the Reception class in September 2022 for your children, Samuel and Naomi. Having reviewed the evidence provided, the Admissions Panel decided not to support the request for deferred entry to our school. 

This is unlawful, because it does not state the reasons for their decision. So I replied quoting the School Admissions Code and asked them to please set out their reasons. About a week later I received a further response, which said:

Thank you for your email asking for a more detailed response regarding our decision to decline your request for deferred entry. The St Francis CofE Primary School and Nursery Admissions Panel decided not to support your request for deferred entry to our school for the following reasons:

– As a one-form entry school, the nature of our approach and ethos enables children to thrive and progress. We always think of the whole child and their learning journey through our school when taking these decisions.

– The committee did not feel the evidence provided showed a significant developmental delay or medical reason which would necessitate a deferred start. The children would therefore not be at any greater advantage starting school later than their intended year.

– We have a very experienced Early Years team, who address children’s individual learning needs. The particular issues raised in your request fall within our usual provision in Reception.

The committee also discussed how the decision to defer entry into Reception has implications for transition to secondary school as another deferral request has to be made at this point. There is no guarantee it would be upheld and the child may have to move from Year 5 into Year 7, missing out on the learning in Year 6 and having to move away from their friends.

I hope this clarifies our decision.

This was still not a lawful answer, because it essentially answered the wrong question. The question which the admissions panel is legally obliged to answer is: When our children start school aged 5 in September 2022, to which year group would they be admitted, Reception or Year 1? If the answer to this is Year 1, then the panel’s reasons need to set out how they consider it to be in our twins’ best interests to miss the entire year of education that is Reception. So I sent a rather long letter back, taking each of their points and showing them why they still did not answer the question, and in fact it was easy to use their own words against them to make my points. You can read this letter below. It even contained a references section – now I really know why I did a PhD!

Sadly I didn’t receive any reply to this for about two months, despite some chasing via the office receptionist, so I decided to start the school’s complaints process; I sent a stage 1 complaint email to the head teacher. She apologised for the delay, and told me that they were seeking further advice from School Governor Support and the Admissions Team at Birmingham City Council (despite being an academy, so not under BCC control) as to how to answer our last letter. She also stated that the twins would be admitted to Year 1 (if sufficient places), but offered no reasons as to how the panel had considered it to be in their best interests. In response to me pointing this out to her, she reluctantly set up another meeting about a week later for the panel to discuss our case. I then received a further letter from the governor:

We write in response to your question, “How your school caters for children in year 1 who have not had the essential foundation of a reception class and how this is in the best interests of the children?” [this was a question I asked the head teacher, not the admissions authority as she is not that, as part of my email exchange with her in the stage 1 complaint; it was nothing to do with the question that the admissions authority is obliged to answer, which they still had not answered!!]

We have an experienced member of staff in Year 1.  As part of our transition from Early Years into the National Curriculum we have a period of time where the children continue to access their learning through the free flow approach of Reception before moving into the more formal National Curriculum learning.  This period of transition is guided by the children and we have successfully delivered this approach for a number of children in the past, providing early years provision until they are ready to access more formal learning. Our staff deliver quality first teaching and we provide interventions appropriate to the needs of the children. 

The committee feels it has now answered all of your queries and wish you well for the future. 

This still did not state that the twins would be admitted to Year 1 (the head teacher’s statement on this was not from the admissions authority – the governing body) and it still did not show how the panel had considered it to be in our twins’ best interests to miss Reception. They still had not responded at all to any of the points I had made in the long letter I sent a couple of months previously, and instead had faffed about with an irrelevant (to them) question.

Therefore I went ahead with a stage 2 complaint, which went to the Clerk to the Governing Body, since my complaint was about members of the governing body. On the same day, I also sent the reply below to the governor’s letter.

The main thing to stress about making complaints of this nature is that it concerns the HOW rather than the WHAT: my complaint did not concern the fact that the panel did not support our request for admission out of normal age group (to be honest my kids were never going to go to a school that didn’t agree with us), rather it concerned the way in which the panel had handled our request – they did not answer the question as set out in law, despite us giving them ample opportunity beyond the first unlawful response.

Within the ten working days that is set out for stage 2 in their complaints process, I got a fantastic response from two governors who had not been involved in the decision before:

We are writing in response to your Stage 2 complaint, dated 5th July 2021. Thank you for setting out your grievances clearly.

The Governing Body has re-examined your case and carefully considered all possible scenarios. It should be noted that our thoughts on entry to Reception in September 2021 still stand, that is, we are confident that our flexible provision and child-centred ethos would have enabled your twins to thrive, and that this would be in their best interests. However, we also recognise and respect your decision that this was not and is not under consideration.

As a result of our review, we have decided to reverse our decision (that Samuel and Naomi would be admitted to Year 1 in September 2022 upon a successful application) and would be willing to admit them out of normal age group, that is to Reception in September 2022. This is obviously dependent on a successful application during the October 2021- January 2022 admissions round, which will (in accordance with the legal requirements) be given exactly the same consideration as all normal age group applications, and our normal admissions criteria (which can be found on our website) would apply.

We hope this is a satisfactory outcome for you. We wish you good luck for your upcoming applications and obviously wish your twins an enjoyable time at whichever primary school they end up attending.

Finally, we had found some people who understood what was being asked of them within the law! I was so pleased that my persistence had led to them changing their minds. My suspicion is that the head teacher had essentially made the decision, and a governor was put in the position of making that fit in with their obligations when challenged. But when fresh pairs of eyes looked at the whole thing, it was obvious to them that it’s impossible for any credible school to say no to our request. They essentially have to argue that it is in a child’s best interests to miss a year of education.

My main issue with this whole saga is that getting approval for a CSA start in Reception is such a postcode lottery. I don’t want my kids to go to a school who have treated us like this anyway, so this school won’t be our first or second preference, but we are blessed with two other good options who said yes quickly and without a challenge. Other parents aren’t so fortunate, and it’s crazy that they have to battle when I don’t have to. I only fought this for others, not us, because I want to help parents who request the same in future – if nobody ever challenges the system, then nothing ever changes. Schools cannot be allowed to break the law and get away with it. What needs to happen is a change in the law, that gives all parents equal access to what some are granted automatically in certain (forward-thinking) local authorities. Academy schools seem, in general and in our specific case, to be the hardest ones to work with on this. The current government, according to Schools Minister Nick Gibb MP, is committed to changing the law to allow every summerborn child the automatic right to a CSA Reception start if it is their parents’ wish. He has said on repeated occasions that they will legislate as soon as parliamentary times allows, but so far there has been no sign of this being imminent.

If you’re going through this same process and are struggling, I’m very happy to help where I can, so please get in touch. You’re welcome to use any of my letters published in this post to help you with yours. One thing to be aware of is that a new version of the School Admissions Code comes into force next week (September 2021) – there is no change to the law regarding CSA Reception starts, but the section numbers have changed. So when quoting the 2021 code you will need to check the relevant section numbers and not just copy mine which quoted the 2014 code.

So now we wait until November, when BCC Admissions Team should be sending me a paper application form to apply for the twins’ school places out of normal age group (not holding my breath!) – their online system can’t cope with a DOB that doesn’t fit the norm. Then we will be placed in the pot just like all the other applicants, and we will get allocated places based on all the usual criteria. It’s highly likely that we will get our first choice, just like we did this year and then declined, because we live so close and have a sibling link. But we have one, or (if desperate) two back-up schools. All’s well that ends well, I hope!

The last time I blogged about our journey of applying for school places out of normal age group for our summerborn twins was in March. At that point I had confirmation from our first choice school that they would support us in our request for them to start reception at compulsory school age (5 years). Schools 2 and 3 had said that I needed to apply first and then they would consider our request. For school 2 this meant waiting for the admissions team at Birmingham City Council to pass on our request via the application form I did on the BCC website; for school 3 this meant filling in a separate application form. So we were waiting to see what would come first – offer day or replies from schools 2 and 3.

At 7pm on the day before offer day, I finally got an email from the head of admissions at BCC (I called her D in my previous blog post). She said that she was still waiting to hear from schools 2 and 3 with their answers about our case. She also said that I could proceed with our application on the basis of school 1 only, but if we did that then we wouldn’t be able to put schools 2 and 3 on our application form for next year. In Birmingham the system is such that I have to apply for places this year, then decline them and apply again on a separate paper form for next year, because their electronic system can’t cope with a DOB that’s not in the normal range. Not all local authorities work this way, it varies across the country.

So I replied that I would definitely like to wait for the other schools’ answers, because I wanted to have at least one back-up school. This was the day before we found out that we had indeed got places for this year at school 1, so her email was kind of suggestive that we’d got these before we knew about it. In any case, I wasn’t going to decline them until I knew we had a back-up to put on our application for next year.

Offer day came and went on 16th April. On 20th April I heard from school 3. It was a simple “no”, with no reasons as to how they had reached that decision. This is an unlawful response, because the School Admissions Code states that:

“When informing a parent of their decision on the year group the child should be admitted to, the admission authority must [emphasis original] set out clearly the reasons for their decision.”

School Admissions Code (2014, section 2.17)

So I replied quoting the code like this and asked them to please set out their reasons. I will write a separate blog post about school 3 one day, because unfortunately I am still having to pursue them for a lawful answer a couple of months later. I can’t name them at the moment because I don’t want that to get in the way of the formal complaint procedure that I’m going through. However, whatever the outcome, I will publish the correspondence I’ve had with them, as it will be helpful for others who are going through a similar experience with other schools.

Anyway, back to school 2, from whom I’d heard nothing. On 28th April I decided to email school 2 to check that they had received our application via BCC. It’s a good job I did, because they hadn’t received anything! So D had told me she was awaiting replies from schools, but hadn’t passed on the info this school needed in order to reply. Did she assume I was giving them the info?! Even though the school had told me they wouldn’t give me an answer until they’d had the info from BCC. What an absolute mess of a (non)system!

Thankfully the office assistant was very helpful and finally took the decision that they would just talk to me rather than wait for BCC any longer. So I forwarded her our application that I’d made to BCC, and within 24 hours the head teacher had made a decision: it was a YES from them too. Hooray! I finally had a back up. Both school 2 and I told BCC of their decision, although I heard no confirmation that they’d received this until June. The moral of the story is keep chasing, and don’t assume the local authority has any idea about what they are doing with this. They seem totally incompetent to me.

The cut off date for declining unwanted places which were offered on offer day was 30th April. But I couldn’t formally do that until I’d had answers from the three schools, and I only (just) had two answers on the 30th. As time went on with my pursuit of school 3, I was aware that there we were holding two places at school 1 which could be offered to two families on the waiting list for this September. I told school 1 that we didn’t need these places, but until they’d heard this officially from BCC, they couldn’t offer them to anyone else. When it became clear that school 3 were not going to act quickly in the process of providing me with a lawful answer, I asked D at BCC if they had any power to set a date by which they needed to answer.

Eventually I heard back from her this week (22nd June), both with a confirmation about school 2’s yes response, and a slight change to BCC’s policy regarding my ability to formally decline the places. She said that I could decline them on the basis of an agreement with the two schools, and should school 3 change their mind by 15th January 2022 (the cut off date for next year’s admissions applications) then I could add them on to the agreement and apply to all three schools next year. So I immediately confirmed that I consented to this agreement, and for now our case is settled. 

As I said, I’m still actively pursuing school 3, which warrants a separate blog post in the future. But for now I’m pleased that we can apply for places for next year knowing that two schools support us, so the twins would be placed in Reception rather than Year 1 at either of these schools. I wouldn’t actually want them to go to school 3, given how they’ve treated us, but I am willing and able to challenge the way in which their decision has been made, so I see it as a cause worth fighting for. Other parents in the future will apply here with the same question, so if I can help them, this makes it worthwhile. If nobody challenges the system then nothing ever changes. I’ll stop being stubborn just as soon as they’ve fulfilled their legal obligations. Two schools have managed to do this perfectly easily – Bournville Village Primary School and St Mary’s CofE Primary School B29.

Back in July last year I blogged about the response I got from our first choice of school for the twins – it was a clear and simple “yes” from the head teacher that the school would support our request for the twins to start school in reception at age 5 (compulsory school age, CSA). I explained in a previous blog post why we wanted to do this. Our local authority (Birmingham City Council, BCC) allows us to put up to three schools down in order of preference on primary/infant school applications. I had considered only putting down our first choice, since we are highly unlikely to not get places due to sibling priority and the proximity of our address to school. But if I didn’t put down two more schools, and for some strange reason we weren’t allocated places at the first choice, then we could end up with places at a random school (or, worse still, schoolS) way out of our local area, and I thought it wasn’t worth the risk for the sake of a bit of extra admin on my behalf. I also wanted to get a feel for how easy it was to get approval for a CSA start in our local area, beyond just the one school, as it can be so variable nationally. Oh how I ended up going down a rabbit hole, which cost me more than a bit of extra admin time! However, I feel at least by blogging about my experience I can show how crazy the “system” (or rather lack thereof) is and hopefully help others who are trying to do the same.

So in September I emailed the other two most local schools – let’s call them School 2 and School 3 – with the same text that I had used in my email to School 1 previously. I got a fairly speedy reply from an office assistant at each school. It’s worth bearing in mind that both these schools are their own admissions authorities (rather than BCC) – School 2 is voluntary aided so the authority is the governing body (like School 1 is); School 3 is an academy, so the authority is the academy trust.  

School 2 said that they only become involved in requests for admissions out of normal age group once they have received applications via the BCC application form. I queried this because School 1 had been very willing to commit to a “yes” before application, and I explained that I didn’t want to waste a school’s time by applying to them if they were going to say “no”. She replied that they are not a school that refuses these requests, however she couldn’t guarantee the answer before reading our applications. OK…. fairly promising, I thought, but clearly the only way I’m getting an answer is to apply and see. So this could go down as our second choice.

School 3 said something pretty similar: if I’d like them to consider our request, I had to complete the reception application form as normal and return it to them with our request and any supporting information that I wished to be considered. Now I (wrongly) assumed that this meant the BCC application form – it turns out they have their own form as well (more on this below). So I figured it was worth putting this school as third choice, as any others would be getting too far away from home, except a fourth one that’s about the same distance away but which I already knew, from talking to neighbours with a summerborn child, wasn’t very knowledgable about CSA starts.

At this point I wasn’t entirely sure how I needed to go about requesting admission out of normal age group. Given what all the schools had said, I thought I needed to apply this year, have the requests approved (or not), and then reapply next year, rather than just not applying at all this year, but I couldn’t find an answer on the BCC website for how I actually had to submit our request in the application form. So I thought I’d email the BCC admissions team, and whilst I was at it, I decided to ask them to clarify whether these schools really couldn’t give me an answer before seeing our requests via the BCC application forms. I suspected that they’d just say it’s up to them and BCC don’t have any influence on them, but I thought it was worth making the point to the council that I was getting conflicting info from different schools on this, and that I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time if they were going to decline our requests. I got no reply in a couple of weeks, so I chased it up, and got a reply from an office junior who assured me she had passed it to her seniors and that someone would be in contact shortly. Still nothing……

Anyway, I decided to ask School 1 if they knew the procedure for applying for a CSA start with BCC. The very helpful admin manager said that we should apply as normal this year, and that she would email BCC now to say that they were supportive of a CSA reception start if we applied again next year. After some more searching I eventually found a page on BCC’s website about how to do an application for “deferred entry”. The School Admissions Code (2014) uses “deferred entry” to mean starting school in reception part way through the school year in which a child has turned 4 in the September, and “admission out of normal age group” to mean starting school in reception in the September after the child has turned 5. This probably contributed to my confusion – I don’t understand why BCC have to call it deferred entry when they mean admission out of normal age group. The schools have all called it deferred entry too, so I guess this is just what it has come to mean. The way to request it was to simply send an email to a specific deferred entry address with our reasons and any supporting evidence, alongside filling in the standard application form. So that’s what I did for each twin in mid October.

A few weeks after the application deadline, in early February this year, I got an email from D, the School Admissions Officer (Primary Lead) at BCC, in reply to my application email, which said the following:

• Sorry for a lengthy delay in responding to me. [Does this mean to my original email asking about the process back in September? I think probably yes given the rest of the content of the email, which is a bit late now, but nevermind, I figured it out.]
• Confirmation that all 3 schools are their own admissions authorities and therefore the decisions to approve or decline our requests lies with them. [OK, it would be helpful if they could tell me in advance of application, but good to have confirmation.]
• Acknowledgment that School 1 has agreed to our request. [Does this mean as told by me, or did she see an email from the school?]
• BCC are happy to go along with whatever schools say to these requests. [Yay for anyone else applying in Brum to supportive schools!]
• I need to forward to D the written approvals from the 3 schools, or arrange for them to email her with their approvals, and then she can update the records to indicate that the twins are deferred entry pupils and then they would contact us in October/November to apply again for next year.

So this answered my questions from before I applied, but then it raised the question of why I needed to be getting in touch with the schools (particularly 2 and 3) again, because the last I heard from them, I’d reached a dead end – they were waiting to receive our applications before giving me any answers! Did I have to do more chasing then?! I LOLed at this, then calmed down and wrote an email to D to clarify. No reply arrived, so after a week or so, I checked with School 1 that she had definitely emailed their approval, because it wasn’t clear if D had seen this from her or from me saying that they had agreed. I then emailed Schools 2 and 3 to see if they now had an answer to our request that I could forward to D. 

School 2 replied saying that they would normally receive notification of our request from D, but that they hadn’t, so she would follow this up with D, and that I could also reply to D saying that they were still waiting to see our request. Talk about wild goose chase! School 3 replied saying that they hadn’t received anything from BCC either, but that they also couldn’t see our school-specific application form for the twins. I replied that I hadn’t realised there was a separate application form to submit as well as the BCC one – I’ve never had to do this for any other school applications, and I think I was so focussed on reading policies on school websites about admission out of normal age group that I must have missed this instruction on their website. Face palm! I then asked if I could still apply (late) to them this year, given that if they approve a CSA start then I’d need to apply again next year anyway, and at that point I would make sure to fill in their specific form too. A quick reply said that this was fine, so I filled in two forms and sent them back – they didn’t ask any questions that I hadn’t already filled in on the BCC form, but at least now this school definitely has our details and request. This separate form situation highlights the fact that we have this strange system with academies, schools that are under national government power, as well as community and voluntary aided/controlled schools, which are under local government power, but all are part of the same local government application process.

At this point, I don’t have any more answers than I did in September. I understand that the BCC admissions team are probably all snowed under, working from home and maybe even juggling their own children being around. This was probably always going to be a tricky year to make this application. I’m willing and able to write emails and read/understand replies, to try and find out what needs to be done, but others may find this kind of thing harder. I can’t stand being thrown around from one person to another, never properly finding out what’s really happening, and everyone seems to have their own version of what happens when and how. Thankfully I’m confident that all will be well with School 1, but this would have been a very stressful time for us had we not have had that reassuring conversation back in July with the head teacher. 

I now still await answers from Schools 2 and 3, and I wonder what will happen first: we get places at School 1 on offer day in April (which we will then decline and reapply for next year); or we get answers from Schools 2 and 3. Watch this space!

Back in February I wrote a blog post just after we’d bought our electric longtail cargo bike, known to us as Mike. That purchase was a key point in our journey towards the possibility of not owning a car. In that blog post I asked the question whether we could go car free, although it’s probably more accurate to talk about car ownership rather than living completely car free, because it could well be that occasionally hiring a car would feature in our transport plan.

Well the world has changed a bit since February hasn’t it?! Not long after I wrote that blog post the twins got chicken pox one after the other, so we didn’t go anywhere with them for a few weeks, and then of course this ran into the UK national lockdown that started in March. As a family we were so glad that we were still allowed some daily exercise outdoors, and we got into a pattern of daily lunchtime walks on weekdays and daily bike rides at weekends and in the holidays when Tom was off work. In life before Covid, cycling had been mostly about transport and utility for us, but in lockdown it was primarily about leisure and exercise. 

We are so grateful that we got the cargo bike just before the world turned upside down, because it really did allow us to do so much more than we would have managed with the old trailer set up. We absolutely loved the quiet roads in lockdown too. The boys gained so much confidence riding on roads, as Tom had the time and space to give them some lessons on how to do it properly. They built up their stamina over the months, and we built up our knowledge of family-friendly local routes to parks and other useful places that would open again after lockdown. Instead of just going the most direct route, which is what I’d mostly do when walking, or the most main-road route, which is what I’d do when driving, I learned to think about how we could get from A to B using as many quiet residential roads and cycle / shared space paths as possible. We also started to think about adapting our bike set-up over the next couple of years – once the boys are in the next size up bikes, those will be the same size as is suitable for me, so we could potentially own 2 bikes that size between the 3 of us plus a tandem/triplet for whole family trips, particularly helpful on routes that aren’t so suitable for them riding solo. I really like the look of the Circe Helios triplet which goes small enough for the twins too. They learned to ride their pedal bikes over the summer, and they are now gaining confidence with plenty of empty car park riding practice, so a tandem would help them too in time. Obviously I’d rather Covid hadn’t have happened, but the situation did give us opportunities too, particularly with family cycling.

By September and the reopening of schools, we got to a point that we could say we were completely able to live car free in the city, although rare trips out of town would be hard, especially with public transport being limited by Covid restrictions. Tom was picking up a fortnightly click and collect Asda order in the car, which he could have done on the cargo bike (plus trailer), but we felt it was necessary to keep the car (battery, brakes etc.) ticking over rather than sitting on the drive unused for weeks on end. We used it for some trips out of town in October half term to rural locations like National Trust land for walks. Then after half term Tom switched to supermarket deliveries because the lack of social distancing and general disregard for rules was so rife at Asda that he didn’t want to go near it anymore, even just to collect shopping. We always used to shop little and often at Aldi by (standard) bike before Covid, but we changed to going as infrequently as possible during the first lockdown, so switched to Asda as Aldi don’t do click and collect, as well as getting all our fresh fruit and veg delivered weekly by the Pedalling Pantry on cargo bike. Once Covid is under control we can go back to more frequent trips to Aldi.

Consequently our car sat unused for all of November and into December. I planned a morning out with the twins to meet my parents for a walk at a local National Trust place half way between us in the second week of December. It was in the back of my mind whether I’d have problems starting it, but it was fine…. until a couple of miles from the destination! It suddenly went into limp mode, in which it only allows you to drive about 30mph maximum in order to find somewhere to stop safely. I called the RAC and the mechanic located the problem in the turbo – our car is an “eco” model which has a small engine relative to its size (small 7-seater), so relies on an additional turbo to boost it. I was able to drive it (slowly) home, then we waited a week for a slot at the local garage. They quoted a large sum of money to replace the turbo, as the RAC guy had also said would be the case.

So we now have the dilemma as to whether to get it fixed or not. It’s 9 years old, but has done nearly 130,000 miles, because it was a taxi before we bought it and put about 10,000 miles on it in 4 years. It seems like a lot of money to fix it relative to what it’s probably worth now and what we paid for it. Tom has been doing some research to get a rough idea of what we might be able to sell it for. He even took it to We Buy Any Car which has an office down the road, and, as we thought, it wasn’t a lot because it’s a quick and easy sale, though we could get more if we put more time and effort in ourselves to sell it, of course being totally up front about the engine fault. We suspected that at some point we would face this exact situation of a hefty repair bill, and at that point we would ditch car ownership, although we were hoping it might last a couple more years. In some ways it’s good timing though, because we never even planned to go very far from home this year in the Christmas holidays, so we don’t feel under pressure to make a quick decision.

 Our current plan is to have a trial year of not owning a car. This break down has given us a good opportunity to give it a go and actually live through the pros and cons of life without a car of our own. Financially we think it’s probably fairly even, by the time we’ve paid for hire cars, train tickets etc. to do our out of town journeys to stay with family (once it’s possible again) and days out in the holidays. But it will be interesting to see if our hypothetical calculations for not owning a car, which we have considered for several years, are accurate, and how they actually compare with the cost of repair and the money we’ve spent owning a (relatively cheap) car in previous years – it’s not just about the totals but also the expected versus unpredictable costs of each scenario and how easy/hard they are to cope with in terms of cash flow. We can also see what the non-financial factors like convenience, practicalities etc. are like in reality. We will try selling the car over the next couple of months, and if we don’t get any (decent) offers for it then we can always SORN it and keep it on the drive in case we do decide it’s worth fixing at any point in our trial. 

This doesn’t feel very daunting at the moment because we can’t actually go very far anyway, and it looks like this will be the case for a good few months still. If we are allowed to go away and stay with family at Easter then this would probably be the first point that we’d need to do something about long-distance transport. I still have reservations about days out in the holidays with the children on my own, but this probably won’t be an issue until the summer. I’d need to build up confidence with public transport routes out of town, or investigate whether our 4 car seats would fit in any of the local car club cars with me driving – I don’t think they currently do, but things may change. In another couple of years both these options seem less daunting because the twins will be older so will have more walking stamina and awareness of danger, plus the boys won’t need car seats at all and the twins will have outgrown their bulky extended rear facing seats. 

So here we are, at the end of a crazy year, but one that’s taught us some things and made us think outside of the “normal life” box. We don’t have a working car, and at the moment we don’t want or need one. We can’t afford a brand new one, either outright sale or leased, and our relatively small budget doesn’t stretch far in terms of second hand reliability (fewer miles on it means more expensive). We’re not saying we will never own a car again, it could well be that in future we decide it is actually worth owning one (probably not our current one), but for now we are happy to be embarking on this next part of our journey.

Well what a weird year of birthdays that was! Andrew had a normal birthday in January, but the twins’ and Joel’s birthdays later in the year were in the first lockdown and with other tight restrictions on what we could do.

Andrew’s 9th birthday

He wanted a plain vanilla cake, with vanilla buttercream icing and lots of sweets all over it. I also decided to try a chocolate drip effect around the edge for the first time.

Samuel and Naomi’s 3rd birthday

They were really into Go Jetters on CBeebies at the time, and when I asked them what they’d like on their birthday cakes, this was a clear winner. I shaped the vanilla sponge into two 3s, and the base of each of the faces was a shop-bought oaty biscuit.

Joel’s 8th birthday

He asked for a Lego Ninjago cake. The red and green ninjas are his favourite two, and I shaped them into an 8 too.