A Pen Licence

Apparently some homeschooled American kids feel that they're missing out on something by not having a locker. Here in Australia, lockers are simply places to store your books and your lunch, but it seems that lockers are a big deal to those kids in a way that they're not over here. Some mums - or I guess that should be moms- have gone as far as to create special lockers at home just to assuage this loss.

Now Jemimah has no locker envy, and in fact, having never been to school, she may not even know what one is, but there is one thing that she does feel sorry about missing out on, and that is a Pen Licence.

It seems that nowadays, getting your Pen Licence is a big deal in Australia's schools. We didn't have them back in the Dark Ages when I was at school, but apparently you are awarded your licence when you write neatly enough to be allow to write in pen. They're fancy beasts too, these licences. My nieces licences are professionally produced plastic cards with photographs and signatures and the whole shebang. They're desirable enough that my nieces still carry theirs even though they've graduated to high school. A Pen Licence carries Status. Style. Class. They're a rite of passage. Apparently.

Now if she were at school, Jemimah would have her Pen Licence. She actually uses a cartridge pen for her written work, and she started using that at the beginning of AO5. At that time she formed all the letters of the alphabet correctly and neatly, and used letter joins... most of the time. Her grip was good, and her posture was correct. These were the criteria I would have used for awarding a licence if we had them.

I sort of felt sad that my daughter was missing out.

Anyhow, to cut a long, waffley story short - I'm good at those - the other day I googled Pen Licences and I came up with this - a customisable, professional, almost as good as her cousins' Pen Licence.

So I opened the Publisher document, changed the header to blue, my pupil's favourite colour, edited the text, added a scanned signature, reduced the size so it would fit in her wallet, pressed print, and laminated the result.

Voila!

It is so cool, and I am feeling such a good mummy.

Insert satisfied smile.

Apparently it's going to change her life.