stationery and apple

Primary school days Year 6 – October

That’s two months into the final primary school year and as per usual, it’s whizzing by. Even N thinks it’s gone quickly. Ending in half term, and lots of rising Covid cases across the country, and especially in schools, we’re looking at potentially having some extra precautions back in once they’re back in November.

Ours are currently still in class bubbles, but they may revert to smaller bubbles, and assemblies have stopped being in the hall again. They may return to rows in class rather than grouped tables – N wouldn’t mind that because he currently has his back to the board, so he’d stand a better chance of seeing it straight on. 

Thankfully cases haven’t been as high in our school as in other nearby ones, some of whom have closed for a few days/week because cases are so high. For the myriad of symptoms outside the usual 3 stated, they’re now asking for PCR tests rather than just lateral flow ones. N did a lateral flow last week as he had his usual tonsil up and runny nose, just to check he was ok to go to school. Then the day after they changed the rule to PCRs. That’ll be painful as it’ll involve time out of work to take him to get one done in future, as well as remote learning, but cases seem more prevalent than ever. Fingers crossed it won’t come to that, and cases start going down.

stationery and apple

Here’s October school days.

Standing for Prefect

This year they reverted back to children having to stand for prefect positions, so N wrote a speech all on his own, typed it up so it would be easier to read, and then had to deliver it in class. There was only he and his good friend who stood. I’m pleased because it wasn’t class voting, but the teacher’s debated. So it was decided that both the boys would be prefects for their class, rather than just one. 

Tag rugby and football

N’s quite enjoying when they get the chance to do tag rugby. Less hockey this year which he misses, but it sounds like tag rugby is working well. He did have to pull out of his group tennis lesson the day after one week, due to having bruised his knee. ‘But I scored a try, so it was good’. Hmmm.

He’s also decided that next half term he wants to switch to football club rather than multisports. First time he’s showed an interest in playing football, and it means I’ve got a switch around of days for late pick ups, but hopefully it’ll work out ok and he will still have time for homework when he’s got sport Wednesdays through to Fridays.

Mince pies

Love that N isn’t ashamed or worried about being called a teacher’s pet! He wanted to bake mince pies from scratch, so made them one weekend. He’d mentioned them in school to the teacher, so the next day, in he went with his cake tin and a mince pie for his teacher, the TAs and the hockey coach. He does love his baking and cooking. 

Mindfulness

I don’t know if he’s exaggerating, but if he isn’t, there’s way too much mindfulness in school. He’s never been a fan, and doesn’t ever feel anxious or worried enough that he can’t relax or sleep. He doesn’t feel he needs to unburden himself. Doing an hour of meditation was too much. He couldn’t even fall asleep, but came back from school so tired, it was ridiculous. He’d have rather done reading or another booster session than trying to free his mind of nothing for longer than 10 minutes. 

Personally I’m with him. I’ve never got on with trying meditation, I don’t struggle to relax or switch off. At this age it would probably be more valuable to run around the field a couple of times, or even just stand outside in silence and listen to whatever birds or noises are outside. I like the idea from a friend who’s a TA at a different school. They do 15 minutes of skipping daily. Much more interesting, provides them with fitness, and eventually a skill.

Secondary school applications

We had to make our decision about secondary schools. It turns out according to the county transport people that there’s a huge waiting list for the catchment school bus after they amalgamated 2 routes due to too few people getting free transport. So despite there being a lower capacity than usual on the bus, and plenty of spaces according to 2 people we know who get that route, it’s unlikely we’d even be able to get a seat on it. Everyone round here has to pay as the catchment school isn’t our nearest (the nearest we wouldn’t get in even if we did want to send him there), they won’t put on an extra bus. So I have no idea how I’m going to get him home from secondary. The big advantage the catchment school had was the fact there would be a bus. But losing that opportunity meant he wanted to put a different school 1st. For that we stand no chance of getting a bus because we’re out of county. So god knows, 

I may end up having to reduce my hours to part time next year which I don’t want to do, purely because there’s no way to get him home from school without me picking him up by car. Hopefully a group of us will be able to car share but that’s all dependent on them all ending up at the same school.

Still, application submitted, and we’ve no idea which way it’ll go.

School dinners

The longer he’s been eating school dinners, the more complaints I get from N about them. Portions are too small, meat quality is awful, veg are cold or hard, and for me the variety isn’t there. There aren’t enough changes to the menu each time it changes. He’s now refusing to eat them from half term, so I’m going to have to get in packed lunches food for the first time. I might get away with him still having macaroni cheese, and maybe one other dish, but the rest he doesn’t want to have. It’s a faff doing packed lunches and trying to get a variety of food, but he’ll make his own lunch so that’s one less morning job for me. At least he’s now getting a hot meal in the evenings, which he wasn’t get a substantial tea at after school club. So I suppose it doesn’t matter that he’s not getting a hot lunch.

Maths challenge

N was getting a little frustrated at not being given the chance to try the harder maths work that the top table were doing. He said his work was too easy and he was doing plenty of it correctly, and wanted to try what they were set. He felt he was getting left behind. I’ve spoken to his teacher and she said she’d give him a go at harder stuff. So he and the boy next to him got to try slightly harder work than originally. Hopefully he’ll be able to cope with the harder challenge into the new half term.

Now for him to enjoy half term…and the challenge of getting through Goodnight Mr Tom, set as their reading for the week. He’s not too keen so far, and I’m trying to encourage him to think about the story and not just read it. 

How’s the half term treated your children?

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3 Comments

  1. This school year really is whizzing over.
    Thankfully just before the holidays cases in my youngest girls school started to drop. Phew!
    Aww! That is great news that N and the other boy are both prefects!
    My girls school does a lot about mindfulness and I sometimes think that it is too much. x

    1. I don’t think ours have even done much more than netball at breaktimes. There’s so few girls in the school (N’s class especially) they do a lot more typically ‘boys’ sports and unisex ones.

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