School days – reading, singing and forgetting names

This week’s School Days post is a day later than normal thanks to a killer headache yesterday which wiped me out for the day.  Last week was one of those school weeks where plenty was good, but there were also a few irritations.

I’ve found as the year’s gone by my annoyances have increased, mostly to do with N still being stuck down with Class 1 and them still not having been moved up.  Now I’ve pretty much given up hope of them moving up til right near the end where there’ll be nothing gained for them doing so.  I’m just looking forward to him being in year 2 and therefore always being in with all of his year group.

Big Read

Compared with other schools and other classes, N seems to do very little reading to adults, and none has been recorded in his book with his teacher for a long time.  There’s the occasional reading to a TA, but I may as well talk to myself when writing how he’s doing with his reading at home.  He’s been stuck on stage 6 since he moved to it in January and is finding the books a lot easier now.  He’s also reading a lot more at home – reading food packets, signs, anything he spots, and he says he finds it easy too.  I love that he doesn’t panic when he comes across a big word, he just gives it a go thinking that he does know it.

They had a Big Read at school last week, where they had a good amount of time to read to someone else.  N said sometimes year 5 or 6 pupils who listen to and help them, or TAs.  N had one of the TAs. He got through 2 books so it must have been a good substantial amount of reading time for him to get through that much. Although they then didn’t have time to change the books to bring home, so he wouldn’t re-read it it a second time.

What he is now doing is reading a book and is able to tell me the story. Where before he just read it and told me he can’t remember. So at weekends if he refuses to read to me, or tells me he’s read at after school club I can now check if he did or not, because he’ll be able to tell me what it was about.  Always good practice for reading comprehension as well.

Forgetting names

N is terrible with names.  I’m going to assume that’s a boy thing and that they’re just a) oblivious and b) don’t think it’s important to know them.

They’ve got 2 PGCE teachers in the school at the moment and he can’t remember either of their names despite at least one going across his 2 classes!

He’s like that with new children too – I have to read the names in the newsletter for new starters, and prompt him.  Then he might remember.

Any excuse to not do his reading. Do you think I can pretend he’s learning gravity?

Year 2 SATS

Unless something miraculous happens like the government removing the SATs earlier than already expected, N will be doing SATs next year.  He told me it was just like when they do the reading test which he says he quite enjoys.  They’ve done practise year 1 reading tests a few times through the year.  N just treats them as another test to try and that’s it, it doesn’t both him.  I’m hoping he’ll take the SATs next year the same way.

He was most interested in how the teacher had to cover up all the work on the walls for the test week.  It meant the year 1s had to spend more time in with Class 1 – seemingly according to N, playing a lot and doing a bit of fun maths.  I’m hoping they didn’t spend 4 mornings only playing just because year 2 were doing SATS.

Singing performance

All week N has been singing away one of the songs they’ve been learning for their end of half term school performance.  He was so happy because he was getting to sing in with Class 2 (and seemingly Class 1 as well, although there’s been no words turning up to learn for that one).  They’re singing Don’t Stop (thinking about tomorrow – rather than 4 Non Blondes or any other more pop-y versions I have humming around my head when those words are mentioned), and he is loving it!

Hopefully I’ll be able to get to the performance, but with work I’m not sure I can.

Open morning

Last week was open morning again.  They do seem to come round really quickly but it’s great to be able to go in and see their work.

N’s writing has improved so much, even since Easter. He’s been writing stories, plans and instructions, and I could read and understand every page of writing.  When he says he has no imagination at home, as I’d tried to suggest to him, his teacher said it’s about giving him the tools to work through to get to the putting something down on paper stage.  Once he’s started then he gets going.  But that first ‘I don’t know what to write’ is a stumbling block at the moment.

Hopefully once N’s got it in his head the types of questions he can ask to get ideas, there’ll be no stopping him.