School Days – fair awards and star of the week

We’ve only had one week back at school since half term, but it’s felt like we’ve been back forever. I think we got the better deal for the weather compared with those off this week, but now it’s getting lighter in the mornings and evenings. Soon Spring will be here.

Here’s this week’s School Days.

Fair awards and star of the week

N is just like me – fair and just. Everything should follow the rules and reward the people who’ve done something good.  It means it is hard to get awards (which is how it should be) because although N says he’s worked really hard, obviously there’s another 17 children in his year competing for those same awards.  While Learner of the Week and Star of the Week have been thin on the ground this and last year, N has been the daily VIP for his class a lot.

But he’s not been impressed this week.  In the past he’s moaned about the 2 VIPs in his class always being reception children, but I have to explain that they do 2 per class, and that as he shuffles between 2 classes it probably makes it hard to be noticed.  This term he’s in a huff because he said the same boy had got VIP 6 times in a row. Given he’s had it 6 out of 10 days before, N can’t complain about that. Instead he’s not impressed because he thinks they’ve given out the VIP to the boy to try and stop him being naughty. But then according to N he’s still playing up. he 6 times must have been an exaggeration too, but if I was in the same position, and I’d been good and working hard, then I’d be feeling the same too.

But N can’t really complain because this week he was awarded Star of the Week.  This is one that’s voted for by the children, although going by N’s reasons for who might have voted for whom, I’m thinking most in the younger years are going to vote for their friends.

What made me chuckle is that his certificate said the award was for being a good friend.  But N had no idea what he might have done to get that.  I suggested some things that he might have done – playing/introducing new people into a group, or helping someone out. But no, he said he hadn’t done any of those things.  At least he’s had his award for this year so he’s pleased with that, whether he gets it again some other time or not.

School trip

Ever since they started studying dinosaurs and fossils last term, N has been talking about a school trip. It’s finally been announced, so reception and key stage 1 are going somewhere with dinosaurs and a farm activity centre.  He’s very excited about this, made sure I’ve got the form filled in and cheque ready to take in on Monday. And he’s checked what day it is so he knows if it’s a morning club/after school club day. Hopefully if they’re late returning like the last trip they did, the after school club can still manage picking up the children on that day.  Must remember to warn them so they know.

Show and tell

As far as I’m aware, N has never done Show and Tell.  He sometimes takes in colouring books for morning club. And this week wanted to take in a world war musket ball that his uncle found on our land while metal-detecting (I’m not sure if it did actually get shown).  But he’s never actually taken something in for the purpose of show and tell.  It sounds that he misses it in both classes he straddles, because one class do it while his year 1s are doing phonics or literacy in the lower class.  And the reception children have their show and tell while the year 1s are in the higher class.

N seems happy enough with this – I hope in future he will stand up in class and see that he can do it and it’s not hard to share something you love.  But oops, it seems there’s been some fuss about toys being taken in so they’re now not allowed. It makes a lot of sense, because show and tell should be about something that’s happened or something new and exciting.

Maybe N should take in a picture of his cow and calf, or sheep once they’ve had their lambs so he can talk about those. Although I think talking metal-detecting would be exciting.

Literacy and writing

Writing has been one thing that N hasn’t liked or been bothered about. But the last term or so he’s really got into it.  It’s amazing what ‘3 sentences’ can do.  Their literacy homework is usually just that. Write 3 sentences about whatever they’re studying at the time. It’s about thinking for themselves, practising their spelling and writing, and just getting into the habit of writing.

N has now started doing a lot more independent writing at home. It started out being for stickers for his reward chart to encourage him to write. But quite often he’ll just write something anyway. Nothing lengthy, but enough to get that habit going and give him confidence he knows what he’s doing.

He wrote a lovely thing about ‘what is in the shed?’ for school.  A black dog sleeping, along with ducks who were cuddled up to the dog.  Very sweet.

And the other day he wanted to write a letter to us. ‘Dear dad, Wot are you up to fis week’ and the same to me. I think we need to work on remembering the words he reads and how they’re spelt, because he’s read ‘what’ and ‘this’ a lot. And he’s had ‘this’ in early spelling tests.  He also needs to start hearing and say ‘th’ in words instead of being sloppy.  I don’t think his tongue tie helps that, because he can do it when he thinks about it and I remind him, but it doesn’t come out when he’s writing.

He’s also been writing his name in joined up letters, and practising some handwriting.  I’m just glad he’s enjoying writing now.  It just goes to show that even with boys who just want to be outside playing, reading and writing does come eventually.

Counting

N has always loved maths, but I was surprised this week with his counting out of school.  He wanted to play truth or dare, so asked for a dare from me. I couldn’t think of anything, so just told him to count down from 20 backwards. He scoffed at this, said I can do it from 100 in fives, and off he went. I was a little astounded. I didn’t know that he could count in 5s normally, let alone backwards.  Supposedly they’d been doing it in school.  I suppose it’s all good practice for 5 times table, and having fun with numbers.  I love how he surprises me all the time with things.