School days – lost and found

With the start of the football World Cup, there’s a bit of football fever in school and at home.  Well, I thought there would be at home after N announced recently that’s he’s really into football now. I’m not really convinced because he never wants to play and so far the only football he’s watched was to check who was playing for me and what the score was. But school are asking them to wear red and white, England tops or kit from a country that’s associated with them on England match days. I think N had plenty of red but turns out he doesn’t have any with both white and red. But I found him a sports top so e can wear that for tennis as well.

Onto this week’s School days.

Maths enjoyment

N really is enjoying his maths at the moment. Although he does seem to enjoy most of school anyway. His only gripe seems to be the occasional meal choice I’ve made for lunch when ordering, and the fact that there’s never any seconds left for his team/table who’s at the end of the queue for going up. I suggested that he propose a mix up of orders for tables going up to his school council rep, but I know he’d never do that.

This week in maths it was division with numbers leftover. He whizzed through his homework, and got every one correct. He could explain how they do it in school. We never did any methods like they do nowadays, but it’s interesting because you can see how they’re working up to doing full long division.

Trainee teachers

His school tend to have a couple of trainee teachers for a few weeks in the summer term. N’s been lucky to have them in his class this and last year. It’s a bonus because it means more of their tables get an extra set of people to support with their learning rather than having to wait their turn for the teacher and TAs to get round all the tables. N said they did good lessons as well, and the children came out of school on Friday with a goodbye present of a bendy pencil each.

Lost and found

N is terrible for leaving his school jumpers at school. They get bundled in his drawer over the week, then are brought home in a pile on Fridays. This week he came home with 3 on Wednesday, then on Friday one of the TAs produced 2 for me. She’d been on a trawl passing back all the extra jumpers.  Over 3 years we’ve never actually lost one yet, although some things do take a while to come home. And we’ve ended up with a couple I didn’t realised he’d not brought home.

This week we found his missing water bottle that we’d not seen since the first day after Easter. When it went missing I asked N to check with a girl who he said had the same water bottle as him (or at least check on the bottom for his name sticker). He obviously didn’t ask and he said she’d started bring in a different bottle. Then at tennis on Friday I spotted her drinking out of N’s bottle. That sticker on the bottom was pretty obvious. So after she’d finished with it after tennis, we took it back.

I’m astounded that after all this time with a labelled bottle, their family didn’t notice

a) it didn’t have her label on it on the side and

b) when washing it out and drying it upside down or in the dishwasher they didn’t notice a label on the bottom with another child’s name.

I’m glad it’s back and we’ve got more bottle options again. Satisfying still to have a 100% return on items that went into school.

School letters

So many parents moan about the lack of communication from their children’s school. We certainly can’t complain. Ours uses Parentmail, we get a ‘what are they learning this week’ and reminders email on Mondays, and the newsletter on Fridays. Plus anything else of note including road closures through the village.  This week we had the best email letter yet. So middle class.

Evidently the veg supplier is having issues with their supply of UK sugar snap peas due to the weather, so they’re having to supply the school with overseas produce. I didn’t even realise we grew sugar snap peas in this country. As farmers, it’s good to know that the school have British produce where possible

After school clubs

It sounds like for next year, the OH and N have been in cahoots about getting him picked up from school rather than going to after school club.  I’ve suggested that we find at least 1 after school club for him to go to in place of tennis club which he’ll be too old for in its current format.  He’s asked for film club, which would probably work well timings wise, but I’d rather it was a sport club or something similar. With one of the teachers leaving who’d usually run a sports club, we’ll have to see what’s on offer next year.

I did point out that the OH won’t pick him up from swimming and his aunt won’t be there to pick up from there either, so if he’s not at wrap round care, he’ll be stranded at swimming. So I’m hoping that we’ll still do one day of wrap round care so I can keep my childcare vouchers going, and he’ll get to spend time with friends outside of school.

What’s been going on with your children this week?