School days – May Year 5

This year is flying by, seemingly faster with every month that goes by. May was full of miserable weather, but school still managed to get through a lot.  Thankfully N’s couple of sore throats and slightly raised tonsils, was just that both times this term, and didn’t end up full blown tonsillitis. So he made it through a full term without being ill.

Here’s our school days in May.

Mini bubbles

Our school are doing mini bubbles within classes. N has been pleased being in with the other year 5s, but it’s a shame that they aren’t in with more, or he’s not in with the year 6s he’s friends with. There have been some irritations with having to report comments made by some to the teacher to stamp out. He gets frustrated that they’re late into the start of class due to the bubble before theirs taking ages to get into class after break times.  He also misses 2 of his good friends who were in his old bubble. Luckily one had a sleepover glamping party at the end of the month, so it meant they could all get together and talk.

Dance

N doesn’t mind having random dance sessions at home, but he’s less fussed about dance lessons for PE. They’re having zoom lessons at the moment. He always comes home talking about how far they’ve got in the dance, so it can’t be all bad. They had learnt one to Blinding Lights and now have one to Pump It. Seriously fast tracks, and he did find a couple of weeks he struggled at tennis after school as he was tired from dance and hockey on the same day.

Overlays

He’s still using his overlay for reading, and coloured print outs for comprehension or maths papers they have, and that seems to be going ok. But he’s been struggling to see the whiteboard from his new seat – they’re now at the back of the room. To help, he’s been holding up his overlay to see it. School suggested he gets glasses with the yellow tint in but given he’s long-sighted and should have no issues seeing the board, I wanted to check before I spent money on glasses that wouldn’t help.  

£250 later (the opticians revisited all of the visual stress tests again as well as a standard check), and there was no change to his eye sight. He still has 20:20 vision but slightly long sighted, the yellow overlay still applies to close work and reading. But the optician didn’t think tinted lenses would make a difference for distance work. Given he could see before in his old desk fine, she thinks it’s probably light or glare on the board. With proper correct coloured lenses I’d be looking at £125 for just colour no prescription lenses, so if they don’t believe it would make a difference, we’ll just look for some cheap sunglasses and see if that helps.

Profiles

N has a profile as he has the overlay aid, so this term we’ve had the update. They’ll continue with the extra reading practice and supporting with his overlays, but otherwise he’s tracking where he should be at this point in the year. It took a lot of explaining to understand how they track it – way too confusing – but hopefully by the end of the year, he should be where he should be. 

Key stage 2 performance

N is not impressed. They’ve announced that they’ll be doing a key stage 2 summer performance, of group performances based on poetry. N is a horse – their group is doing something farming oriented which could be fun. He’s not impressed because there was mention of make up for costumes. He’s only ever done face paint once, so I can’t see that going down well.

RSE

Now they’re in the top class, the RSE (Relationships and sex education) lessons get more interesting, and more useful.  Parents have been consulted through the different years, and apart from wanting to know what exactly they’re going to be told, I’m not that bothered. N’s pretty clear on a lot of information about puberty, he’s got the understanding of how babies are made, although he might be relating it more to animals on the farm. He knows about same sex relatiionships, although is probably clearer on 2 women being together. They’ve had quite a lot of online safety and consent learning throughout school. So hopefully there won’t be too many unknowns for him.

I am a tad concerned that he might come out with something inappropriate about our new bulls getting straight on the job on arrival, or relate IVF to AI in cattle! 

Star of the week

N came home on the last day of school with a Star of the Week certificate. He was so excited about going off to his friend’s party that he forgot to tell us that he had it. It was a bit of a mystery as to what he’d done to earn it as usual – the words didn’t tally with anything he could think of.

Now half term, and a break before hopefully things start to open up more and things like sports day will be able to open up to parents.

How’s your school days going?

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