School days – missing school

This week’s School Days has been a flop here thanks to illness.  Unlike reception year where N managed to pretty much avoid all the lurgy going round (apart from 1 day), he’s been wiped out by tonsillitis.  I’m gutted because it’s not even Christmas yet and he’s already had 3 days off sick vs last year’s 1!But that in itself has brought some conversations up about school.

Year 1/2 tests

At the start of the week (when I was sending him in because he ‘just had a sore throat and cough’) N came home and mentioned they’d had a reading test today.  He had to read to the Class 2 teacher, so the class he goes up to work with the other year 1s and year 2s, but he doesn’t usually do his reading in that class.  His mention then reminded me to check the What’s going on this week email and found that this week was reading and maths tests.  He didn’t mention the maths test, but it might have happened on Monday or Tuesday.  If it did, he was none the wiser but he did say they did some group work on maths.

The announcement of tests obviously didn’t highlight anything different to him (they are used to spelling tests though) so he obviously wasn’t worried about it.  I couldn’t work out if he had to read a passage or if it was words.  So I guess we’ll find out in due course what exactly the year 1 tests are.  I know of other schools that did them, so I need to investigate – they’re obviously something standard for this time of year.

Hopefully the progress he’s been making has been good enough for him to reach the level he should be, or if not, that he just needs to know that it’s important he keeps working hard, so his confidence about how he’s doing stays high.

Christmas play rehearsals

There were more play rehearsals although N struggled because of his throat hurting. He did say it really hurt but they had to practise their line loudly ‘so the deaf person at the back of the room can hear’.  He was insistent that he couldn’t have done it quietly on this occasion given it hurt his throat.

Missing out on school

I’d send N in at the start of the week because he just seemed to have a cough and be a bit tired. He’d been out on the farm at the weekend and been fine, so there wasn’t much excuse to me.  But he came back from school on Tuesday with a temperature and then started to get worse rather than better.

So he was kept off school the rest of the week, with the doctor on Wednesday saying the viral cold had turned into tonsillitis. Boo.  So he has vile orange antibiotics (which he’s vowed never to have again), and I’m dosing him up on satsumas, ice cream and orange juice for Vitamin C and comfort.  The cough has finally eased a bit, and the temperature’s back to normal, but he’s still been quite quiet and happy enough to watch tv most of the day while I try and work.  He was originally pleased to not be at school, but he’s now realising what he’s missed out on.

Of course the main thing is not being able to read each day.  In the last week, he’s only read about 5 pages of 2 books and those were the ones he had from last week.  He just hasn’t been able to read without coughing, so that’s going to be hard to get back into that again.  He’s also only done half of his maths homework and has missed out doing his spelling test – he knows all the words even without checking them first.

Friday, he was meant to be in target assembly to get his bronze certificate, but now that’ll be kept until the next target assembly in February.  It won’t worry him, but I hope he gets his silver that time too, otherwise it looks like he’s lots behind the others when it’s just because he wasn’t there to pick it up.  (my competitiveness, not his!).

And of course the big one is the Christmas play.  They were meant to take in their costumes on Friday so they were in school ready for Monday’s dress rehearsal, but N’s now really worried having missed 3 days of rehearsals.

‘Mummy, I can’t remember my line, or the dancing we do, or the songs’.  I had to reassure him that he would when he was back at school, and that I was sure a teacher would do a quick reminder for him.

‘But no mummy, I just can’t remember, and we won’t get chance to run through it’

‘There’s the dress rehearsal’ there’s me wondering whether that’s in front of the rest of the school. Probably.  Cringe as I pray it’ll come back to him and that the school won’t laugh if he totally forgets something.

‘Why don’t you ask one of the other shepherds to go over it with you to practice? I’m sure one of them would help’

‘Not D.  I don’t want to be a shepherd with him.  He says rude things we’re not allowed to say in school and doesn’t do what he’s meant to do’

‘Do the teachers know?’

‘Yes we’ve told them, but he still does it. He doesn’t care when they tell him to stop. He’ll ruin it’.  And possibly provide a bit of comedy for the audience I suppose.

‘I’m sure he’ll be fine on the day.  How about asking one of the others to help, they’re nice boys, I’m sure they will’

‘No they’re on the other side to me’

‘Well, you’ll have to ask one of the teachers to quickly remind you beforehand then’

He wasn’t happy going to sleep, so I’m just hoping that come the dress rehearsal he remembers what he’s doing and his line.  I can’t even help with that because after I wrote it down when he told it to me, he’s now lost the piece of paper.

Roll on Monday, and fingers crossed the medicine is kicking out the tonsillitis.  I don’t want him to suffer like the OH still does or like I did until I had my tonsils out when I was 5.