School days – the start of a different Year 5
We’re a month into year 5 and school days are going ok. N seems positive despite all the changes. I think really all the bubbles and segregation and smaller groups suits him quite well. After school clubs means he gets less frustrated with the really young children, and although their playtime games are no longer across more than their class, he seems to be coping ok with it.
Year 5 eased in quite slowly and he’s enjoying being in Class 4, he even said he thinks it’s his favourite class in the school (big praise as he loved Class 3).. He prefers being in with the year above rather than the year below. And also they’re now seated in pairs, he’s happy with who his desk buddy is.
I think now the work has started getting harder to the end of the month, and he’s said their writing is harder to keep up with as they need to do it faster than before. He even told me maths was hard the other day and he wasn’t confident about it (although he could explain cubing numbers, so I’m not sure what was hard about it)
Here’s some of what he’s been getting up to.
Covid changes
I can’t fault the school. Compared to what I’m hearing from others, our school hasn’t felt like there’s had to be many big changes. It probably has been behind the scenes, and the kids have had to adapt, but it’s all working. ‘Drive through’ drop offs and pick ups, slightly offset times,with bubbles in their areas, led to and from cars, so no need for most parents to be near others. Regular washing slots, hot meals are taken back to eat in classrooms. Limited items to be brought into school daily and kept with them at their desks. Obviously the traditional things like assemblies can’t happen as they did.
I think we’re lucky with it being a small school, that things are more manageable with less risk to the children and staff. Long may that continue.
Tonsillitis
Yes, he’s already had his first bout of tonsillitis. Although he had a Friday off and sleep that day and the following, I think it was quite mild, and ended up a cold.
Injuries
Right at the start of the year, he had a bad knee, so I pulled him out of PE in the hope he would be better for the tennis match. He didn’t seem too bothered that he had to do reading instead of sport. His knee mended fine but he still missed the match due to the tonsillitis. Hopefully that’s it for any injuries this year. Although in PE he did get a fat lip from a tennis racket hitting him. No knocked out teeth and the lip wasn’t cut.
Drama
They’re still doing drama and N actually said he enjoyed 2 sessions. I was amazed. Evidently they were outside making shapes together, and that was fun. He was hoping that with Covid there wouldn’t be a Christmas play, but unfortunately for him they’re doing one in their class. I’m hoping it’ll be streamed somehow, for parents to watch.
Hockey
N is loving the hockey they’re playing. Their class is lucky to get 4 PE sessions a week at the moment. We’ve got him shin pads, and he was pleased to score some goals.
Star of the week
A few weeks in and N’s already been Star of the Week, for being a good role model in class. He’s always ready to work and has his stuff out ready. That’s a pretty good skill, now to just work on the academic side..
Science
Their science topic is the body this term and N is loving it. All that watching Operation Ouch was leading up to this obviously. He keeps coming out with different facts, including the head weighing 4.5kg.
Overlays
N’s reading still isn’t the fastest and he moans a lot about reading. While his read text is ok, he doesn’t always take in what he’s reading so he finds comprehension tasks hard when the answer isn’t just stated in the text. With spelling, he’s fine at learning them for a test, and spelling them verbally if I ask. But getting him to translate what’s in his head onto paper doesn’t always work when he’s writing a mass of text.
His teacher suggested he try some overlays in case visual stress is an issue. So he now has blue overlays and says he finds it easier to concentrate and focus on the words. I’ve been reading up on visual stress and it’s so interesting – the different overlays (or coloured glasses), help with people who struggle with light reflecting on the white page. Hopefully this will help his reading (although he’s not finding maths an issue). I’m trying to book in an optician’s test to check for this, but they don’t seem to want to respond to my messages.
I was shocked at his updated profile suggesting he’d moved further back than he previously was. It was obviously largely written before they finished in March, so I’d hope he has progressed since then. So we’re on a mission with spellings and reading. Back to Reading Eggs, and we’re working through the year 3-5 high frequency words and spelling list at home.
With Reading Eggs we’re working through books instead of reading his normal book, because they do quizzes at the end of books or chapters. So hopefully that will help with him taking in what he’s reading and recall. It’s frustrating because he works hard and knows the majority of words, but putting them on paper is hard. I’m not sure how you solve that.
It does now mean I’m back on no screens ahead of reading or spellings. No excuses this time! And it’s working out well so far.
How’s the return to school been with your children?.
Good luck with Reading Eggs. And hope that knee injury gets better quickly. Yeah, return to school has been interesting, largely because the eldest has started secondary school. What I’m finding odd is the absolute lack of face to face time with teachers and not even being on school grounds. I’d usually help at school events etc. but it simply isn’t allowed.
Glad the start of term has gone so well for you. I’m surprised at 4 PE lessons a week – my son’s school have only one a week now and they have to go to school in PE kit so they dont have to change. There are no clubs after school and the out of school ones have started again – perhaps living in a high risk area has not helped!
Yes, we seem to be one of the only ones not coming in PE kit, but I think we’re lucky being in a lower risk area (although it says medium, our part of that area is currently very low), and very rural. All of our clubs were running from the start, although different in the way they work. For PE they’d usually do 3, but can add extra when opportunity crops up. Big on fitness and sports at ours, and we have a lot of external coaches come in for after school clubs, who come in earlier to do PE as well. Last year a dad came in to teach Aussie Rules football which N loved. This term it’s lots of hockey which he also really enjoys.