School days – tennis and parents evening

It feels like we’ve only been back at school and work for a couple of days, but nope, 2 weeks in and only a month until half term. Scary how time rushes by and really makes you think about how you can make the most of life and savour the experiences and memories.

This week at school’s been as busy as usual.  It’s funny how nowadays people always say that children are rushed around and never have time to play or think, but then I look at what N does in school (he goes to wraparound care so no after school clubs yet, and only swimming at the weekend)  and think back to what I did, and apart from having a stay at home mum, I don’t think much was different in terms of today’s pressures.  I certainly didn’t feel hurried or frantic with everything going on.

Onto this week’s school days

VIP

I’ve said before about the VIP status our school do, and N was VIP again this week, for the 5th time in total.  He’s still a bit blasé about it but likes to show his dad the sticker as soon as he gets home. And he knows exactly how many times he’s been VIP.

Tennis v football v dance

Last week they played football for the first time.  N’s never been fussed about playing football, other than kicking the occasional ball around, and this week he didn’t say much about it.  Other than saying ‘it was a match’ and ‘yes, we won. I was green team’.  I’m not sure whether his team really did win, but I didn’t get anything more out of him.

They also had the tennis coach in this week.  N’s been going on for a couple of weeks what the coach is called, when he’s coming in and how they’re going to play tennis.  Then it ended up being a different coach.  But he said he really enjoyed it, and it was much more fun than football which he definitely doesn’t like.  I’m quite pleased because racquet sports were my thing during and after school and uni, so I’m hoping he’s picked up a bit of my sporty coordination there.  It might encourage me to get back and join the local tennis club too if he starts playing more.

And a third PE lesson saw them doing dance.  Now, N loves to boogy and dance around at home.  Sometimes I do worry about his movements, but he’s starting to try a few more daring things.  Kicking his legs in the air and trying some pirouettes!  He talked lots about the dance teacher, and that they didn’t get changed, just removed their shoes.  But I didn’t get much more than that.

So apart from the football, it appears to be going well on the PE front.

Terrific Toys

This term the topic is about toys – from years ago to now, and all the educational topics that they can talk about round them.  N was so excited when he went to school and found that his teacher had brought in old toys of his…and they were tractors.  And one was the same as a tractor that N has.

This topic has certainly grabbed N’s attention, although the talk of olden days and asking who in the family was around in the olden days can be a little hard to answer.  He can’t explain how long ago he’s talking about when he says olden days, so it’s a bit of a mystery which era he wants information on.  Maybe I need to draw him a historical timeline to refer to.

Parents evening

We had an initial 5 minute settling in chat back in September, but this was the proper parents evening.

After hoping I’d been the last slot, and only booking the penultimate one, I ended up being last anyway.  Result as it meant there was less pressure to stick to the 10 minutes.  N came with me in the end, although it seemed a mix of kids going or not.  If I’d had more time to drop him at home first I’d not have bothered but at least he sat nicely and didn’t roam so was no bother at all.

We got his 100% attendance record letter.  It does make me laugh that we get these because we never did as kids. You just turned up and probably you got a letter if you weren’t turning up.  Still, hopefully it’ll make him pleased that he’s one of the children who’s done that.  Thankfully, he’s generally not ill and if he is, it’s usually a bit of a sore throat or sniffles with him being fine to go in.

Our school are bedding in next year’s foundation stage baseline assessments so that was run through. It was done at the start of the school year when they were all still settling in, so I was told many had underperformed in lots of areas.  N had taken a while to come out of his shell but was now quite chatty and more part of the class than such a loner so I’m pleased about that.

I was also told he was better on his maths and numbers.  I’m quite surprised at that because apart from 1-10, his actual knowledge and recognition of numbers to 20 is pretty shocking.  But allowing for the understanding of relative, the different types of volumes and measures, sizes, and adding/removing 1, he’s quite good on and interested in.  He always asks questions about adding 2 as well.  So maybe his maths is going to be a stronger point.

His phonics and attempts to hear, sound out and write words is coming along too so I just need to try and encourage him to try and sound out things rather than him just asking me straight off to write them.  All in all, it was a great parents evening and I’m pleased with how N’s enjoying school and progressing.

How’s things at school at your end?  Have you just done primary school applications for this year?