Forgot to say, the kids came home with their school reports today (once a year, at the end) - all did very well, with the girls acheiving marks well above the expected level for their ages, and remarkably, both had very good comments about how kind and helpful they are at school (we could do with a bit more of that around the house, frankly!). Alex just has comments - they don't do graded assessments in nursery (and shouldn't) - but he seemed to get on very well and is learning stuff, which is good. I more or less knew that, as I help in the nursery every week, so I get to see him in action quite a bit, but it's always interesting to see the reports. My favourite bit was this, from Olivia's: "She can mostly listen to other people and sometimes plays and works co-operatively." That pretty much says it all!
Almost more exciting than the reports was the fact that they got to see which classes they will be in next year, and what teachers they will have.
[Digression to explain the class system in our school. You may wish to skip this paragraph!] Our school is a little complicated because it has a one and a half form entry; in English that means there are one and a half classes worth of children at each year level except nursery, which has two full classes. The Reception Class (which comes after nursery) also has two classes, though they are very small - 21 or so each (out of a max of 30) - this is great for the kids, so the school makes a point of doing it, despite the fact that it's expensive (school money here is allocated largely on a per pupil basis rather than a per teacher required basis - in an ideal world, those things would balance, but they don't always, which is why we have 1.5 forms - which means mixed year classes). As I was saying, after Reception, the classes are mixed - so there is a year one class, a year 1/2 mix, a year 2 class; then a Y3, a Y3/Y4 mix and a Y4; and finally a Y5, a Y5/Y6 mix and a Y6. I grouped them this way because those are the "Key Stages" anyway, which means those years have the same curriculum anyway, so frankly, the fact that some of them are mixed is largely irrelevant. (The curriculum goes in a two year cycle, so in year 1, Key Stage 1 does Romans (whether you are in Y1 or Y2) and in year two KS1 does Tudors - so if you do romans in year 1, you will do Tudors in year 2 and vice versa. It all works out in the end.) And for English and Maths, they just work in ability groups anyway, sometimes mixing students from across the whole key stage ("setting").
[Safe to come back now.]
Anyway. Sarah will be a mixed class of year 5 (her) and year 6 students. The mixing is done by age, so her class has the oldest 1/3 (ish) of the year 5s and the youngest 1/3 of the year 6s. (If you didn't read the above paragraph, it all works just fine, trust me.) She's delighted because her friend Kirsty is in the same class, and they have Mr Rinn for their teacher, who is very cool and everyone likes him. Including me (though to be fair, I like all the teachers my kids have had & many of the ones they haven't - there are a few I don't really know well). And I think it's nice she's going to have a male teacher - there aren't many in primary schools these days, so it's a good experience for them.
Olivia will also be in a mixed class - again, she's one of the oldest. She's in a mixed Y3/Y4 class (she's in Y3 next year). Her teacher is called Ms Crask, and I don't know her well, but like what I've seen. She won't be with all of her friends, but we know that Hannah S will be there and probably Gabriella. But not Eliza & Nina. Won't hurt them all to be separate and she's not particularly bothered, at least not at the moment.
Alex we already knew would be in Fir class - his teacher is called Mrs Goodliffe and seems very nice - Keir has had her for reception and Y1 and really liked her, so that's a good recommendation. It was all very exciting on the playground this afternoon - everyone rushing about trying to see who will be in their class (and who won't). No tears from my kids, luckily - but as it's a fairly straightforward system, done almost completely by age, there isn't much they can do about it.
Sarah was off to tennis camp today (10-3) and great weather for it, thank goodness - I was afraid it was going to be a repeat of last week. Olivia's chosen activity, after we did some errands and had lunch, was baking biscuits, so we did gingerbread shapes (I think she and Alex used every shape in the box, except I drew the line at the Christmas Tree) - so we have people, animals (dogs, cats, sheep, cows, bunnies, teddies, elephants, ducks), dinosaurs, teapots, hearts, stars, flowers and probably some other stuff I forgot. And instead of mixing icing colours today, I just bought some tubes and let them squeeze. And I insisted they leave some plain, for the grownups, who prefer to have more biscuit than icing...
