We had the boys first parent evening at Reception last night. I’m still not entirely sure where reception sits in the scheme of things. When I was a nipper, we had nursery (which I didn’t attend) then years 1-3 infants and 1-4 junior. After that we progressed to secondary school with years 1-6 and an upper 6th for the A level sitting year. Simple. Of course now it runs all the way through in one unchanging run of numerical increase, but where does it all start eh?
Anyway, I digress, which is another sign of getting old I suppose. The boy had his adventures at the nursery attached to the school, slaloming past a couple of teachers to escape from the classroom and disappearing up the road on more than one occasion, and on his first full day in reception he contrived to enter a jumper cutting competition with one of his little buddies.
On these grounds we were a little nervous of what was going to occur. His final report at nursery was brilliant, we were told he was a lovely caring boy who showed empathy for all his little friends but things are a bit different in the school itself. For starters, for the first time in their 40 year history they’ve decided to have two classes all the way up the school, starting with his intake. They split the nursery class in two as well, rather than recruiting a new class to all start together.
Boys will be boys but he has come home with bruises all up his arms from being pinched and from what he’s said, one of the other kids has developed the delightful habit of poking others up the bottom with his finger. The boy is very rough and tumble but we worry he’s not mature enough yet to deal with people being properly nasty or spitful to him and that this might make it harder for him to socialise in a class with 15 to 20 new members.
So with all these worries in mind, when we sat down, I couldn’t help but think: “My god, his teacher is young. She’s the deputy head?” Maybe it was because she was dimuitive in stature, or quite quiet, but she didn’t seem to be (and I’m only 36 mind you) old enough to be sitting in that chair having the parent teacher consultation with us.