“I might even get a certificate”

Any regular readers of the blog will know we have an ongoing battle with learning and the boy. He’s just not interested in it very much, although he was recently commended as the child in the class who wrote the best fact sheets. Whatever the hell that means. Perhaps a career as an infographic producer beckons.

When his class left the EYFS stuff behind, his school report indicated he hadn’t completed a fair number of the targets. We asked for a meeting to go through anything we needed to do in the summer to bring him up to speed but all we got was a re-written school report that said he was up to standard. Helpful? Not really, no.

Throughout Year 1, he was reading with the top achieving kids from reception and generally thought reading was stupid- well you would if you weren’t very good at it wouldn’t you? But a lot of patience and practice, along with him developing in his own sweet time no doubt, has seen him not just catch up but get pretty good at reading. He told me yesterday that he’s skipped a level on the Oxford Reading Tree, that nobody else in the school had done that and he’d probably get a certificate for it.

He was pleased.

And so was I, not at the fact that he’s gone up a reading level but at the fact he was proud of an academic achievement. That’s more than half the battle really. It’s no surprise that the boy is happier at school this year than he’s ever been. He has his little group of mates and an understanding of what he’s doing. He’s slap bang in the middle of the class in terms of ability, which is a great place to be. Me, I was one of those socially awkward over achievers from an early age and it certainly didn’t make me happy. I don’t think very bright kids are generally very happy but that’s another story really.

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