Last night was parents evening and whilst it offered three very different meetings to discuss three very different children, what shone through was a united desire to make us proud of their efforts.
Whether it was the boy and his unbelievably (high) Gothic take on writing an imagined diary for Lady Macbeth, or Fifi’s determination to show us every “well done!” written in all her books (for the record this is the 5th year on the trot that her teacher has told us she is a joy to teach and genuinely delightful), or Ned’s pride at how his handwriting is developing, it did show that they’re all engaged enough in the education system to want our approval. With that as motivation, all the drudge of not wanting to go to school gets put in to a little context I suppose.
It was interesting to hear how in even the relatively short space of time separating our 5 year old (reception) from our 9 year old (year 5) the expectations of what 5 years old need to attain in terms of maths, reading and writing has moved so dramatically. Ned isn’t young in his year (January birthday) but he’s by no means one of the older kids either. A lot of what we saw last night that he is doing in class now wasn’t undertaken by either of his siblings until year one, and he’s only just over the half way point through reception. I suppose they’re all in it together, the kids and the teachers but it seems as though they’re being pushed harder at an increasingly young age. At this rate academically he’ll catch up with his brother and sister by the time he’s in year 3.
It’s no wonder that, Ned especially, they’re all knackered after school and want nothing more than to sit around on a Saturday morning…