School plans

At last, we have sorted out some flexi-school attendance for Jade. We visited this afternoon and talked everything through, and for the first 'term' (half-term as it used to be, but now they have a 6-term year) she will attend for the afternoons (12.45 - 3.15pm) of Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. It's a bit ironic really as I originally really needed to flexi-school to cover my working hours, and now DH does compressed hours so is home all day on Wednesdays and I guess my Dad will have to continue to cover a Thursday morning for a little while longer. I had suggested to him last week that at the age of 74 he might want to stop having to come over every week for childcare duties. However, we felt that with Jade's speech anxiety and the difficulties of her being there for some of the academic work but not all of it (and therefore how do we ensure she is not all-at-sea with what they're doing?), it would be better for her to start off going in for the more practical/sports/social type stuff like dance, drama, IT, which they do in the afternoons, and when she's settled in for the first six weeks, we will review it and see how it is going and maybe then she may start going for a morning session too.

So, we're off to buy the last couple of bits of uniform tomorrow, and then she'll go in on Wednesday afternoon. She's rather excited at the prospect and says she likes it there! But OTOH she says she definitely wouldn't want to have to go all day every day!

And this morning, as Jade, Shannon and I walked the dog in the still sunny and warm day, with a tree-identification book at hand, and picking blackberries as we went, I thought how sad it was that all those other kids would be stuck in school for such a long time from now on. Other sad things - a friend of mine said that her 2nd DD (same age as Jade) was going to get a shock going into Year 1 as there was no 'home corner' or play stuff in the classroom like there was in Reception. And yet so many reports confirm what we HErs know in our bones, that playing is so essential to learning, and that in this country we push formal academics too early. The other thing this friend said was that her two DDs (7 and 5) get on really well during the summer holidays, whereas during the school year the older one treats the younger one like somebody too low for her to associate with. Shame.

Apart from all that, today we've read some of "The BFC big book of planet earth (charity-shop find) and talked about the earth, the sun and the moon, and how each rotates and orbits, and why that makes day and night, months and years; about the equator and the two Poles, and about the unique atmosphere of the Earth. I got the globe out, and another ball, to demonstrate. I wonder where all that comes in the National Curriculum - about Year 4, I imagine!!! She's also done lots of drawing (she's really into that lately), some stamping pictures, lots of imaginative play at being a mummy, a big sister and a baby, and just a bit of CBeebies.