For the record

Will I ever get the blogging bug back? I don't know, but I know that I regret it when I don't record the important steps as well as the day-to-day stuff for future reading.

Jade had such a good week last week. The girl who, last year, wouldn't even take part in rehearsals for the class production despite having said she wanted to play a percussion instrument, and who wouldn't take part in Sports Day just a month ago, danced in a group on Monday and Tuesday nights in front of a big audience, without a hint or flicker of dropping out or tears or anxiety. We were so pleased!

However, I did notice that during the songs when everyone sang, she wasn't even attempting to take part and therefore stood out (to me anyway - she was at the back) as the only person who wasn't singing. So when, on the way home, she asked me if I would give her a 'prize' for taking part, I said I would if she would even just move her lips during the songs the following night. Maybe I was being a bit ungenerous, but I knew she could do it and I wanted to give her a bit more of a push while things were going so well.

On Tuesday lunchtime, the class TA who worked with Jade a lot last year and is the only person in the school she can properly talk to, rang me to say she had answered the register verbally for the first time! For the past two years she has responded to her name with a thumbs up. But she had said to the TA that she really wants to be a prefect. She's talked about this with me before and I'd said that it was unlikely to happen because she wouldn't be able to tell kids not to run in the corridors, for instance. She'd thought she could just go and tell the TA each time she had something to report. Anyway, as expected, she was not announced as one of the new prefects, but staff will be keeping an eye on the kids and making more prefects of those who deserve it over during the first term. So on Tuesday, the TA said she knew what she had to do to be able to be a prefect, and perhaps now would be a good time to start with her first word by answering the register. The TA suggested she say 'yes' to her friend sitting next to her, but in the event, she gave a very clear 'yes' which the whole class and the TA standing in the doorway could hear! Nobody turned a hair or made her feel uncomfortable. She said she wouldn't do it the following day because they had a substitute teacher who she knows and doesn't like so much, but actually she did, and continued to answer the register all week.

Then on Tuesday evening she took part in the second night of the production and sure enough, I could just about see her lips move during the group songs. It was obviously quite difficult for her as it was quite a small movement, which I found interesting. Strange that it's harder for her to even look as though she's singing (i.e. move her lips clearly) than to dance in front of the audience. We went out the next day and she chose another Breyer horse as her reward!