Parents evening

It was her parents evening tonight and this particular gem of a piece of work made me smile a lot. They keep all the children's workbooks in their individual briefcase until the end of year 6 so I tend to take a few photographs of the parts that I really enjoy as I look through each parents night.

Her teacher was very pleased with her. She's doing extremely well in all things related to the written word - but that's nothing new. He made me a little sad in a way. He said to katie "I know how much you love writing. As you go through the school, please don't let the tricky grammar that you have to concentrate on take that away. Go home and write for fun. Please don't let school spoil your creativity". He said she's a lot of fun to have in class and has a thirst for knowledge, always wanting to know more. He said she's a perfectionist in her work and takes pride in doing work well. Of her reading, he said "well, you can read... what more can I say?" He said she can look at furthering her understanding of the unwritten suggestions and nuances of texts now.

She's handling friendship situations with a lot of maturity and is a particularly mature little lady generally. We talked about a friendship problem that's been upsetting her- he actually brought it up before I had to and she looked pleased he wanted to talk about it. I was relieved to hear that she's dealing very well with trying to fix and help something that he said isn't her fault. He's going to keep an eye on things.

He did say of her maths "I think katie thinks she's not good at maths- but she is". They're having a bit of an issue that when she thinks she doesn't understand or can't do it she totally shuts down and needs "a reboot" from him or the TA to then realise in fact she actually does understand. None of this surprised me and is one of a collection of Katie-quirks I had spoken to him about previously but he'd said he couldn't see any of it. He listed about four of them tonight and didn't make any connection, sigh.

I asked about SATs. The optimistic part of me hoped they'd decide to ditch them after the government announcement but no such luck. He said we have nothing to worry about with katie- she'll exceed expectations in the reading/writing and will certainly meet expectations in maths with a possibility of exceeding. He didn't seem to understand that regardless of the end outcome, despite - or even because of - the fact she knows she can do well, she's already worrying about these tests. I am very much angered that the next term of my child's education is to be spent learning how to complete an exam paper that asks ridiculous amounts of them. There are children in her year who won't manage to even read the paper, never mind answer the questions.

Anyway.... he's a very nurturing, kind hearted teacher that Katie's really enjoying being in a class with so I am sure between him and I will keep her as chilled as possible through the grind of the past papers etc rigmarole.

I asked him whether our existing arrangements for juggling music & dance are working for him & the head still. He said he's very happy with how it is- that when katie is late she comes in quietly and just catches up with where they're at. He said the head is very enthusiastic that they support Katie in her journey. I was reassured to hear that as we definitely need them onside.

Super proud of you, babygirl. You're working so hard in every part of your little life.


She had a clarinet lesson before school today- a final practise before tomorrow's woodwind day at the festival. She worked very hard and B took great pains to make sure katie knew she was proud of her piano results and performances.

We cycled to school and managed to make it before the door closed. She was disappointed that there was no dancing today. After parents evening we came home and did a wee bit of clarinet ready for morning. I put her to bed fairly early- she's super excited!