It was SO lovely having Kirsty and Ellie here for a few days - thank you for coming girls - you are most welcome any time :)
Now that Kirsty and Ellie have gone, the countdown to school has started in earnest; after a quick recce through the girls' wardrobes to assess our current uniform stock (!) I realised that we were desperately in need of new blouses, cardigans, pinafores (I just don't do skirts at the moment - love 'em in pinnies!!), cycling shorts and a white t-shirt for Freya for PE, and *new shoes* for Anja. Quick scoot in to town, blouses, cardis, PE stuff - no problem. Pinafores - not a navy pinafore to be had in Evesham, and Anja's feet are SO narrow, that none of the styles she tried on in Clarks would fit, even the 'E' fitting. I am resigned to having to fork out the extra £10 for a pair of Startrites, and we are off to Worcester tomorrow to continue our quest, and also for the navy pinafores. There is an M&S in Worcester, so I'm sure we should be OK for pinnies. If it's warm enough next week, they may go back in their summer dresses, but the weather at the mo is fairly poo, so I'm thinking they'll probably be in full winter uniform. At this stage, I am not feeling sad about the fact that my 'baby' starts school next week; Anja is 4 going on 40, with a vocabulary and mannerisms to match, so I am not at all worried about how she will fare at school. She is SO ready for it. Freya, on the other hand, has her Key Stage 1 SATS at the end of this academic year - how is it right that children as young as 5 and 6 are already 'streamed' at school? In Freya's class of 28, they are in 3 distinct groups with differentiated work. Freya's class will be hot-housed this year with preparation for their SATS at the forefront of everything they do; as the parent of the youngest child in the year (I know I bang on about it, but I really feel she's at a disadvantage) it just doesn't seem right that they are put under so much pressure so early on. Do I just need to 'get real' and accept that this is the way of the world? Who on earth will give a monkeys what she got in her KS1 SATS when she's making job applications in 15 years' time? Answers on a postcard, please...
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4 comments:
Jo, I so know what you mean. Justin has KS 2 SATS this academic year, and he too is the youngest in the class, but seems two years behind everyone else, and I know the results will stream him for high school. How unfair is that? I will just have to work very hard with him over the next 9 months. I hope the school do too!!!!
Postcard reply - SATS are wrong!
Sorry - as a headteacher in a school that does not do SATS (Thank goodness we have the choice) they are, in my humble opinion, wrong. Like everything they were started for good reasons but the system is flawed and they end up all too often showing that teachers can teach to tests, ignore everything else and give a very limited curriculum with little breadth and pleasure. In some schools they have brought about real improvements but - sorry - it's a flawed system
When I lived in Rugby I used to love shopping in Worcester, hope you have a nice time.
When I taught year 2 I hated having to do the SATs and push the kids all year into practising for the tests at the end of year and then we'd have about a month to a years worth of fun stuff. I teach in a special school now and we don't do SATs so I get to do years and years of fun stuff. Hopefully she'll get a great teacher who can be creative with the curriculum!
How ridiculous! Claire, when in primary school, told me that the SATS results were only "for the Government", which I'm sure the Head told them LOL So I never pushed her. Only made sure she did her homework. And her year got the best SATS results ever back then. Oh well, she's now finished her GCSEs and off to college, and I don't even know what her SATS results were in Y9!
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