School holidays

.. suppose could always use teacher training days like a 'holiday' and do something special/nice with small peeps to make it feel more like a holiday, than a hassle?

good point about easing them in trinity but at 8 years old school is hardly a difficult traumatic place to be!

We do always try to do something nice on training days as cinema round our way is mega cheap if you go before 12 - bonus!

I just wish the playcentres would run for the half weeks that they're off

How nice of you to call teachers 'little darlings' Trinity! And yes we do need to be eased back in gently.

Afraid there's more to teaching than just putting out the plasticine nowadays though. Have you seen what 7 year olds are expected to be able to do?

yes,

I must admit that I feel a bit scared about my poor only -just -4 year old and what she's expected to achieve, now that our school has decided to only have one intake a year.


Think it is qutie frightening that she'll be starting her formal education quite so young.

Yeah tell me about it I was amazed by the potential stress that my son could have been put under when, at age 6, he was made to take SATS! Luckily his year 2 teacher was fab and she made it totally stress-free for all the kids, just made it feel like the normal lessons he was used to but with a bit extra added on.

I'm sure in some countries they don't even send them to school until they're 7, let alone test them!

However, I must say, when I was looking for schools closer to home I did base a lot of my judgement on the league tables which are formulated from SATS results I think?

'tis true, I think so.

mind you, when I was a kid, most parents seemed to know the 'good' schools and the 'bad' schools, just from their reputation (might be a good thing, might be a bad thing?)

SATS only tell you so much tho' cos to a certain extent, their achievement or otherwise will be determined to an extent as to what the intake was like vis:

school in an area where parents value education and have given their children positive socialisation experiences, probably fairly certain of getting at least reasonable results.

School in an area where this is not so, and with a high % of statemented children, less likely - but that school might have actually bought the children on a lot more & to that extent have actually achieved more, though apparantly 'valued' less.

BAH

Both my primary and secondary schools were pants! My parent's weren't to know though, we didn't have as much of a wealth of information or access to such back then!

Totally agree with SATS only giving a somewhat blinkered view though. I really liked my son's first school and I thought his teacher was fab and the children were really friendly, it was just way too far away to travel to in the morning.

However, it is 60% Muslim (has just been featured in the local rag as being first in the area to offer halal meat at school lunches!) and, of the other 40%, a great deal is made up from other ethnic minorities.

A lot of the kids there were pretty fluent in English by the time they were set to leave for secondary but, at my son's age at the time, there were a huge amount who couldn't speak English at all and, as well as being probably quite difficult for the teachers, probably reflected badly on their SATS report, not because they weren't bright, just because they didn't understand what was being put in front of them?