In just under two and a half weeks the school year will be over and my son will have left Year Four behind him. It hardly seems possible that he’ll be starting Upper Key Stage Two in September. This morning he will have experienced Transition Day as Year Five awaits and probably for the first time I think I’m the one who’s more nervous about the outcome than he is.
He’s had a little while to get used to the idea this year as we’d had a school newsletter the weekend before last telling us that we’d know his class last Friday. We’d talked about all the possible scenarios and who he would and wouldn’t like as a teacher. We then discovered that the newsletter was wrong and that the children wouldn’t find out until this morning and we as parents would know this afternoon when we receive their end of year reports.
On Friday we did get to find out who the three Year Five/Six teachers will be for this year. Two he knows from school and one is a new male teacher. He’s already decided he wants the male teacher. He’s had a male teacher in Year Four and he’s really enjoyed the experience. I’d been worried this time last year about how he’d get on as he has so few men in his daily life, but he’s responded well and is always coming home full of facts he’s learned in class. The fact that homework has been rather erratic this year might also have gone in his current teacher’s favour!
This year the children have been asked to make a list of the three children they’d like to be in the same class as and to ring their top choice. My son and his bestie have picked each other but there’s still a chance they won’t end up together.
As for the teachers, I don’t have a preference, I guess it’s nice to have some knowledge of them, and the two current teachers in school have both spent time with my son, which is helpful. My biggest fear every year is the time it takes my son to settle into a new class. It really takes him the whole first term from September to December to adjust to a new teacher and new classmates. If you consider that he’s about to complete his sixth year at the school, that’s a scary amount of adjustment time, and I’ve always felt that a lot of him being behind is down to this ‘lost time’ each academic year.
I don’t know if my son’s confidence has grown enough over this year that the adjustment in Year Five will be quicker. He surprises me at every turn so maybe he will again this September. As much as it would be lovely to see him catch up academically to be level with his peers in all areas, I’ve had to accept that that probably isn’t going to happen in Primary School. I will bypass the grades in his school report and concentrate on the words that have been written about him instead. Have his teachers grasped the qualities that he does have? We will see. I only have to look at the child how has covered my living room with various Lego creations and small world adventures, to know that he is creative, inventive and a problem solver. Those skills will see him well in the years beyond school.
Transition Day as Year Five awaits and I’ve been sitting at home hoping that it’s gone smoothly and that he’ll be full of smiles when I pick him up from school later today. Fingers crossed.
Do you know who your children’s teachers will be next year yet? How does your school communicate the change to you and your children?
We don’t know. Transition day is not a big thing in our school and it’s usually the first thing to be sacrificed from the calendar as the end of term craziness kicks in. Reports are due on Friday so we’ll probably find out then.
I know some schools spend the last two weeks of term with their new teachers but I’ve never understood what they do with those kids going up to Secondary school.
It sounds like your boy is really growing in confidence and is ready for the change. I hope today went well.
We are off to look around my youngest girls new school. All her teachers will be new with us moving house x
It all went wrong as they’d put him in the wrong class due to an ‘admin’ error, but thankfully it was all resolved overnight and he’s thrilled with who he’ll be with and his new teacher.
Our teachers don’t change unless one leaves. So it’s 3 teachers and the head teaches class 4. N has loved having the male teacher this year (similar sporadic homework) and has him for another year before going in with the head for strict year 5 and 6. Because its a small school all the teachers know all the kids. His transition day in Monday.
I can’t imagine a school that small, I thought we had a small one here, our Head doesn’t teach in class either. Hope Monday goes well