Friday morning

What an interesting and encouraging day it was yesterday.  J and I started off with no great hopes: it was time for the so-called and dreaded 'unaided writing' where the children have to produce a piece of extended writing (after suitable preparation, of course), which is then assessed against a levelled marking grid.  We've not asked them to produce much in the way of extended writing before so we were a bit apprehensive.  However, their efforts and the outcomes both delighted and surprised us.  We must be doing the right thing in literacy lessons after all!
It was a fun subject based on what we've been doing for the past two weeks.  You have to take on board that the Big Bad Wolf (from the Three Little Pigs) was a totally misunderstood character.  He never meant to upset the pigs, he couldn't help damaging their houses but they were so fragile (Materials and Their Properties!!) that they just fell down when he knocked on the door/sneezed.  As for the third house, when you sneeze so hard that you land on the roof, what can you do but climb down the chimney . . .?
Anyway, the task was to be the wolf and write a letter to the pigs saying sorry, explaining what happened and saying what nice thing he was going to do to make amends.

There were lots of funny moments in their writing but the one that amused me the most was what two or three did.  On the whiteboard I usually write my WILFs - What I'm Looking For - in a little list under the heading WILF.  Two or three letters ended up with 'Love from the Big Good/Nice/Friendly/something similar WILF'  Ooops!

After school it was Mr Skittleman.  Mr Skittleman is basically a local party entertainer chap who is brave enough to head up events involving nearly the whole of the Infant department.  It is run by our Friends of the school association and is very, very noisy indeed.  I'm surprised the hall roof didn't fly off.  When I left they were having a dancing competition with Y1 jugging around and the other two years watching and cheering.  Oh, my!!

Today should be good too.  It's a mini-Mantle of the Expert day for Y1.  Teachers will know what that is, or you can Google it.  They are going to be a house design company and they will receive a letter from the wolf asking them to help him design a house for the pigs because, of course, there are three of them living in a house built for one so it's all very difficult and, because he feels responsible, he wants to help them.  As it's my SEN day and I'm leading performance management, I won't get to see much of the fun at all.  Ah well!

And finally - it's cold outside again.  There's a heavy frost which is quite a surprise after the mildness of yesterday.  Wrap up warm time.