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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to think that our infant school is the bee’s knees?

22 replies

Stath · 09/07/2021 18:27

We’re coming to an end of an era. Our last DC is leaving the infant school for juniors soon, all their siblings have been there.

The school has farm animals, woodland lessons, a caring ethos of making sure the children are happy. The caretaker even does outdoor dance classes dressed in daft clothes to get the kids involved.

When it snows they take the children sledging on bin bags, they’ve taught them to make placards to ‘protest’ and the whole school has a (non claustrophobic/insular) community feeling.

I’m really going to miss it.

Please can you tell me lovely things about your DC’s schools? It’d make a change from hearing about arseholes!

OP posts:
Original poster
Stath · 09/07/2021 18:27

Didn’t mean to enable voting!

OP posts:
Original poster
Stath · 09/07/2021 18:36

...and they’re not marking children as ‘late’ if they come in before 10 am on Monday after the football.

OP posts:
Betsythecheshirecat · 09/07/2021 19:07

This sounds like such an unusual school! My kids would love it!

AFS1 · 09/07/2021 19:10

Love my local primary school. It’s really big, which I was very nervous about when my daughter first went. (3 form intake when she went, now 4 form intake for my son), but the attention to each class and each child is exemplary. We’ve never had a bad experience with any teacher in 7 years.

On the other hand, don’t get me started on our local secondary school…Angry

Aroundtheworldin80moves · 09/07/2021 19:11

My DDs have been to four/five schools.

At one of them, they mixed reception and year 6 for PE, and Yr5&Yr1. The elder children helped the younger children learn new skills and games.

The older children had their own pe lesson as well, but learnt a lot from teaching the younger children.

cardibach · 09/07/2021 19:14

DDs village primary was like that (she was in Y1 in 2001). So brilliant. It sets them up for life. DD had it all the way to the end of Y6.

MissMeowCat · 09/07/2021 19:22

Where is this mythical school??

Original poster
Stath · 11/07/2021 11:39

@MissMeowCat North West England.

It’s lovely hearing about other ‘good’ school experiences Smile

OP posts:
Bearfrills · 11/07/2021 11:51

Youngest DS goes to a school that has an allotment, gardens, and is on a nature reserve so they get outdoors every day come rain or shine, they run a mile every morning too. DC is autistic and I've never had to fight them on meeting his needs (unlike his old school), they even arranged for him to have the same thing for school lunch every single day as he didn't like the way the hot meal changed on a daily basis. They seem to genuinely care about the children as individuals rather than just one homogeneous mass and they want them all to be happy and settled so that they're ready to learn. During lockdown they set varied work, there was no death by worksheet, and his class teacher still read them a story every day using Google classroom either by video call or recorded video.

Thymeout · 11/07/2021 12:04

Inner London, multi-cultural, high FSM. Yr 1 due to go on a Day at the Seaside. Lots of work in class on this theme. A good number will never get the chance with their families.

Then...Covid. So they hired giant paddling pools, filled some with sand, others with water. A Punch and Judy, an ice cream van and...a donkey.

it's a brilliant school and I'm so glad my dgc had the chance to go there.

Original poster
Stath · 11/07/2021 12:09

@Bearfrills aaaaw, sounds similar to ours.

@Thymeout that sounds amazing!

I think the thing that makes these schools lovely is the general consensus that children being happy make them better learners.

They take their lead from the children and seem to really get to know them as individuals with different needs. Also staff turnover/retention is very low at our school and the leadership excellent.

OP posts:
Moelwynbach · 11/07/2021 12:10

My son goes to an excellent school there is Forest School they do cycling proficiency and have a fun ethos. The head aS outside dancing to football songs last week.

ofwarren · 11/07/2021 12:12

"make placards to protest"?
Protest what and in what way? Not sure I'd be happy with that

Imapotato · 11/07/2021 12:23

My dds village primary was lovely. Not the highest achieving as the y6 teacher was strongly against SATs, even for the children to write letters to the prime minister telling him they should be abolished. They had a really lovely stress free y6 though, unlike most of my dds friends who went to the bigger town SATs factories schools.

Every week in summer the whole school would walk to the local rec to use the outdoor pool and play in the park for the whole afternoon. School plays were great and the real highlight of y5 & 6.

They left their tiny primary well prepared for secondary and going from a school with about 90 kids to a school with 800 didn’t faze them at all.

ShinyGreenElephant · 11/07/2021 12:32

That sounds wonderful! My DD1s school was amazing - like yours it had a real community feel, the y6 buddies up with the reception children and did sports days etc with them, every year did forest school for a full day a week during summer term, the head knew every child inside out and was so approachable and lovely with them. They did lots in the community too like protesting environmental issues, singing / visiting / writing letters and cards to the local care home and organised community projects like a scarecrow trail. I absolutely adored that school, if DD2 doesn't get in then I'll be home schooling her until a place comes up because no other school could compare

Original poster
Stath · 11/07/2021 15:18

@ofwarren

"make placards to protest"? Protest what and in what way? Not sure I'd be happy with that
It was for a book they’re doing about an animal who wants to ‘tidy up’ the woodland and therefore chopped the trees down/paved paradise kinda thing. Don’t worry, it was an A4 piece of cardboard saying ‘please don’t destroy the trees’ not an ACAB sign with petrol bomb attached! They explained to the children what protesting is and why people might feel like they should do it.

What would you not be happy about?

OP posts:
MinnieMountain · 11/07/2021 15:32

My DS is also about to leave his infant school.

They have woodland that all children have a session in every week. There seems to be lots of cooking over fires recently.

There’s a (well fenced off) pond used for nature lessons.

It’s generally a cuddly, caring school.

I’m also a governor there and I’m impressed by how quickly the children who will need additional help to catch up after the school closures were identified. And the work of the staff in general throughout all this shit.

Crowtooyo · 11/07/2021 15:34

Sounds like a really lovely infant school op 🙂

MissMissTorrance · 11/07/2021 15:39

"please don't destroy the trees"
Written on cardboard Grin

Duckduckduck123 · 11/07/2021 15:49

Our primary school has 60 kids altogether and only 5 in primary 1. The P1s spend 50% of their time outdoors, spread between beach and forest school. It's amazing, DS runs out everyday to tell me how much fun he has had

Whiskyinajar · 11/07/2021 15:57

DS is 18 now but his infant school was amazing with him. J is autistic and they put in support over and above what they were funded for. It's because of this wonderful support that DS coped with his first three years of school so well

Stompythedinosaur · 11/07/2021 16:12

My dc go to a lovely primary (it was a first school until a year ago).

It is very small so has mixed age classes, but this works out well in terms of allowing dc to do bits with other year groups to fit in with their needs. Rural community, so they do things like pop to a local farm to see a lamb being born and have lambs to bottle feed in the playground. Everyone gets a role in the nativity play each year.

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