Riordan has made good progress this year with language. Always clear and fluent in his speech, he has good recall and enjoys story time. He recognises all the Letterland characters and their sounds and is now building words from their individual sounds.
MATHEMATICAL DEVELOPMENT
Riordan recognises numbers up to 9 and counts to 18. He can complete a 6-piece jigsaw, recognise colours and geometric shapes and sort for colour and size. Riordan enjoys playing number games and joining in songs.
KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORLD
Riordan shows interest in the world about him and likes to join in the discussions we have. He enjoys planting seeds and bulbs, baking, looking at the day’s weather for our weather chart and learning about topics such as Farms, Life Cycles and ‘People Who Help Us’.
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
Riordan’s fine motor skills are excellent. He draws some lovely pictures and handles pencil or paintbrush with skill. He can thread beads and use scissors and he traces his letters carefully. Gross motor skills are also very good: he runs and jumps, enjoys pushing the prams, and likes to join in playground games.
CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT
Riordan just loves to dress up and role play in the Home Corner with his friends! He also likes to use his imagination with the small world toys. He is always eager to sit at our creative table and paint, draw lovely detailed pictures or make collages.
PERSONAL, SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Riordan has settled well into his first year at school and made lots of friends. He socialises well and is caring towards his friends. He is a pleasure to have in the class: we shall miss him when he moves up to Kindergarten next year! I am sure he will enjoy being in Kindergarten. Well done, Riordan!
Form Teacher: Teresa Allsopp
Chapter 15
Friday 23 July 2010
‘Nothing?’ Mum looks at Dad with a plea in her eyes, as if she expects him to spring into action to correct the injustice. ‘What do you mean, they’re doing nothing?’
Kit and I are prepared. We knew the reaction we’d get. We foresaw the horrified gasp, the quiver of outrage in the voice. We predicted Dad’s reaction too, which we’ve not had yet, but we’re fully covered on that front, because we prophesied the time delay. Mum is the instant responder of the two of them, spewing out her panic in gusts of self-righteous accusation. It will be ten minutes – fifteen at the outside – before Dad contributes anything to the discussion. Until then, he will sit with his head bent forward and his hands laced together, trying to come to terms with yet more unwelcome evidence that life does not always behave in the way Val and Geoff Monk believe it ought to.
Anton will continue to lie across my living room rug, propped up on one arm, talking mainly to Benji about their current favourite subject: a collection of fictional aliens called things like Humungosaur and Echo-Echo. Fran’s a multi-tasker; while making sure Benji doesn’t demolish Melrose Cottage, she will aim regular half-grumpy, half-jokey criticisms at Mum and Dad as a way of shielding them from the larger, more devastating criticism they deserve.
In the company of my family, Kit and I are psychics who never get it wrong. The predictability of the Monks ought to be a welcome relief after everything we’ve been through. Predictably, it isn’t.
‘From what we can gather, there’s a disagreement internally,’ Kit tells Mum. No one would guess from listening to him how miserable and lost he feels. Whenever my parents are around, he plays the role of their brilliant, strong, capable son-in-law; he told me once that he enjoys it – it’s the person he’d like to be. ‘Ian Grint doesn’t want to let it go, but he’s being leaned on. Heavily, or that’s the impression we’re getting from Sam Kombothekra.’
‘But Connie saw that . . . that terrible thing! Another woman saw it too. How can the police just go on as if nothing’s happened? There must be something they can do.’ Anyone listening who wasn’t an expert on the way Mum’s mind works might think she had forgotten that she didn’t believe me at first. That’s what most people would do: say one thing, then, when they were proved wrong, say another and choose to forget that at one time they were on the wrong side. Not Val Monk; no ordinary ego-preserving self-deception for her. She