to ask what year group is worst

8 and 9!!

I actually quite like teaching year 9 most of the time. For me year 8 are the worst. As a previous poster said - they are often silly and immature. Pupils who were sensible and hardworking in year 7 seem to come back after the summer completely changed.

In Primary, Year 5 and the last 6 weeks of Year 6.

In Secondary, Year 7 boys and Year 9 girls.

Two years ago: Year 9
Last year : Year 7 (much better now they're in Year 8)
This year : Year 7 again

I'd have said in the past 8 and 9 but some of our Year7s are coming in nowadays with attitude, extreme immaturity & neediness.

Year 8 or 9. Increasingly year 8 as time went on. I suspect hormones increasingly hitting when they are less mature has an effect.

I suspect my child protection friend would go for older where they have more freedom to get tangled up in external influences, but for routine school matters, the GCSE years are more focused and purposeful.

In my experience years 8 and 9. Although 8 is more the loud, silly disruptive behaviour with lots of friendship issues and 9 the more cutting, premeditated difficult behaviour with more bullying and issues with boys. That's in my experience of 6 years of teaching at a girls school anyway.

9

My DD is just finishing year 9 and it's been a breeze, in fact years 7-9 have been great, so much easier than primary school. My DS has really struggled in year 4 and can't wait to see the back of it. Guess every child is different.

Re: year 8 being immature - I know they're 12/13, but so many of them literally regress over the summer after being mature and sensible year 7s!

(This may also be coloured by my current year 8 cohort being particularly challenging)

YEAR 8!

From a teacher's perspective, they're the forgotten year.
Year 7 - new to the school, being a bit babied, get lots of attention
Year 9 - can be a bit grim, but we're trying to get them ready for GCSE/get them to pick the subject
Year 10 - mostly focused, past the worst of puberty
Year 11 - hyper-focused on GCSEs, lots of attention/intervention
Post-16 - basically adults for the most part, can normally be trusted to get on with things

Year 8 are (sorry to parents of year 8s!) normally silly, immature, get less attention from staff due to all the other year groups, hormones are flying and they're comfortable enough in the school to start playing up and pushing the boundaries.

My gosh. This sounds like the twin poster. One popular but deviant child and the other, quite ordinary.

It sounds like your child is being annoying and preventing others from learning. Start parenting

Oh God...ds1 is about to go into year 9 and has almost overnight turned into a surly teenager glued to his phone and hiding in his room unless eating or going out. Fun times ahead.

@dancingdemon
Yes!!!! I’m on first name terms with head of pastoral care and I’m not proud of that.
We try and be the best parents we can and be a straight forward functioning family and do our best to keep communication lines open with our DD, but the truth is she just doesn’t care! She is loud, obnoxious, dramatic and rude and it breaks my heart. It’s had a huge bearing on our whole family.
She has no interests other than her friends and music. We’ve tried to get her involved with so much, but she isn’t interested.
Not sure what to do other than to just try and get through these next few years as best we can.

Ex-teacher.

Yup, year 9.

Although I'd rather teach year 9 than primary any day....

Yr 9. But also, it sounds like the HOY was talking about a specific year group who have been difficult all the way through, rather than every year group being hard when they hit year 9.

My old head always used to say it was year 9 where things often disintegrated

I was on an exclusion course last year (for governors). Every example the course leader had involved Year 9. He said in his, very extensive experience, it was generally Year 9 boys.

DS1 is year 10, and one of his classmates was expelled last year. School had handled his behaviour etc until then, until a combination of puberty, access to alcohol, drugs and eventually knives, brought it to a head.

Year 10, they're far more mature.

My DD is year 9 and it has been the toughest year of my life!!!
I have been into school more times than I care to remember over various issues. Fallouts and behaviour most times.
She is absolutely raging with hormones and it has been an endless battle and I cannot see any end to it at present!!
My son on the other hand has finished year 11 and has absolutely sailed through school without any issues whatsoever. He is polar opposite to his sister!
I’ve 2 more to go through teenage years as yet 😳

Year 8/9. FML.

When I was at school it was year 8/9, I went to an all girls school and my god it got quite bitchy when we became about 13.

Everyone was falling out with someone, girls testing boundaries at school (no longer sweet good behaved yr7s!)

What age is year 9?

3rd year in Scotland was bad as far as I can remember so approx 14yo's