Anyone with a year 7 starting today?

IPads, wow! My 2 would kill for one of those each!Oh mine craft, my 2 have it on Xbox, and desperately want the even more involved PC version, but I have refused to download it for them on my laptop, or I would never get it back, or have them do any of their homework on it! I am seriously looking at getting 2 re-conditioned laptops for their birthday/Christmas presents b/day in December as well), but only on the condition that mine craft is not all they will do on it, it will be primarily for school work!, or should I be looking at a tablet type thing instead?

That's okay then - generous school ;-)!

It will only be a matter of time before he does get into Minecraft - have had to change the passwords on the PCs otherwise DS would be trying to play it 24/7 when he has homework to do....

we're in Kent gazzalw and rural, so there are no other schools around really.
also the ipad is effectively leased from the school/apple, so if anything goes wrong/gets broken/stolen it's insured by them and replaced.
Ds2 was saying everyone is playing minecraft... good job he hasn't got into it yet then.

Awesome to the IPads but don't they make the children a very real target for muggers from other schools and the surrounding areas? We were specifically told that DSs were only to have very basic mobile phones as all the local 'hoods' know that boys from the school have no phones worth stealing or mugging them for.

But on the subject of IPads, I've just got one and both DCs are on it in the blink of an eye if I leave it lying around. DD (6) has downloaded about five pages of silly Barbie type apps.

Maybe the novelty will wear thin after a while? Is your DS into Minecraft though because our DS is totally obsessed with it and would play it to the exclusion of anything and everything else given half a chance....

Is your DS2 at a school in SW London, Ingles2 - if so, know two DDs of friends who are there and had loads of homework during the summer hols too!

I know takeonboard! it's amazing! ... their text books are ibooks with embedded video for demo's, they're using brushes to create artwork..all great.
except for trying to drag him away from various apps at all hours of the day and night!
Dh agrees wth you and thinks they'll get bored soon enough, I think they should try and disable games throughout the day

An Ipad?!! Lucky buggers! My DS would do no socialising at all if he had an ipad at break time... I am sure the novelty will wear off soon though and they will at least start playing the games together or talking about them

Hi Everyone... don't know why I didn't find this before....
Glad to hear things are going well for you son seeker
and good news that everyone's dc is settling in ok, on the whole.
Ds2 has settled in really quickly to his new school thankfully.
Not had too many worries or issues yet..He's getting an enormous amount of homework and he's not got the best concentration either so that took up nearly all weekend. He's in the grammar stream at a comp but he's getting more than my yr 8 grammar son, so that's come as a bit of shock.
Also this yr, all yr 7's have an ipad on which they do their schoolwork, which sounds incredible and in any ways it is...but they seem to stand around playing games on it at lunch...am not sure ds2 is talking to anyone or making any friends,..I don't think any of them are.
not sure if this is something that should be mentioned to the school or not... seems a bit helicopter parenty but I hate the thought of them standing there like zombies staring at a screen and not interacting...what do you all think?

Our DS, 11, seems to have been a 'Kevin' for about three years.... and we too have had the whole homework issues already.....hopefully in a few months they will just knuckle down and get on with it but it's more than a tad frustrating....GRRR

Humm ...maybe note for 1st swimming seeing as this is her 2nd P ...would she have time to sort her self out before the lesson....she is not going to be able to "do" anything or change it if she is in a rush /panic....oh poor thing I do feel for her ..this is the last thing she need in her first few weeks ....

Oh I sent off a nice boy this morning ......but a "KEVIN" !!came home tonight !!! (no offence to anyone wh has a son called Kevin ...bukwim !!!!)

Oh totally - but interrupting me while I'm trying to explain does not help, dd! .

She also goes ballistic at the merest suggestion of a sigh from me - I have to be careful how I exhale or it is malevolently interpreted!

And yeah, I wish we didn't have to have the tampax issue just yet, but I think it's necessary unless she wants to Take A Note, which I doubt. I did exactly the bath thing with dd1, but she was 14 and relieved to have started at all, so a bit cooler with it, whereas dd2 is pretty flummoxed and ill at ease with it all anyway, so tenses up in every sense I think .

Agree with the "i don't get it/understand what i am supoosed to do= If I keep saying this mum will get so pi**ed of she will do it for me " logic !!!

"WE" have 2 puppets to make for drama for thursday....I told him to make a list of materials he wanted/needed and I would organise that part.....

List so far....1)dunno ..what do you think?
2)paper maybe?
3) if you are going in the pound shop can you get those nice

sweets !

Be prepared for a raving bizzey incoherntly mummbling on about puppets in the next few days !!!

Actually I have loads of ideas (which he well knows !)....but he has got to do it !!!!

RE tampax ...no help as I have got boys ...but I personally prefered lil-ets...but was much older when I tried them......(18 and still stressfull !)...couldn't co-ordinate the applicator ...(still can't ..left it in once ! )

Can' really help with the Tampax issue apart from saying sometimes with youngsters a little KY jelly may help, along with LOTS of encoragement.
As for the mardiness -sorry, got the boy version x2 here, and its doing my head in really annoying, I was at a social event over the weekend, and met a lot of the parents of my two's former classmates, and we are nearly all suffering, must be a "I want to act like a High School kid" thing! Oh, and dont even get me started on the "I don't get it!" with homework, I told them both if they listened properly and asked questions when given their assignments, they would "get it", but, like the teachers words,what I say seems to be going in one ear, out the other. I'm positive its just a ploy to get us to do the blooming homework!

Oh lor, last week's issue was armpit shaving - this week she's got her second period ever, just in time for the first swimming lesson. If I mention tampons she visibly tenses and gets really anxious - not helped by the fact that on holiday she started for the first time and we had a horrendous time when she was desperate to run down to the pool with dad and sister but couldn't get the hang of tampax, so she was sweating and crying in roasting hot bathroom totally unable to work it out (or in, indeed) and now unfortunately has tense and negative associations with trying tampax. However, I doubt she's going to want to be the one who takes in The Note either....

Am going to encourage a long long relaxing bath this evening and hope for the best before the lesson tomorrow.

As an aside, she's also been a mardy git about homework. She had to give examples of human, phsyical and environmental geography; the relating conversation about which went like this:

dd: I don't get what I'm supposed to do here.
me: ok, so you've got the definitions there, so human geography would be about people living where they do -
dd: [interrupts] i KNOW that, I just don't GET IT
me: well, like why people live in cities, or valleys, or near big rivers, and how towns and cities -
dd: [scowls]
me: well, that's ok, isn't it, right, so what about how the cities got bigger in the nineteenth century because people moved there to -
dd: i KNOW, I've googled that, I just don't get what I'm supposed to DO
me: well, say that that's an example of something you might study in human geography!
dd: GNAAAAAAH ....[dramatically buries head in hands on table].

Also, I was doing stuff upstairs, dd1 doing stuff elsewhere, at 8.20 this morning and suddenly became aware of a monologue emanating from the hall along the lines of 'oh FINE if everyone's just going to igNORE me...'

No, dd, if you're having some kind of problem in the hall (couldn't get the back of one of the Single Pair of Plain Studs, No Other Jewelry Is Permitted, on) and you'd like some help but people are in other rooms doing other things, they're not igNORING you, they simply don't know, and you need to come and find me and let me know you need help, not sit on a stair monologuing.

GAAAH. Sorry for essay. Seriously, advice on the tampax issue most welcome, please..... I assume I'll have to ride out the mardiness.

The french homework was found......IN HIS LOCKER!, Madonna I have been emailing it across,I agree about the memory stick as, it theory, is all well and good, but the teacher would have to sort through all the other homework to find the bits they set.
My 2 have spent most of today doing "homelearning", as they ignored my advice to do it as it was set, and suddenly had loads to do before tomorrow. Their mates called and they couldn't go out, lesson learned, I hope!

Thanks Bubby. Don't they love the merits?
I too spend hours double-triple-checking timetables. There is a homework timetable I don't understand. There is homework I mean homelearning I don't understand. However it's all working out pretty well considering we are all making it up as we go along. He's got used to being the slowest in the class.

As a secondary teacher, I would rather be emailed homework than have it brought in on a memory stick, because copying 30 odd files from separate memory sticks is time consuming.

DS lost his PE kit this week. Cue wobbly lip when explaining to DH why he hadn't put it by the front door as asked. Found it in French though, so it's all good.

I am assuming all is well. He seems very confident and comfortable.

I however am fretting about his maths homework being stupidly easy...!!

Sorry, seem to be monopolising this thread at the moment!
Just been told by a friend whose son is in yr8, they don't need to print all this homework off, they can either download it to a memory stick and take that in, or even email it to the teacher! Why don't the schoo tell you this? She said she only found this out half way through last year!

Panic! Sorted out bags for them last night, could not find DS1s French book and homework, asked him this morning where it is and all he could -shout say is that it was in his bag and I have lost it and cant admit it!! Tried to explain its wasn't in the bag, and I am trying to help by asking after it, but he wouldn't listen, finally calmed him down enough to go through what could have happened, and he has admitted he took it out in Geography yesterday, but swears he put it back! I think it is in the geog classroom, but he won't have time to check befor French, which is first lesson,. He has gone to catch bus in tears
By the way, their school day is always divided into 3 x 2session lessons, so only have to carry books for 3 subjects maximum around each day, makes things a little easier.

bubby... sounds a nightmare ....our school do 3x evenings a week "support centre"....(homework club?) where they can acess computers and internet possibly not available at home ...is that available ?

For us I think homework will have got its pattern by next week and we will know what day it will be set and the return date ...and by the 1/2 of the timetable he has done so far (!) it looks like he has 2/3 nights to do it..? Well not to do it ,but before it needs to be in.

Have to say though ..the way ds's time table is planned he has all lessons every day bar 1,....so for the sake of one exercise book I might as well let him keep them a ll in his bag apart from French dictionary ...which is heavy (ish)...might change if he gets given "work books"

I had meeting at ds's school tonight to explain things to us so they were at my mums house ..I got back later than planned and they were in bed...I will go and collect them tomorrow and "treat" ds to a lift to school while the others stay with mum !! I will be back in plenty of time to take the others to school.

Same here for books and boxes, bought them one each to put all books in, and frantically checking both rotas each morning and asking several times whether they have the correct ones for the day! Big problem starting to rear its ugly head here is homework, especially as most seems to be computer based and we have only one laptop and I can't afford the printer ink at the moment, let alone another computer! Causing all sorts of stress, and they are using it as an excuse not to do anything! They just don't seem to be taking on board that if the don't keep on top of it, it will build up so much they will not manage it all in time!

I'm just the same with the books! I've started a basket system with a basket in the hall for her to put any books she doesn't need in rather than scattered all round the house, but am anal about making her check every three seconds her timetable for what she needs tomorrow. She's getting exasperated with me...

I had a panic moment today when I received a garbled text from her at 8.45, thought it said she was coming home but it said the bus was late and she was about to come home but got on it. Well thanks dd for that