Daughter going to local grammar school, can anyone tell me about the curriculum?

Just to clarify, those were my words, not the school's.

I think I meant some stuff which goes on at indies, a lot of which is window dressing. Sorry, careless.

SoupDragon I was clearly referencing the particular and very wordy guidelines issued by LockedOut's school. There can be no doubt though that a lot of stuff which goes on at indies is to make the parents feel they're getting a good deal, when in fact a lot of it can be window dressing and not in the least advantageous academically.

Shock news : Every school is different.

Well I guess all this intense stuff, however pointless, enables the parents to feel they're paying for something worthwhile. Meanwhile the state schoolers get to enjoy the summer at no cost whatsoever academically!

What absolute rubbish.

DSs are at an academically selective independent secondary. We were given a reading list ( Harry Potter amongst others, I can't remember what else) and they had to read one before starting. That's it. They have never had to do one single piece of work over the holidays at all (bar the ones prior to exams where they are expected to revise).

They enjoyed the summer at no cost whatsoever academically.

I've just remembered, the only thing new Y7s were asked to do over the summer holidays was learn to swim if they couldn't already. The school like everyone to start with basic competence in the water for safety reasons.

Yes I can see that your school does recommend relaxing but in a very uptight way!

Yes, indeed, we can never not respond to parents' or students' requests for advice or information. Our recommendations are only recommendations, though. We do emphasise relaxing above all.

I thought it might an indie be LockedOut! Well I guess all this intense stuff, however pointless, enables the parents to feel they're paying for something worthwhile. Meanwhile the state schoolers get to enjoy the summer at no cost whatsoever academically! Win win :)

Goodbyestranger Yes, my school's independent. I would say around 60-80% of our incoming Year 7 students or their parents ask for recommendations of what to do over the summer to prepare academically for secondary school. So we developed those 3-4 guidelines; it's just common sense really.

LockedOutOfMN I have had eight children start Y7 in the past fifteen years and I can honestly say that no secondary school teacher has ever given me that advice as a parent. My DC all went to the same superselective and I had no advice whatsoever other than that they should enjoy their holidays and come back in September refreshed. Nothing about stimuli at all. What sort of school do you work at? Is it an indie?

I'm a secondary school teacher. To a new Year 7 student, we would recommend spending the summer holidays to relax and explore, which might involve reading or researching (live or online) topics that interest them. Real life experiences, such as visiting a museum or an exciting place (city, beach, mountain, river, etc.), in any country, are great stimuli, but we do realise that parents need to work (and relax) and cannot provide a programme of intellectually valuable pursuits. Mastering something new or persevering to get better at something, such as a sport, chess, musical instrument, a handicraft, cooking, etc. or starting to learn a language, is good fun too - and often there's less time for this sort of activity once term begins.

As ever, we would recommend regular reading for pleasure, which might be novels or short stories or nonfiction books about places, people, topics, etc. Books on tape are also good (e.g. for long journeys).

For those who are very weak at Maths, some remedial work might be recommended to ensure that skills are not lost over the holiday (previous posters have suggested Maths resources).

Lastly, for the transition to secondary school, we would encourage students to start reading, watching or listening to the news and starting to discuss and form opinions about the world around them. The website "The Day" is a good one for this: theday.co.uk/

Both our DDs are at GS. They get virtually zero homework over the summer holiday, though they do get stacks during term time it must be said.

I don't want my going into year 9 to do a thing this holiday. She's on her knees with exhaustion and needs a total break so that she's ready and raring to go into year 9. My middle one is going into year 7. Last year I made him do 4 papers a week, one mental maths, one comprehension, one VR and one non VR. This took about 3.5 hours a week and was only because he was sitting entrance exams in January and although he was at a prep. He also had 4 maths sessions with a tutor to consolidate some bits of the curriculum he was ropy on, again because of entrance exams. This year he will do nothing other than a bit of reading.

Richmal's DD isn't 11, Bertrand. If she genuinely likes doing this sort of thing during the summer then fine - kids are all different. However, the OP will hopefully realise that this is an outlier on the distribution of 'what kids who turn out well do in the holidays'. We're a sciency family too, and my DD has thrived on not doing formal work during the breaks, other than what has been explicitly set (OP - if you're still reading - if the GS had wanted your DD to be doing anything they'd have told you!) - until she was into gcses and now A-levels when it's self-motivated and self-organised.

If my son is doing other useful things, then I'll leave him alone, i.e. seeing his friends, family days out, etc. But if he's spending all day inside watching mindless youtube videos or playing mindless games on his xbox, then he's certainly "encouraged" to do something more educational for an hour or so. I don't think that's being pushy.

Last year he got a fairly low mark in his Maths end of year test, so he spent, maybe, 10 hours over the entire Summer doing some remedial work to improve the areas he fell down on. He also wrote an essay for a national Biology competition which maybe took another 5 hours or so. So, maybe 15 hours across 6 weeks - hardly going to ruin his life!!

This year, he got an unexpectedly low mark in his Chemistry end of year test - I guess you know what he'll be doing this Summer for the odd hour every few days!

I don't see anything wrong in remedial work or doing things that they're not going to be doing in class. But, yes, completely agree absolutely no point in doing stuff at home that they'll be doing in class in the future.

I'm generally considered a bit of a pushy parent- but there is no way I would be scheduling 20 days school work in the summer holidays! Well, I suppose unless the child concerned was really behind and going into year 11 or year 13.

Both of my children had vaguel academic interests that they pursued by themselves if they wanted to- my only involvement was the aforementioned Summer Book thing.

If your child needs a pushy parent behind them, they will most likely fail at university.

Some children want to do educational things for fun and of their own volition and that is absolutely fine, as is encouraging your child and offering them opportunities. Pushing a child who does not want to do this is simply wrong.

'The getting ahead brigade' at grammar schools (with the uber pushy parents) actually skew everything massively for the other pupils. DS is at a super-selective where many, many of the boys are 'pushed' with tutors from Year 7 (and probably back to Year 2). It generally pushes averages artificially high and makes the non-tutored/pushed 'normal' ones feel inadequate.

At some point children have to be left to initiate learning themselves and if your DD is very bright, OP, she probably doesn't need you to get involved at all.

DSis was always streets ahead of me and other sibs but without being pushed by our parents. She was the type of child who would write a musical for fun, read until midnight every night, even read the Bible (and we're not a religious family). We all went to the same school but she did considerably better than us because she was just keen to learn.

Soup I think mine would have dealt with the suggestion with just a couple of words (possibly three for the more linguistically able).

I'm trying to imagine the response if I suggested that either of my DSs (or primary DD) do hours of work during the holiday.

JustRichmal leaving aside the fact of whether or not I'm judgmental about a child doing several hours work a day for at least half the summer holiday, which I demonstrably am (is that a problem?), the programme you describe is very definitely fairly within the Clapham Omnibus Guy's definition of 'regime'.

Today my Y9 has a day off school for inset and has told me that she'll be on the beach all day with a group of friends, all of whose parents seem to be negligent enough like me to waste this opportunity to get ahead with the maths. I'm just wondering how many dictators our small part of the world can accommodate because it seems to me on reflection that I'm surrounded by small dictators in the making. At least they appear to be quite chirpy dictators-in -waiting, which is something I guess.

I am not entirely sure how (if the OP is reading) how preparing or not for secondary school is any different whether it is a grammar school or any other kind of secondary school.

I am with PPs in that encouraging interests or enquiry in anything for a motivated DC is a good thing. Ds would have watched history documentaries (for example) at OP's DD's age because he was interested. He was also very very interested in his Xbox and that PC game where you build a civilisation. Had I suggested he did extra maths during the summer holidays he would have fixed me with a basilisk stare, I am sure. But I would not have done.

My own very limited and necessarily anecdotal experience is that as a DC's school / university (if relevant) career progresses then learning to learn for yourself outside of what you are taught becomes more important.

This is a genuine question.

How will it benefit your dd to have A level Maths at the age of 11?

JustRichmal you were specifically talking about 'fun maths' during the holidays. My comments relate to that.