Have we got a starting Secondary School Support thread?

do people shut their kids of from the outside world
As things stand with a 'no deal' there won't be much scope to shut kids off from the outside world.

Car manufacturers are announcing shut downs for up to 6 weeks from 29.4.19, police leave has been cancelled from 29.4.19.

Will schools be open after Easter holidays, with medicine, petrol and food shortages?

redsummershoes do people shut their kids of from the outside world? In what way?

'big school' can be scary and intimidating.

I wonder if we do our children a big disservice by shutting them off from the outside world (often) until the end of primary school.

I hope all your dc adjust well and are able to be happy and confient soon!

Sorry to hear that hades

Have you managed to get her to talk about it?

You'd dropped off my TIO. Will catch up.
Dd spent 2 hours in tears at school today. It's starting to fall apart after a great start.

Well my DS hasn’t told me someone has hit him but his eye is swelling up! Am taking him to the docs tomorrow as I think it must be some sort of infection. He was worried he’d get a detention for being in late but I said not for going to the docs.
So far this week: 2 detentions and 1 merit point!

Sorry some of your DC's are having issues- hope it gets stamped on quickly.

Talking of YouTube vloggers there is a yr 7 girl (although not in Dd's class) who has a YouTube channel -one of her videos has 3.6m views !! DD says she has a group of fans that follow her around like puppy dogs. DD thankfully isn't in any of her classes as DD is top set and the girl definitely isn't !

Sorry DD is being bothered stillGilesand the form tutor isn't being helpful. It sounds like the boys need a severe bollocking and splitting up at the very least

They are apparently supposed to be seated in alphabetical order and boy girl boy girl except ones ignored that and sat next to dd and she's sandwiched between two of them

Seems they also kept taking her stuff too and trying to creep over to her side of the desk.

De ja vu....

That's lovely redsummershoes well done to your DC. at the conflict over losing out on some lunch break.

Your poor DS marioncole. I hope it's a one-off, not that it should ever have happened in the first place. Must be worse if he's feeling unsettled still, I'd keep an eye and have a quiet word with the school if you are getting concerned.

Sorry DD is being bothered still Giles and the form tutor isn't being helpful. It sounds like the boys need a severe bollocking and splitting up at the very least.

DS2 had a minor incident on the bus. A boy (also yr7 but not anyone DS2 knows) very rudely demanded DS2 move as he said DS2 was sitting in his seat. (it transpired DS2 was sitting next to the boy's sibling). DS2 gave a sarcastic reply about the seat not having his name on it and that's not how it works. The boy continued to demand, DS2 refused. Boy hit DS2 on the head with a plastic container that had fruit salad in it(!). DS2 still refused to move so the boy squeezed in. I'm quite shocked DS2 sat down stood up for himself. He ended up without any blankets the first night of the residential as another boy took his, and has had a lot of low level crap like that through primary. We've been telling him he needs to sharpen his elbows a bit.

He left some homework at home that was due in today. The teacher has said that he can hand it in first thing tomorrow.

dc has been invited to lunch with the principal.
for good overall conduct apparently.

dc is not happy to lose lunch break but is proud as can be

Oh nomari . Kids can be so nasty can't they

I hope the shits get sorted out!

I came her to say that the good news is that after mucking about when they had to work together with dd, trying to get her onto trouble for making a mess which she had nothing to do with and being rude to her and kicking her all through an ict lesson they were finally told off.

However I'll leave you to guess the response from her form tutor when she told her they Had been kicking her chair and kicking her all lesson

First time in the thread but in need of support 😟

DS had just told me that a kid punched him on the jaw today. He didn't know them but apparently they were friends of someone he was hanging around with. He doesn't want me to say anything to school because he says if he gets a 'reputation' then nobody will want to be friends with him.

He's been struggling to settle, he was very anxious in week 1, he's been saying the lessons are boring. All his old primary school friends seem to be loving it and he just isn't 😟

I was talking to my stepbrother (our parents met and married each other when we both adults and had long since left home) at the weekend and he was telling me that his son racked up about 100 detentions in years 8 and 9 and a couple of fixed term exclusions and is ok now. He's just started in the sixth form and he's at a very oversubscribed school in one of the poshest bits of the same London borough as me, and they don't let just anyone stay on.

DS1 just back from going to the school library to use the printer there for homework booklets. All good. The ruler is an extra one. TeenTimesTwo, he probably has more than enough stationery to do that but needs something to keep things together in at home.

elkiedee 2 sets of stationery, one for school bag and one for homework.

They are strict now, its hard on them. DS though used to put himself in the timeout room at his old school for peace and quiet. 😎

My DD is also nervous about detention, I almost wish she'd get one so she can see it's not the end of the world! They get a one hour detention after clocking up a few offences, such as not having the right equipment, uniform issues, being late, blah, blah.

Homework hasn’t been too bad here. School use an app for work tracking, so dd2 doesn’t have to write it all down in her planner. This is worked well so far - work appears as it should, dd2 accessing it ok etc.

Work also seems to be set with a week to do it, and is (so far) due in on a day where that lesson is timetabled, so hands in in lesson. This is a huge improvement over dd2’s prep school, where she had to remember to hand in homework on random days as well as planning for lessons etc. She is doing well with trying to get stuff done in the week, but we will need a weekend catch up too - probably 50/50.

She is still very wobbly going in, but that transition has always been hard for her. She is ok when there, engaging in lessons, and joining in various clubs and activities - she’s in the netball squad, has auditioned for the school play, and is getting to grips with music lessons etc. All in all, I think it is going ok.

Dd2 is fixated on the fact it doesn’t feel like her old school, and I’ve been trying to talk her through that - she has a very rose tinted view of her old school (not that it was bad, but she is very much focusing on the bits she loved), and I’m trying to remind her she had plenty of days where it was ‘just school’ there too.

It’s hard, but she will get there.

Penguins, that fear about detention is so sad. Glad the form tutor is being more sympathetic but I'm really worried by secondary school detention policies.

My DS1 left his long ruler out on the table where he was doing some homework last night, hopefully he's got taken a smaller one in his pencilcase, and there won't really be a problem with him not being considered Prepared for Learning.

DS got 4 homeworks yesterday.

Form tutor got DS a free locker in the end but he's refusing to go near it on the grounds he will lose the key and the rest of his life will be permanent detention. Form tutor has offered for a staff member to keep key for him or leave it open. He also said DS is much happier now so maybe settling. He says his form tutor and Head of House are nice.

DS has joined the Drama club. This is brilliant because he's very loud and articulate and loves an audience (and is bloody good at creating drama), but he's slightly worried that he's one of only a small handful of boys who've joined. I've told him that this is a good thing because there'll be less competition for male parts. Hope he sticks with it. Only minor down-side is that he has red hair and this term's production is 'Annie', so everyone's telling him he should audition for the main role, which is winding him up a bit (we've had lots of ginger-ist bullying over the years). Hopefully that will die away after the auditions next week and he'll enjoy the rest of the club.

He has Welsh homework to do tonight. That'll be fun.

Yes homework is starting to build up now. I've done a little plan so they can do 30 to 45 minutes a night and get it all done in time. I left dd to it in year 7 and 8 and she just left everything until the last minute and rushed it so I'm being tough on them now.

Ds is actually using his locker. I paid for it when dd started but she never used it so I'm glad my money isn't going to waste anymore!

He has rugby yesterday but wasn't keen as he said everyone was cheating. Today is a good day for him - drama, art, science, dt and computing - so he went in happily! The difference so far between dds experience of y7 and his are worlds apart. I thought she'd be fine and he'd struggle but it's been the opposite. That really comes down to her being an anxious person who overthinks and him being pretty blase about stuff. People have taken the piss out of him but he gives as good as he gets whereas dd takes it to heart and goes silent. I'm pleased he isn't finding it hard but feel sad that it's been so tough for her.

How are we all doing, the homework is really kicking in here this week so the weekend will be busy! Have to make sure she doesn't leave it all until the Sunday night like I used to

Good that so many of us are going to have millionaire YouTubers 😎 Maybe we should all start that ourselves, pay seems much better than MN. 😂

Ah DS was a wanna be youtuber until we went on holiday and he realised if he kept up with his Lifeguard training and got stuck into Spanish lessons he might be able to get paid to sit on a beach in Spain.