Starting secondary support thread 2

DS finally has predicted grade for English and its a 7. So that's good, he is very good at English when he does it but that's not very often and a 7 requires effort.

That's a shame they don't do the Maths challenge - neither of mine will do any extra schoolwork clubs but Maths Challenge just takes out of schooltime - at least main and Kangaroo do - not sure about Olympiad as DD said she deliberately got Kangaroo last time "to avoid extra work of Olympiad" Not sure if that's true but she has done that trick a few times now. I think entering top third makes sense though schools have to pay. I don't know why they don't ask for contributions though - sure a lot of parents would be fine with say £10 to enter a child as long as it didn't stop other children whose parents couldn't / wouldn't pay.

That does sound like a day off attempt is looming though its like going back to work after a week off - I'm lucky work from home. I always remind DS that he knows its school tomorrow and he is going night before (or earlier) so we do the conversation and any strop before the morning. Find sometimes a planned treat after school can help like saying there will be a chocolate cake after school on Monday as going back to school after a holiday is rubbish so need a treat.

Got a 3am e-mail from DD "Blueberry's (Rabbit) asleep now on my bed in the cat house thing because I've got rabbit calming music on the TV for him." Wouldn't be amazed if she has ADHD but she seems to manage - she scores very probable in ADHD tests and never sleeps and always hyper. So now the 2 hyper bunnies are together.

Its 25 questions in an hour - if you go on that link you can see an example past paper. Both mine have done it a few times and seem to be happy enough to do it though some questions are strangely written so I did spend 30 minutes going through one with DS as he's ASD and will stress out at anything different. DD is in year 8 and did the Intermediate this year, it was few weeks ago and is for up to year 11s, again 25 questions. There's also team challenges and DD did those at primary and won the region. They wouldn't take DS as he's ASD, grrr. That's in fours so yours must be individual, our other schools don't enter teams.

They can get gold, silver or bronze, then higher than that is Kanagaroo and higher again is Olympiad. Kangaroo and Olympiad are extra rounds but separate. Junior is up to year 8, DD and DS have done it since year 5 but there's no allowance for age. I would imagine both mine will be sitting it this year but school don't tell us until 2 days before and its a new school for both this year. Our primary entered everyone and grammar entered everyone but current school entered top 10 of year 8 in Intermediate and other comps she knows entered none. Seems to vary by schools who they enter. It's good for the kids good at maths but they read out everyone's results so must be harder for kids who aren't good. DD always comes top of school and DS does well do so mine like it in as much as you can like a maths exam.

Rabbits are getting neutered asap though atm are only 9 weeks and vets wants to do vaccines first. They are separated now but the male did get on top of female for a second before so hoping no babies, think female is too young but we will see. I also seem to be allergic to their hay.

Is it the junior maths challenge? If so its this: www.ukmt.org.uk/individual-competitions/junior-challenge/

The cat was initially scared of the rabbits but is now we've made our room a cat only room she's back on the bed purring with me. They are both very cute but the boy keeps trying to jump on the girl and the girl is having none of it plus neither are neutered so they are now separated. Girl is very happy and calm. Boy is hyper but has at least given up trying to get female one! Been to vets to book vaccines and neutering and run is on its way. DS has the girl and DD the boy. Asked DS if he had done any homework, he has apparently started his portrait so not much done. DD has started reading 32 books, has done a lot of helping with tidying to earn rabbit money!

DH has agreed to two house rabbits and we are getting them tonight - they look very cute but hope they will all get on especially as I'm the one who will be home all day with 2 rabbits and a cat. The one rabbit the man initially said was female then male.

We have had a big campaign mainly by DD for a St Bernard or White Mountain dog. They are lovely but was very grateful when vet said would kill cat through stress. So then we get DD saying when will cat die, how many days.

We had agreed pre vet but said DD would have to earn £1000 for it, doing tidying etc at £10 thinking there's only 5 years until she leaves home but she started helping with things at a much faster rate than anticipated. However, being a teenage girl the money got diverted to clothes as apparently you can't go to a party in outfit you have worn before.

Then showed her article about boy hatching an egg and she went over to ducks. DH agreed but then started arguing ducks for sale were ugly so no to that duck Then i spotted a lionhead bunny that needs a new house showed it to DH and he went aww so told DD and got told she loved it, its fluffy and perfect and fluffy. DH agreed if she tidied room so now looks like we are due to get it.

Hope get van back soon Dobbins I had bought 60 bulbs and some plants and DH did some gardening yesterday, asked him if he had planted them all - no none of them. Did you trim any plants? No What did you do? Well I spent an hour getting a plant out of a barrell then the barrell broke. So about as successful as his raking leaves, we he spent an hour raking but didn't put any in bin and it was very windy. 😂 I thought he may deliberately be being bad but says he loves gardening.

DS has an Orville obsession thanks to his old Headteacher saying his brother was just like DS and obsessed with Orville. So he had to watch Orville, he often sings it, he often goes looking for ducks who he names Orville, Orville has been mentioned a few times today and this was 3 years ago I used to love Orville too, now its mildly annoying!

DD has done her annual tidy of room and half the kitchen has now been found. Her 32 books arrived, she apparently got in an extra 5 once I agreed. DH has promised her a fluffy rabbit for tidying her room, will see how cat and rabbit on - DD is keeping it in her room. DD was considering getting chicks and the cat licked her lips at the word chicks so she will be disappointed with a rabbit. DS was getting very excited about owning Orvilles but says he prefers fluffy rabbits.

No sign of any homework being done though did get DS to go through a junior maths challenge with me otherwise he will have a strop on the day with any questions that are unusual Of course they had 3 questions wrong and need DS to advise them, he seemed to get rest right though we stopped at question 22.

Murders 😂

Not sure what's got into DD but after refusing to read for a few years she's just ordered 27 books. She did say a boy had told her she needed to work harder and think about what she was doing with her life if she wanted to go to Cambridge. She did work reasonably at primary, forced hard at grammar but has done very little since starting comprehensive but seems finally to be turning a corner. I love the boys at DDs school. 😂

DD said to DS she couldn't leave the house as her hair needed washing and DS told her to be like a boy and not care or spray some air freshener on your hair as that's what girls do.

DS has also chosen his year 9 options - engineering and design and tech then art and drama.

Food tech was rejected as you can find lots of recipes on the internet yourself so why bother going to school for that.

Business studies you can teach yourself off YouTube in 10 minutes from home per hour in school.

Music, well you could get a job related to that, but if you did all your other gcses were a complete waste of time and you shouldn't have bothered going to school for those.

Dance is just annoying and what is the point of it really what is it?

So last two options are least worst ones I am told.

I asked DD about homework club and she says its mainly for chatting but ours is apparently invite only.

DD seems to be very decisive tonight - she has chosen GCSE options, which 6th form and Cambridge University and gone through data for universities and GCSEs results for 3 schools by each subject. She has googled how many Oxbridge entrants every school in UK has.

DD now is telling everyone she is going to Cambridge University and she keeps getting me to look up data on which schools send most. I managed to get hold of our schools GCSE subject results online by each grade, they are on compare school performance website data download but have to download whole of England to get them, 77,000 lines of data to get 200!