Common problems at secondary school- your experiences

we don't have lockers, as unfortunalty we don't have the space in the school to have them . They kids have to carry a lot, but as we don't have the cash for them to have text books to take home, it reduces the weight.

getting themselves organised is a major issue for many of the year 7 kids.

Changing teachers every hour or so, with changing demands re behaviour etc is also an issue

My DS2, while he was in prep school, couldn't get his mind around his locker, and so used to carry all his books in his backpack. He got told off for this (for obvious reasons), and so had to go back to using a locker. Then he didn't have the right stuff for each less and earned lots of minus house points - not popular with his house captain.

He starts at senior school this week, and he won't have time to nip back to his locker base for anything he has forgotten, as the school is far too big. I am praying that he will up his attitude to having what he needs at the right time.

yes, agree very much with that, scienceteacher. Also losing the keys to their locker padlock and not being able to use locker or get at their books. All the more stress for everyone.

Also, the sheer weight of the books my son carried into school some days was worrying.

But perhaps this was because he should have made more use of his locker.

I think the most common problem for new kids is getting used to having a locker, and packing their bag for each of their lessons.

It's extra hard if they have more than one teacher in any subject, and so have to remember one teacher's book on that lesson, and the other teacher's on the other lesson.

thanks mb and fizzbizz for explaining why there's no holiday homework. That's one worry I can strike off the list!

mb, I wish our school had a progress day like the one you describe.

DS2 haa also had multiple maths teachers some years (most was 4 in Y10) - unfortunately there is a shortage of maths teachers in state schools so this often happens.

I can't spell!

I spell check all my lessons. Can't be bothered to do the same for MN

I seem to have forgotten how to spell! MNET does not mix with work. You will have to give me lines.

Jury service also causes awful staffing problems.......

agree that 9 would be very rare. They might have started off with two teacher though, we do at A level.

We also tend to swap round so that A level and GCSE classes are more 'protected'. I lost all my classes except the A level ones last year. Dh has stablelised out a fair bit, so I'm teaching a little more this year, but I still mostly teach the sixth form

Yes, I thought it would be a rare occurance. It's just a bit unfortunate for the children who are affected. I wondered why they didn't use the other maths teachers myself. Anyhow nephew did get into his second choice of university, so all's well that ends well.

I think 9 teachers in two years would be a very rare occurrence.

Hard to find supply Maths teachers, as they are in such short supply. Surprised they had a non-specialist supply for A level. In that situation it would be more usual to swap in someone from a lower school class IME.

Money. That is the problem. you can't afford to have people on staff, not teaching.

When it happens , and we know that the leave period will be longer, we do call on supply teachers to take up a short term contract (say to cover a maternity leave). These tend to be fully qualified subject teachers, many of them recently retired from full time teaching

If the sick leave is sudden, and short term, then you do have to fill in, either with cover supervisors or other members of the non teaching staff.

But it simply isn't practical to have a science teacher waiting to do a science cover, IYSWIM, on the off chance that someone has flu.

Oh I'm sorry for your DH and your family, Martian .

I realise these things are unavoidable. It just surprises me there isn't more or better institutional backup.

The thing is , things like this are sometimes unavoidable.

I 'lost' my year 11 kids last school year because my dh was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Not only did I need time to pull myself together (teaching is a very emotionally charged job), I also had to spend time taking him to chemo appointments/ see the macmillan nurse/ meet the grief and loss councellors that will be working with my kids, I also needed time to spend with my dh while he was still fairly well.

So while I was sorry to 'let the kids down' I actually had things that I needed to do more. these things do sometimes happen, and it can be unrealistic to blame a school for illness or staff getting pregnant.

My nephew's A-Level Maths group was taught by 9 teachers over the two-year course, including one full half-term being taught by a supply teacher who not only did not have a degree in Maths but did not do Maths A-level and was not competent (in his opinion) to teach the course.

I realise his generally good school did not intend for this to happen but I find the mere fact that it did happen to be quite scarey.

Where I work we try very hard to make sure that the kids get continuety of teaching through years 10-11 (gcse years) and the sixth form. It doesn't always work due to staff illness/ maternity leave, that sort of thing.

We aim to have as many child as possible taught bt subject specialists at GCSE. So they get biology taught by someone with a biology degree, physics by someone with a physics degree etc. This doesn't always work, when it comes to physics, as we are short of physics teachs. So I teach some, but to be fair I do have an A level in physis, and also did a fair bit of biophysics in my degree. So GCSE physics isn't that tough to cover!

At A level children are only taught by subject specialists.

In the KS3 years we all teach everything, buy that isn't an issue as the work at that level is fairly basic

How much of a problem is lack of continuity? I mean in later years, GCSE and A Level where instead of one teacher through the course, there are four, five, six or more teachers? Teachers who didn't really know the syllabus and were just filling in for three weeks or so and marking time?

Don't have teenagers myself but have lovely nephews and this was their big issue.

We don't give homework over the summer holiday either. We don't know who will be taeching them (with the exception of year10-year11 ). But I do think that the kids deserve a break.

Well, our toilets were unlocked at break - when there was a member of staff standing at the entrance - and really we were discouraged from letting children out of class to go to the loo.

yes, we have also had similar, including taps being deliberately left on and flooding everywhere.

Tigermoth, we are only supposed to do one parents evening per year for each age group we teach, although our Y7 tutors do see all parent about 6 weeks into term, BUT, as according to union rules are then alllowed time of in lieu which creates pproblems for schhol staffing.

Also we don't give holiday homework (apart from Y10) as the students don't know what teache they are going to be having

hard to believe, I know. I could hardly believe it myself.

We have had used sanitary pads stuck to the walls as well.

When I went into teaching I was of the opinion that locking toilets was barbaric, now, having seen some of the things that the kids get up to in them (one was set on fire a few years ago, we needed the fire fightersto put it out), I'm not so sure

Oh yuck MB - how horrible - and how naive am I!

Something that we do which helps with the Year 7 thing if for all form tutors to make phone contact with all parents 2 weeks into the new term. Just to make contact and see if there are any issues that need dealing with.

We also have a progress day. School stops for teaching for a day. All kids (with parents/carers) have a 20 minute review meeting with form tutor, checking that they are making progress, if there are any issues in partucular subkects etc. This has over 95% attendence and is very positive.

We can then make priority appointments with subject teachers for the next partent.teacher meeting evenibng, if there is a need.

tigermoth - with any luck your ds's school haven't said why the SATs matter up to now because they simply don't matter. Their results might have some effect on how he is set for GCSE subjects, but most probably not as his work throughout Y9 will be seen as more significant.

and the GCSE/setting information will be forthcoming during Y9. For the vast majoirty of parents and kids, Y7 is too far away from GCSEs to start thinking about it. Lots of things can change throughout Key Stage 3. If the school is on the ball they will start talking to your ds about his options in the Autumn term and there will be (or should be) a parents information evening to discuss SATs and GCSEs.

SATs are only important for the senior managament of the school and how the school is rated.

I think that Y7 is a hard year for the parents maybe more than the pupils to some extent, just for the reasons you give at the beginning of your post - it's a big change from lots of personal contact with the teachers at primary school to almost none. The absence of this type of contact must be hard to adjust to.