Year 10 - 2023/2024 Support Thread

@IThinkIMadeItWorse oh no re heating! What a pain...
@QueenMabby I suspect she's done extremely well. If you know ancient Greek, you know it... the time is kind of irrelevant.

Both my girls and my ward are back in school after a very long but safe trip back from Kyiv in our ward's case and a thankfully less long drive back to the boarding house for DD2.

Not sure DD2 - in Y10 -has focused on any actual work yet (just music) but we've set her a challenge to ensure she uses her prep time for work this term. She gets an hour and a half prep time at night and spends an awful lot of it playing tetris as they still have their computers.

This doesn't seem to have impacted on her grades so far but I think that the workload will catch her out later as the music won't slow down as she gets closer to exams. Last night she was writing her programme notes for her first lunchtime concert and kept calling me to read them to me. Like I am any help! Also trying to ensure she actually reads some books - something that seems to have gone utterly by the wayside in the last term.

She did no work over the hols (they set none) so I'm a little antsy. All her friends at the local school she's left had absolutely tons. And exams this week.

@MissyB1 that's great that's parent's evening went well. It's such a relief isn't it. Ours is not till April!! It is hard to get the balance right that's for sure what with sports and music.

@IThinkIMadeItWorse good luck to your DD with her upcoming exams, that's quite a lot, hope they go well.

@WriterOfWrongs welcome! Hope your DS feels better soon. Did he miss out on the musical?

@QueenMabby I bet your DD did well in her exam if she's a fast worker and well prepared. My DS did his grade 5 music theory test in under 30mins when he had 2hrs to do it and my heart sank when he told me as I thought he might have missed out questions or something - but he got a distinction!

@QueenMabby they are "mid-year assessments" so I presume she will have another set at the end of the year! They are doing them for all subjects so three for languages, english language and lit, all three sciences etc.

Had an email this evening to say that the heating is now not working at all so school may be closed tomorrow! They have someone there trying to fix it. I guess we will find out in the morning.

Hi all happy new year! We had parents evening on Monday, mostly very positive. He needs to pull his grades up in maths and chemistry, but having said that both teachers said he works steadily in class and no issues with his homework. All other subjects were very pleased with where he’s at.
I find I do have to keep reminding him to go and do some work though!
There’s a lot on with school musical rehearsals and sports matches, it’s hard to get the balance right.

Happy New Year all! Hope those who are ill feel better soon, there seem to be some nasty bugs going around.

DD is in the midst of Jan exams, two today and two tomorrow and six more next week. Heating at her school is broken in some areas so that is not great, they are hoping it can be fixed on Monday. It will be interesting to get the results of these exams as I don't really have a feel for how DD is doing and what her predicted grades are likely to be. She has set herself high targets and did do some work in the holidays but not huge amounts, hopefully she is getting the balance right.

Hello! I’m re-joining after being on the Year 9 thread at the beginning under a different name, before being off MN for a while.

DS is also ill (no vomiting, just a headache & cough) which is a shame as it might prevent him from going to see a musical with his school tomorrow.

DD vomited this morning when it was supposedly first day back. Her sisters have both been ill too so I think there must be a bug going around. There’s a 48hr rule so needs to miss tomorrow. Not the best start to the term/new year. 🙄

@QueenMabby good luck with your DD's mock. What subject is it?

We've had a good Christmas and I think the DCs have been able to relax quite a bit, although they have been ill through the holidays too. Absolutely no school work done during the holidays yet. They go back on the 9th so will have to do some homework at the weekend.

Ds broke up weds. He's had so many tests and mock exams the past few weeks. So he will be glad for the rest. Ds2 is home for uni and has so much work to do, so no rest for him. He's driving back to Brighton Boxing Day as needs to use the library. So it'll just be ds3 for the rest of the holiday. Ds1 has been travelling since January, currently in Australia. So he is not here this Christmas.

@SB1971 there’s a LOT to be said for a happy DC with decent mates (and the not failing bit too!)
Mine broke up last Thursday afternoon and we’re currently all away in the snow and feeling a bit more Christmassy. It’s definitely a break from it all as everyone was pretty exhausted. DDs report gave grades too but as two - so 6/7; 5/6 etc. Very helpful and included where to improve. Now to heed the advice.

Ds will turn 15 on Saturday, it’s always tricky having his birthday that close to Christmas! We have booked breakfast out at a fancy cafe, and in the afternoon he just wants to meet mates in town. I always feel a bit sad because it’s hard to arrange a day out two days before Christmas. But for his birthday present we’ve bought a tour of Old Trafford (he’s a big Man U fan) to do in Feb half term, so something to look forward to.

Hoping all the ill dc’s have a good rest and recovery over the holidays.
DS broke up last Friday and has been out and about with his mates to Nando’s and power league and is karting with his football team tomorrow but is still managing to chill.
His end of term report was mixed as usual-great marks in Maths and Spanish and then fairly average in everything else.
He isn’t failing anything and is happy with a good bunch of mates so am thankful for that.

@DataColour @IThinkIMadeItWorse , fingers crossed everyone improves and relaxes for Christmas. It's such a long, busy term. Not surprised everyone is run down.

DD2 broke up on Friday. The last two weeks of school were very stressful, with the worst day being the one when she fainted in a music masterclass, and I got a panicky call from her music Head of Department promising to be more sensible with her timetable next term. This will make her grumpy as she wants to do everything!

She's pretty much recovered now, but I think the change to boarding and music school (and indeed just very full on independent school) has been a shock. On the plus side her report was really lovely, and she's definitely been pegged as far more hardworking than she is.

Big sister doesn't break up until Thursday - so at least DD2 is having a bit of a rest when she's not practising and seeing friends.

DD finishes today thank goodness. She is so exhausted. She has exams in January and school have suggested that they should be revising for an hour every day over the holidays(!) but I think she really needs a break. Not got too much planned for the next two weeks but I'm hoping to take her to see the Wonka movie. She likes just staying at home and relaxing/reading/drawing so I expect there will be a lot of that.

Thankfully ds broke up last Friday. We’ve had end of term assessment scores and all were pretty good except maths (which he has always struggled with).
So he’s got some maths to do over the holidays. Lots of his friends are away now so I think he’s a bit bored. I’ve offered cinema/pantomime etc but he doesn’t want to do them 🤷‍♀️

How's everyone's DCs doing?

School is not breaking up till Friday for both of mine. They are very tired and run down/ill this week. DD went on a 2 day trip to France end of last week (we are in the NW) so quite a trek and came back tired and ill. Unfortunately it is exam week for her this week so she'd had to soldier on. She's given her lurgy to DS who's also got exams this week. Can't wait for it it all to be over.
DS got his report yesterday. A mixed bag as is usual for him. Mostly 6-9s but a few 5s and even a 3 for music which we knew was coming because he completely disregarded his teacher's instructions on what to perform for the assessment and was subsequently marked right down.

I'm kind of glad that mine don't need to have a laptop at school it'll be another thing to worry about! DS comes home looking like he's been dragged through a bush backwards as he and his mates hang out after school in the park and I don't think a laptop will survive for long! DD is not dissimilar to be honest. I wouldn't trust her to keep a laptop safe either.

On a positive note, they have both been selected to compete in the inter school cross country competition. DD is in year 9 and the fastest girl in her year and DS is up there too, although not quite the fastest, but the pick 2 girls and 2 boys from each year group and they've both been picked! DD mainly happy because she gets to miss lessons!

That’s the nice thing about chromebooks - you can chuck it out the window and log in to Google Classroom and MS Office on another device and just crack on.

My DC are at private, but the next school along is a state secondary and they all have laptops. I presume parents pay? Or maybe the school orders billions to get a good bulk discount and you order from the school.

Ds school is a private school, but it was the pandemic that was the catalyst for them insisting on laptops I think. We buy them ourselves sadly, although now we’ve had the disaster we’ve bought reconditioned from Dell this time.

The next issue is ds says he didn’t back his work up to the one drive 😫 Life lesson!!
I assumed all the kids work would be backed up on the school server somewhere, but no one seems able to tell me!

@DataColour @Oblomov23

Yes, DD2 is now at private school - she was at a state comp until Sept but now has a government funded music and dance place at one of the specialist indies (lest anyone think we could actually afford this ourselves!). That's why she boards - she's over 100 miles away from us.

She has to bring her device to all lessons and all homework is on it - and her very, very complicated and ever changing schedule is on it too.

They also have an Alexa skill - hilariously - so if I wanted Alexa to remind me when she needs her PE kit, she would. Obviously I don't.

I worry she'll forget how to handwrite..she's really wedded to the laptop now. It was all paper at her old school. There were a couple of state schools locally that were into providing iPads (or making parents pay for them on expensive finance). They were academies. DD's LA secondary wouldn't have been able to require that.