Year 10 2024/2025 - come and join!

Fantastic news on the work experience front! I'm glad he's got a good placement sorted.

I have pretty much given up on DS getting a decent grade in French. Despite learning at school since Year 3, multiple trips to France and French immersion course last summer, he can barely string a sentence together. His vocab and pronunciation are shockingly bad and he has no interest in improving. I make him practice but it's like getting blood out of a stone.

We’ve finally got work experience sorted last week after DS emailing a massive list of places and a huge load of no’s - we’d almost given up on finding anything computer related but he fired off an email to our local uni asking if he could do it in their IT support dept, and they were super helpful so he’s going to the Infrastructure and Networks team which sounds like my worst nightmare but he’s really excited 🤓 He goes last week in March.

Just had his Autumn Term report and it’s a bit of a mixed bag. 9s for maths and computer science, 7 for History but 3s for Spanish and English 😬 No grade for Science because they haven’t marked it yet he says (from before Xmas - so not sure what’s going on there 🤷🏼‍♀️). He’s going to Barcelona with school in a few weeks and then to Spain for our family holiday too so that should help but we need to up our game on the English. He only needs a pass really which he isn’t too far off and anything better is a bonus.

We haven't had any information on work experience yet, its in the school calendar, so I'm assuming it is happening, my eldest didn't attend this school, and I don't really know any other parents very well, so not at all sure. My eldest went to my DSIL university, and DS would like to do the same, unless they insist on the kids being local that will be the plan (she's in Lancaster and we're in Hampshire so he'd get the train up and stay with SIL for the week).

First day back today, heard more about him sliding in the snow on the way home than about lessons. He also doesn't seem to be getting much homework, he is in prep 2 hours a week and only seems to have another hour ish to do at home. He has an extra hour of art a week as well and uses that to keep up with art homework.

I'm a state school teacher and haven't noticed any efforts to reduce my workload to keep me! I do hate setting homework because chasing the kids that haven't done it is such a ball-ache, the same kids who do no work in class also do no homework. One of the many reasons I moved ds out of state was that he was set maths homework exactly twice in year 8 - there are definitely some lazy teachers out there..

Re previous posts re homework, my DTs seem to have minimal homework which spooks me. I am guessing some state schools have reduced homework massively following prior teacher complaints on workloads and trying to ensure they can recruit/keep teachers.
we have exams end of March I am hoping that will stir my two into making notes in what they have learnt to date and trying out revision techniques 🤞.

we have got work experience placements sorted.
latest saga is trying to sort silver DofE volunteering!

How's everyone doing on the work experience front? DS is coming to my workplace with three other students. I don't drink so will be stockpiling the chocolate for that week.

Yes, would be good to know if there are any apps or tutorials he could work on for coding. He puts together things in Roblox Studio and Blender and did work on a Unity Junior Developer program, however it was not working properly on the website. There must be self-learning stuff they can do.

DD gets hardly any Computer Science homework either. It's her favourite subject so she would happily sit doing that one!

DS has Y10 exams March/April time. He doesn't seem to be getting much homework, nothing for computing for instance and he is looking to do computer science at Uni. However, he has done all the other homework he had over Christmas.

Happy New Year all.

DD is back today and I'm tomorrow. She has spent so much of the holiday doing Art coursework the workload is phenomenal. She also has some tests coming up these next few weeks.

Her first report before she broke up was really good. So she's feeling good.

Hope it's good term for all your DC

Happy NY! DS still has two INSET days before he's back. We've been trying to gradually easing him back into normal routines, but he's resisting. He has homework to tackle tomorrow but I'm back in the office so will have to check his progress in the evening.

Would anyone be interested in taking a pair of tickets for An Inspector Calls off my hands?

They are for the matinee show at 2.30pm on Wednesday 28 May at the New Wimbledon Theatre.

Seats are stalls A16 and A17 and they were £45 each, any reasonable offers considered!

We're now going to be away over the May half term

My DS is writing flashcards for some subjects. For others he's supposed to use his exercise book.

Hello all, wondering if you can help. I want to encourage my DS to write notes for the topics his done this term. What's the best way to do this? How are your DC's capturing notes? Is this through workbooks or are they using school books?

English Lit seems a crazy thing to do early. It's really hard!

@Walkingbkwrm you can have both! However it’s getting the balance between having enough time and prolonging the agony, especially as there are so many exams to do and often 2 in one day. I do exams access and if students are having regular rest breaks I limit them to 2 minutes no less than every 30 minutes. It can be a really tough decision and there really are far too many exams!

It’s so tough to decide @wonderstuff . We tested that last year but he takes too long to refocus after a break and he was losing so much time after each break before he got his head in gear again (apparently you have to pick one, you can’t have both). Depending on how it goes we might reappraise for next year’s exams though as he has been a bit better at that recently.

Would rest breaks not be better than extra time @Walkingbkwrm ? Take a minute and refocus after each question.

He took his big sister’s spare coat, it’s not as warm, but I’m sure he’ll be fine.

Stumbling along here is probably the description.
DS1 doing English Lit a year early (his whole year are) and paper 1 is at the start of January. I am panicking it’s all going to go horribly wrong. He gets extra time due to ASD but the problem is he can’t focus for that long! One practice question sort of ok but totally wipes him out. 3 in a row…..Plus he’s winding himself up into a panicked state about it and also not focusing on revision because of all the distracting disrupting Christmas stuff around.
Trying to stay calm and supportive- not helped by parental health issues atm.
Glad your DD is doing ok @36and3 and hope you found a coat from somewhere @wonderstuff !

DS off to Germany today, school drop off at 7am, find out at 6:30 he’s lost his coat..! He realised this at the weekend but didn’t think to tell me.
Mind you I’m here at work 40 minutes early, have I got anything done? Nothing. ADHD is strong today.

DD seems to be covering the same topics in year 7 as DS is in year 10, although obviously at a more basic level. I'm experimenting with resin so she and I made model animal and plant cells at the weekend. They may end up on the MN FB tat thread once GCSEs are done in a few years 😁

DH took DS to a Christmas Carol Dickensian feast/play yesterday. DS turned down the opportunity to wear Victorian costume but he stayed awake for the whole thing and seems to have enjoyed it. Hopefully he'll retain something for his next English lesson.

It's frustrating, isn't it? The phrase "you can lead a horse to water..." springs to mind.