pfb -in fact only child - off to secondary on Thursday...

It may be MidYIS tests they are doing this week.

CATS are thought to predict outcomes at the end of KS3 and I think that schools also use them to predict targets for pupils as well. I had a look on nfer nelsons website and after looking at a demo test was rather glad it was DD taking them and not me!

ahhh - DS has a note in his planner about doing CATS tests later on this month - not sure what they are though?

Home even lol

DD came ome with a letter today stating that Yr7 will be doing 3 Nfer tests on Thursday and Friday - Am I right in assuming that these are CAT tests????

oh gosh - I just must have a hard heart

Will anyone confess to feeling a bit nostalgic about the primary school that your DC has just left? I do. I have to go back twice a day to take/pick up the other 2 and it feels so odd that DS#1 isn't there anymore. 7 yrs is a long time. Primary seems so small and friendly in comparison - little red brick Victorian buildings - and I can still go and chat to the teachers if I need to and I know lots of the other mums - in fact quite a bit of what I've heard about DS's new school came from mums of boys in his class who still take siblings to the primary. I got quite sad walking past the Yr 6 classroom this morning. Get a grip eh?

Erk@teacher turning up really late!

DD's hoping to do her presentation today - last night she was doing more to it! She's got scans of all the books in the series to hand around the class so she wrote a synopsis of each book underneath the front cover scan!

At the moment she's tending to do any homework as it comes in. I'm just hoping that on Friday she doesn't have a shed load that needs to be in on Monday as we're off to London Friday night to see her beloved Chelsea play on Sunday and go to the Natural History/Science musuem on Saturday We won't be back till late on Sunday night. I suppose she can do it on the train as we go down Friday night, but not ideal!

Crikey I can't believe we're into the 3rd week already.

MD at English teacher off sick already: that's not a good sign, is it?

One of ds1's teachers forgot to turn up to their lesson and arrived really late he said! Ha ha ha!

Homework and routines going well here. Most departments seem to have complex systems basically to reward effort and achievement, so ds1 is putty in their hands, as he loves that sort of thing!

So far we are trying to have blitz homework days (Saturday, Tuesday, and Thursday) and then keep other days completely free so he can chill. He is enjoying that approach so far.

The IT teacher gave himself lines - there was a worksheet for them to do but wasn't given out phew! So DD is feeling alot happier! English teacher was off sick so they didn't get to do their presentations.

MAS -sounds as if the oat crunchies met with your approval

I know what you mean about cracking the whip a bit when it comes to homework Bellavita. Hopefully they'll soon realise that once it's all done they can do as they want!

DS1 seemed to have a good day.

Haven't really spoke to him much as he has brought an old yr6 friend home with him and they have gone straight out, stuffing their faces with homemade chocolate and marshmallow muffins.

MAS - glad the oat crunchies were nice

aww magenta for your DD, hope everything is ok with homework.

Yet again, DS1 was sooooo slow with all of his homework, he kept moving from room to room (switching tv's on) in the hope that I would not realise what he was doing and everytime I herded him back to the dining room. If only (and I hope he will learn this pretty quickly) he got down to doing the blasted stuff he would have more "him time".

His problem at the moment is he does not read back through what he has written or typed out on the computer. He had some music homework to do on his favourite band, did it, printed it off and put it in his file. When I looked at it he had repeated both paragraphs

He is having one of his old Yr6 class friends over for tea tonight so am hoping he does not get much homework otherwise he is going to spend all tomorrow evening catching up.

Heres to hopefully a good third week.

I think perhaps well no perhaps I was reading more into the IT homework then it was.It's more than likely a question of listing features etc It was just a shock to see DD going from a manic happy enthusiastic child adding stuff to the presentation at a rate of knots and generally being very excited at doing it - she even said she was getting butterflies about doing it to bursting into tears. *I wanna go back to spellings,sums and reading for homework

ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH! At 7.15pm DD rang me to ask if I'd bring her favourite book round to her dad's. She's got a presentation for English to do tomorrow and decided at 7pm that she wasn't going to do what she'd been working on in class. I spent ages scouring the house looking for said book and eventually found it so hot footed it over to her dad's. DD was really getting into the presentation and it was great to see her actualy enjoying doing something school work wise.

I just happened to flick throw her planner to see if she'd done all the homework and realised that her ICT homework had been written down in next weeks section! The homework was to compare Microsoft word with openoffice. I asked DD if she had got her ICT excersise book or work sheets on the two systems DD replied that they did all ICT work on the computers at school and hadn't been given anything to take home. Now I have internet connection and good old google told me what exactly open office was her Dad doesn't. I'm also wondering how many of her class mates have it I'd suspect not all of them. I asked DD if they'd looked at both of these software packages in class and she said they had but she only knew how to do things on Word and had only seen openoffice once in the lesson. And promptly burst into tears! The waterworks don't normally work on me I'll add. I told her Dad to put a note in her planner saying that DD was unable to do the homework as she had only come across the once in the lesson and wasn't too sure what she needed to do. I don't think DD has written it down wrong and I know it would only be a question of writting a couple of things down on each of the software packages but surely they also need to have been given something to actually be able to compare it at home. If she'd say been given an English assignment that asked her to compare two set poems I'd expect her to at least come home with the poems so surely the teacher should have given her something wich perhaps listed something about the two different software packages?? Rant over!

We got told that any school coat had to be black and no logo's on it and hoodies were banned. DD is very much a hoodie girl hence me buying the cheapest thing I could as I had my doubts as to how much wear it would have! I'm thinking a brollie might have been a better option as school is literally a 5 min walk so her chances of hyperthermia are lessened!

Hope everyone's DC has a good 3rd week!

Oops pressed too soon! I just wish they could have a locker it would be so much easier.

Hmm well she has got a school raincoat (supposedly for pe in the rain?) but apparently NO-ONE wears those!!!

I didnt like wearing my coat either but at least i had somewhere to put it! I can definately understand why she wouldnt want to lug it around

I'll have to get her a locker cos her schoolbag is getting heavier by the day!

It's jacket length with a waxy finish zip up the front and was a bargain in the school shop. Whether Madam wears it further then the end of the street is another matter as my school coat never reached the top of our street when I went to school!

Magenta - what is 'plain black raincoat' like? I am struggling to think of what to get for dd1 that will keep her dry and is not too bulky as she will have to carry it round all the time (including lunch)! Heaven knows what she will do when its snowing.

DD is one of those children who's thermostat is set to high all the time so I don't actually have any worries about her freezing in her sweat shirt on route to school so I bought her a plain black raincoat to stop her getting wet which is also small enough to be put in her bag or locker. We were told that any coats/jackets etc weren't to have logo's all over them

She informs me today that the PE teacher on wednesday is a bit mean as she gave out detentions for 5 girls ( might have been more) that weren't wearing the regulation socks - 2 of the girls had track suit bottoms on so how she checked to see if they didn't have thm on I'm not too sure - I have visions of her getting all track suit clad girls to roll their trousers up! DD was very vocal about these socks and detentions I have visions of the PE sock 1 protest!

She's a bit worried about English due to the fact she writes really slowly I think it's a left handed thing as I did too at that age. When she's got time to write stuff she is ok but give her 15 mins to write a page and she panics. It's not the actual composing of what she writes she's got a great vocab it's the physical getting it onto paper bit, that showed up in her SATS last year. Hopefully she'll learn to speed up. I think she's also worried her teacher will think she's lazy and can't be bothered. I've bought her a special pen for lefties and hopefully that will help her.