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

ds has been writing to a French boy in their French lessons - a pen friend I mean - ds wrote back with the beginning in French and the rest in English apparently - he said how neat the boy's handwriting is (in fountain pen) and said how the penfriend was shocked at the 35 mins we have for l lunch break here !
I wonder, do French children all learn that particular writing style ? my own penpal wrote in that way (her English was a million times better than my French !)..ds' is called Maxime, sounds lovely ! Mine was called Sylvie and when I went to lunch with her they gave me so many courses to eat I was in pain. I explained to ds how the French take food seriously.

Welcome lisalisa

I'm happy to explain national curriculum levels to anyone who wants. I've posted quite a bit on Lisa's thread here

At ds1's school every piece of homework/assessed work is marked as:
above target
on target
below target
(He knows what his target is for all his subjects.)

In addition they are given 'next steps for improvement'.

This is a good system, as it doesn't encourage them just to look at marks and compare with one another; but to consider instead the progress they are making and what they need to do to improve.

In addition he has at least one test/assessment or 'levelled' piece of work in each subject each term, to confirm his CWL (current working level).

my mum is very good at doing things like that - I wouldn't get any otherwise ! - actually, bit unfair as dh occassionally brings me a bunch from Sainsbury's !

tis nice to get flowers

well done bellavita's ds being an ugly sister !!bless him...
moving in has gone very well,exhausting and everything,but they're in and sorting through boxes among the debris of things like a new loft hatch being put in ...my mum tapped on my back door yesterday having tramped up the garden with some flowers - aaw ! (dad has sawed a hole in the fence that adjoins the houses!!)

oh forgot to ask MAS - how has the moving in gone?

Hello lisalisa

It's daunting isn't it? Wondering whether this is the norm or not.

I think your best bet is to let the school guide you on what sets she is placed in and then maybe if you are still not happy, have a word when it is parents/teachers consultation day.

DS has just announced he is playing the part of one of the ugly sisters in Cinderella for his drama play next week .

He has also found out that they are having a school disco (yr7 get their own) on the last friday of term in the afternoon.

At the end of last week he told me that yesterday he would be doing cross country running instead of indoor pe as mock exams were going on in the gymnasium. Well he got that slightly wrong and it was Monday (which is rugby) and although he had outdoor kit, he only had his rugby boots with him. He is not the best runner and came 3rd to last - said he thought he was going to be sick half way!

hi lisalisa and yes, do join us
I am a bit perplexed by grades too..am sure someone can enlighten us. Glad your dd has settled well and try not to worry - am sure the school will know what it's doing - I have no idea what sets ds is in,though I can guess he is in top one for English (by seeing which other children are also in his set and knowing that is one of his better subjects) - we have only had a brief meeting to meet his tutor and an interim report.

Hello - can I join in please?

have a dd in yaer 7 - she is my first child.

It's going really well for dd which is great - lots of really nice new friends and great teachers.

for me - its not going so good. Big wake up call as dd had always done well in primary school - hovering near the top of her form. In this school she was put bottom set for english and middle set for maths. Was initially going all guns to get her moved up for English but Head of year completely disarmed me by looking into dd's results and showoing me exactly where her weaknesses were and that she needed to stay put. She did however say dd was very near the top and would probably move up in a few terms provided she did well.

What i having difficult with is the levels . They seem to be graded for every major piece of work. Whereas at primary school they were given A, B etc - which is easy to undersand , here dd is given 4A for example or 5A on something.

I have just worked out that these corresond to nationally used expectations and that she ( I hitnk ) is exepcted - along with all yr 7 pupils to be a level 4 or 5. is that right? And are they expected to reach level 8 or 9 by GCSE stage?

...

Aww bless!

I'm a bit intolerant most of the time, but surprise myself by being incredibly forgiving sometimes !
Am very happy my olds are so near - for the first 6 yrs of ds' life they lived about 10 mins away and then moved to the West country..we then moved to Hampshire but still 2 hours apart. Now they are so close I think on the whole it'll be great,though we don't want them to rely on us too much - they are getting on but dad is very active and still works,but things like technical stuff (how to sort out the tv,computers,heating etc) will fall to us !

Thanks for that MAS - I am not very tolerant with situations (or my DS's) unlike DH.

How do you feel about them living so close MAS?

roisin - gosh you would think they would give anything to miss languages!

I never expected to hear this from my children:
ds1 said "I'm not going to the rehearsal P5 on Tuesday, because I've got German. I don't want to miss Languages!"

btw, if I'm not on here much this week do excuse me -have not abandonned you all, but my parents have just moved house and are living now just virtually at the end of my garden (house backs on to it) so am busily organising and unpacking !! it's like having two more children though - they are chaotic.

actually, I'd agree with you bellavita - the other boy shouldn't have grabbed your ds' coat in the first place and it's natural to try to grab it back

I wish DS was enthusiastic about homework - well to be fair, if to do with powerpoint etc he will do it straight away and spend ages on it and excels at stuff like that, but as you say when it is supposed to be a team effort and you are not sure what the others are doing..

DS did mention to me about joining the choir (he is tone deaf btw!!) but me thinks he only wanted to join because it got him out of school on some occasions, like going down to the Royal Albert Hall.

Oh, the joys of parenthood

DH has taken both boys into town to get them out of under my feet!

It's tricky when you only hear one side of the story, and you know it's going to be biased? Trying to locate the clear facts within the telling and then deciding whether it warrants further action!

Ds1 has just done about an hour's enthusiastic work on a history project. It's a team effort with 4 people. He was down to design the powerpoint, which he's done superbly, but I'm not sure what everyone else is actually doing

He's gone much less enthusiastically now though to a 2-hr rehearsal with boys' singers for a carol service on Thursday next week.

And he's got another rehearsal/concert tomorrow afternoon.

He enjoys it, but still resents that it eats into his free time.

Well, we have not gone!

On waking up this morning, DH said he spoke to DS last night and although this boy is responsible for DS's coat, it was not quite as he told the story to me.

DS made it sound that he was sat on the bus with coat on and this boy was sat behind and pulled the hood which was buttoned on, buttons flew off, tore material.

What actually happened - DS on bus, coat in his bag. Took the coat out of his bag to put in and the said boy snatched the coat off DS, DS tried to snatch it back and pulled it, this boy would not let go, DS pulled harder and that is when the hood thing occurred. Although a Yr10 boy did tell him off and he was cheeky back as DS said.

Now to me, it is still this boys fault, he should not have snatched the coat it does not belong to him. But DH thinks that DS should not have snatched it back - just ignored the situation and go upstairs to get the bus monitor.

I am a very "black and white" girl - no grey areas, DH thinks things through and has come to the conclusion that it is not worth going to see the parents as DS did some pulling also.

However, the bus monitor is a waiter where I work and he was there last night. I told him of the situation and he is going to give him a thick ear "have a word" with the said child.

luck gah!

oh good luck bellavita - will be thinking of you xxx

I would phone S definitely, and ask them to keep an eye out.

Hopefully by seeing his parents you will be able to sort the situation out. I don't envy you but hopefully the parens will be reasonable!

The school bus does have monitors - and one of the said monitors sits for us occasionally when we go out. I asked DS if S was on the bus and he said yes, but did not see the incident. I have asked him to go and tell S on Monday morning, but on thinking about it, do you think I should ring him myself and ask him to report it? He has always said for DS to go and see him with any matter.

Yes, the boy does live near us, not on our street thankfully, but as you say it will not be easy for DS to avoid him going to school.

I have just read my earlier post back (sorry am rushing - about to go to work) and it sounded as if I was judging his parents working full time - I wasn't, it is just the impression his mum gives out that he is a spoilt little ... and they take it because they feel guilty.

Will let you know the outcome.

Good luck!

I would also report the school bus incident to school. Do they have a system of monitors on the bus?

Presumably he lives near you too, as well as going on the bus with ds; so it isn't going to be easy for your ds to avoid him completely? Though as a family you could try and distance yourself from him as much as possible?