Year 7 Summer Term !

school report today - seems fine but nearly every teacher has commented on his shyness/quietness/lack of confidence which really does seem to prevent him from shining in class - I know he has loads of ideas etc but he just can't push himself forwards - obviously something to work on. Hoping that his singing lessons will boost his confidence anyway. I sometimes want to say 'look here - he is funny and clever and can sing and draws fantastic things at home ! ' because he is so reticent to do any of that at school - gah !
Good for roisin's ds1 !!

Well done to your DS and his history essay. It must be great, as a teacher, when you find a pupil has done a really good piece of work.

Roisin - the girl told her. DD was even more that she seemed quite proud of it.

How does your dd know this happened? Did the pupil tell her or a teacher?

Aww... bless. Ds1's history teacher thanked him today for cheering him up. It was late at night and he was marking a huge pile of history essays, feeling very tired and rather fed up. ds1's was right at the end and he said it was superb writing and made his day.

My dd doesn't even want us to come and watch some play she has a minor part in - she would be most at that!

!

OMG!I just can't imagine ringing DD's school and demanding she be put on the athletics team. DD would disown me and beg for foster care! But at least now you know what to say if your DD won't do something....

DD has now realised that we are not THE most embarrassing parents in the school. That honour has gone to the parent of a classmate who phoned the school and complained that their child had not been picked for the house athletics team and insisted that they were chosen. DD was .

Yea for GrapefruitMoon's DD!
I showed DD the Junior Maths Challenge website and she noticed that if her friend had got one more point she would have got Bronze too (they read the marks out in class). She wasn't sure whether to tell her or not.

My dd got a bronze too! Her ex-best friend (long story) got a silver but dd was able to trump that by getting a 6A in their tests versus ex-BF's 6B [petty emoticon]

Yes it's interesting about single-sex schools. Where we are there is still an all-boys and all-girls state school - used to be grammar schools before they got rid of the grammar system in our area I think. They used to be very over-subscribed but since the mixed schools have improved drastically they are less popular now and the mixed school is impossible to get into...

Yay, well done LGP's dd and roisin's ds

Well done to both

Hey well done LGP's dd too!

well done roisin's ds and LGP's dd !!!!!

Level 8 is amazing! Well done Roisin's DS!

I have a little boast proud mummy moment too. DD came home and said she got a bronze award for the Junior Maths Challenge.
I am really pleased for her.

Can I have a quick boast proud mummy moment?

ds1 just got his results from his maths test (that he didn't enjoy as it was so challenging) from earlier in the week (see post above).
He got a Level 8!
He was the only one in his half year group to get L8. And he isn't even 12 yet.

It is interesting how it varies by area. There are no single sex schools in our part of the world at all, the only one I can think of is a private school on the other side of the county.

No, it's a mixed school. There are no single-sex options round here, but I would necessarily object to them, unless there was a massive focus on sport.

Roisin, does your ds go to a single-sex school and if so how are you and he finding it? (I am already agonising about secondary school for ds1 - think a mixed school would suit him better but he is unlikely to get into one in our town so it is either single sex here or try for a selective mixed one in an adjoining borough...)

ds1 doesn't get loads of homework, and it does tend to go in cycles - ie not very much at this time of year.

But he is often really inspired by about 50% of his homeworks, and I usually end up trying to persuade him to hurry up and finish it and spend less time on it!

This week, for instance, he is working on an optional homework that his history teacher suggested he might like to do. He's creating an animated powerpoint (it's rather good, actually) for him to 'teach' the lesson to the class! Apparently a few weeks back his answer to one of the teacher's questions spoiled his thunder, so Mr.S. has suggested ds1 do the lesson instead. (ds1 worships Mr.S. and usually spends hours and hours on his homeworks.)

That's interesting about targets Roisin. I think DD's school must fall into the ticking the box category.

Yes, Grapefruit, we did get more homework in the old country, didn't we? So I'm on a learning curve about what's expected of them here. But your worry sounds the same as mine - sure I'd love to believe that DD is a child genius, but I think she is just an averagely bright child in a school with low expectations. Their 5 A*-C at GCSE was 38% this year which is well below national average. But on the other hand it is a friendly school with good pastoral support and they seem to be dealing much better with behavioural issues than they did a couple of years ago.

The target thing varies from school to school. Some set easy targets so they can tick the box that everyone achieves their targets. (Do remember that many students 'drop' between KS2 SATs and the start of secondary.)

Other schools set very challenging targets without a real expectation that many students will hit them!

Before the demise of SATs there were ceilings for yr9. KS3 SATs went up to L7 only in English (and it was very tough to get a L7), Science and Maths went up to L8.

But now that SATs have gone these ceilings aren't really there, and many schools are actually accellerating students more. So ds1's school has plans for early entry GCSE in Maths and Languages in yr9, and then to go on and do AS/A levels in yr10 & 11.

LGP, I think you are originally from the same country as me? One of the problems I have is that I think I got a lot more homework at secondary school than is common in the UK - can't remember the first year specifically but it was common a lot of the time to have several hours homework every night.... I remember once visiting my cousins here and was very surprised that my cousin who was doing his A levels had time to sit around chatting and listening to music on a school night.

I have similar feelings about my dd - she often complains about being bored at home, homework seems to have tailed off considerably and we also had embarassingly glowing reports from all her teachers at parents evening! We actually spoke to her form teacher who said that it is a very academic school (which is true - gets very good results for a non-selective school) and not to worry about dd being stretched enough - apparently she often sees her doing her homework at break/lunch time so maybe she gets a lot of it done before she gets home...

But I must say that I am slightly worried that standards overall are low if dd is deemed to be so good - she is certainly bright but not exceptionally so imo.

I totally agree, Roisin. I was quite pleased when she was put in for the Junior Maths Challenge and found it really difficult. (Which reminds me, I wonder when they get their results.) Level 6-8 would be very hard I imagine, as I suppose that would probably cover topics up to the end of year nine. Well done to your DS for being able to tackle it.
Oh yes, and another funny one from the Science teacher - he said her target for Yr 9 was level 6 but she had already achieved it. I've heard other parents at the school complain that their children were given really low targets - surely children coming in with good level 5s shouldn'be given level 6 as year nine targets? It worries me that the school does not have high expectations of its pupils.