School report aibu to punish him? WWYD

[Meloncholymum]

Help!

My son has just received an appalling report for his end of year. Basically he hasn't reached his target grades in nearly all subjects and his class work and prep is 'unsatisfactory'. DH is furious and I am disappointed - he is exceptionally bright but clearly not doing the right things to achieve.

He is a full time boarder and comes home some Weekends and holidays - which we thought was the right thing - but I am beginning to question the decision.He is in year 7

DH is threatening to take his beloved xbox and birthday present away and to make him work all the summer break.

WWYD - is it unreasonable to punish him or is this report just a reflection of him adapting to big school?

[ThatVikRinA22]

pushing a child to achieve if they simply cannot do it is like trying to roll treacle up hill.....messy, not productive and ends in a huge mess.

why not just accept that he is having problems. talk to the school. My dds school give several "mini" reports throughout the year, so we can monitor whats happening.

she was dx as dyslexic at 15. She had real problems putting what was in her head on to paper. With help, she has done much better, but i cannot ever ever see the point in punishing an under achieving child - there will be a reason. find it first.

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

I agree red HE would have to do it whether he was at a state school or a boarding school. I've lost count of how many people on mn who say that kids far younger should be independently doing their homework. Or be allowed to stay home for half an hour while mummy goes to the shop. I think people are just trying to make the op feel bad about having him boarding and ignoring the fact that 11 year olds are old enough to take some responsibility for their learning.

[WhiteBirdBlueSky]

YABU to consider punishment for this.

[Shitsinger]

Do you actually care how your son feels.
This is making me feel sick - as long as your investment pays off and he gets the grades .Poor child.

[echt]

My school has a very good rule about reports: no surprises. If the school has been doing it s job, then persistent patterns of poor work habits/lower than expected attainment should have been picked long before the end of year.

Don't they have interim reports? These are usually tick box, mostly work habits-based. Your son's school is not doing its job.

[hettie]

mmme... well I think one of the things that it's important to remember is that there is a difference between ability and motivation....For me there was often a big gap between the two... I didn't do a stroke of work (over what I absolutely had to to now be thrown out) for much of my secondary school career. I still managed to achieve good results (although below what I could have attained). Motivation (work ethic- call it what you will) is a hard thing to teach or enforce, partly because it's related to fairly stable personality traits....You sound in danger of getting cross with him and focusing on what he does rather than understanding who he is... maybe he is a bit of a (smart) dreamer and will need to find something that really flicks his switches before he 'applies himself'. Does it matter? Does it matter what he does/ends up doing, or does it matter who he is (is he happy?)....

[McGeeDiNozzo]

OK, I'm ex FT boarding, and I went to a school in the rear end of Yorkshire which had exeats every 3 weeks. Perhaps I can help.

Before that, all the people laying into the OP for the initial decision to send her kid to boarding school - it was actually the boy's decision, so cool it.

Some observations:

1. It's probably not likely that he's missing home. In my experience not very many boys were homesick, and the ones that were weren't really treated with a lot of sympathy by the other boys.
   

1. Peer pressure is much stronger in a boarding school environment than in a day school environment. On days, you at least get to go home to your parents and get away from Alan McSmell and his Cunning Plan to Superglue Mr Sproston's Hand to the Desk. Boarding, that is not an option. You will be pressured during school, and then, if you're unlucky enough to live with your pressurer(s), you will be more-or-less co-erced into pillowfights (yes they do happen), 'dorm raids' (where boys from one dorm go into another dorm and whack everybody with pillows) or the old Take Dave's Mattress And Hide It Two Floors Away in the Library game. So you'd want to check that he's hanging out with the right crowd.
   

1. There's just no point in taking away his exeats. I never, ever came across anyone at school who had been kept in over the weekend because their had taken disciplinary action: only ever the school.
   

1. Which brings me to my next point... expectations. Boarding school is a frightening mess of expectations, not necessarily of academic excellence, but of behavioural excellence. There are squillions of petty rules. Staying in line can be difficult, particularly if you're brainy - you'll want to rebel against the massive pressure to conform to what seem to be deeply unreasonable standards. At some schools, it's also difficult if you're not sporty, because excellence at rugby and cricket gets you a free pass with some teachers, and the reverse gets, well, the reverse. How to get around this? Find other extra-curricular stuff to be good at. It might be drama. It might be music. It might be computer programming. There is always tons of stuff to do.
   

1. Finally, prep time. With a softie teacher or a bored sixth-former on duty, it's easy to muck about in prep time, and I'm assuming your son does. They did in my day. They once glued a set of encyclopaedias to all the desks, one book for each desk. But the simple truth is that if you don't get work done during prep time, you're very unlikely to get work done at all. There is so much going on at other times. I can't stress it enough - he's got that 1.5 hours to do his work, and he should damn well use it!
   

I can't think of anything else at the moment but I'm sure I will later. Feel free to send me a message outside of this convo if you want.

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

I'm sure the op would live to have her child home. If you read what she's written you will see that her local state schools are crap. To you know what happens when people move around alot? They can end up with massive gaps in their education. This is exactly what happened to my dp who left school with appalling literacy problems. My six yr old can read better than him. This is because his parents didn't think stability was important and changed his schools constantly. And because they didn't fight to get him into a decent secondary. They made do with the shitty local one which failed him big time.

So yes I go think the op has the education of her son In mind as opposed to wanting to pass over parenting duties.

If you are lucky enough to not have to make that decision then good for you. But you only get one shot at a child's education. Schools vary enormously and we all want our kids to attend a good one rather than make do with bad ones just cos someone else may disagree that boarding is the right thing.

[sashh]

I have no experience of boarding (other than Harry Potter and Enid Blyton).

But

I think when you transition from primary to secondary, from secondary to college / VI form, to uni then if there are going to be any wobbles it will be in that first year.

He is 11.

He wanted to go to boarding school. Did you just say 'yes OK' or did you have any expectations?

I worked with someone whose parents basically said she could go to boarding school as long as her grades were at a certain level, if they dropped she would have to leave.

Maybe draw a line under this but make a plan for next year, with him, you and dh and the school.

If he wants to stay there he has to work/behave.

He is doing enough and many 11 year olds do just that, enough.

[cory]

For those, laying into the OP:

she has already accepted (in repeated posts) that punishments are not the way forward - you can stop agonising about that bit

she has explained why her ds is better off at boarding school- she does not explain the exact nature of her work, but it is clearly one that involves international travel, so she can't take him with her

she has also explained that their home (presumably for work related reasons) is in an area where the ds would not have access to friends

and that local schools are inadequate

[AmberLeaf]

Can anyone explain why level 7 at year 7 is appalling please?

Or are we talking about some other level 7 that I don't know about?

[primallass]

Yes but cory all those things are choices. The parents do not have to live and work somewhere that makes it impossible to have their children live at home or have any friends close by, they choose to.

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

So everyone in the army, or in the medical field, communications field or any job that could require regularly moving or possible temporary transfers or postings it training should just not have kids or give it all up despite the end prospects mean supporting your family well. All be side some strangers disagree with boarding.

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

Beside? Because-iPhone fail

[AmberLeaf]

There are lots of parents with children in boarding school who are not in the army.

For them it would appear to be a choice, but tbh being in the army is also a choice.

[SoupDragon]

Can anyone explain why level 7 at year 7 is appalling please?

I am assuming it's because his effort is appalling and the comments about his attitude. The school has set targets for what he should be able to achieve (in their opinion) and he hasn't. There is nothing wrong with L7 unless you are actually more than capable of achieving much higher.

[cornyblend37]

Amber I also can't understand why L7 at Y7 isn't acceptable.
It's above average surely?

[Helpyourself]

wheremy I think it's more that, for whatever reasons you send your DC to boarding school, as a parent you have to acknowledge that the input you have into your child's education is different than if they were coming home every night.
You can't influence a child who isn't physically present for most of the year in the same way as one who lives with you.

[Alwayscheerful]

OP - I sympathise, I/ we have a DSS, at an independent day school, his reports are "dire" at the moment, not so much the results, which vary from good to below average. It is the attitude we are cross about, reading between the lines he is lazy, disorganised and occasionally disrespectful to teachers and other pupils. It's the classic case of class clown and dreamer, my DSS is a minimalist he will do as little as he can get away with. I feel some of the posts are harsh on you, can we please have some posts about motivating boys like ours.

[cornyblend37]

was he actually formally assessed as working at L7 at y6 or was this the Y6 teacher's opinion?

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

Level -4 level 7 level 50 it doesn't matter. If he's not putting work in and pudding about in class that's not ok just cos he still happens to do better than your kids. It's the la l of effort the op is concede ed about. Something that's not a result of boarding as he should be working independently wherever he was.

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

Pudding? Pissing-iPhone strikes again

[Hullygully]

My dc are at a day and boarding school (state). I know lots of the boarders, and their parents, and what you describe is a widespread problem, Meloncholy. Apart from the children who are very self-motivated, the rest have a fantastic time and do the minimum of work. Drives their parents insane.

[JRY44]

May I ask why you thought it was the best thing that he was a boarder, with just some weekends home? Does he have siblings? Maybe he is bright enough to think that if he misbehaves and doesn't work then you will take him out and he can come home?