Year 7 the lost generation

[Marzipan12]

I've heard this a few times now, the thinking is that year 7 have missed out more than anybody else. This annoys me surely at this point every year group has missed out. My child is year 8, missed over an entire term of year 7, disrupted learning so far in year 8 and home learning for half a term. Every other year group has missed the same. Some year 7 parents think their kids have missed out more, regardless that they had time back in school to finish year 6 and didn't miss an entire term of their first year in high school. I would say this puts year 7 at an advantage over other year groups. They certainly are not the lost generation that some are making them out to be in fact they are one of the more fortunate year groups.

If it helps, OP, my dd and her friends all agree that year 8 was the most pointless year of their education. If they could have missed out any year at all, that's the one that they would have skipped.

@Marzipan12 YABU.

As a few posters have said, EVERY school year, and every generation has lost a year of their life. (It's actually ending up as more than that, and will probably we a year and a half before we are free-ish!)

*will probably BE a year and a half!

@NettleTea

what about year 10s??? my son has suffered really badly this year, and towards the end of a well provided online provision, he was literally sitting and crying and saying that nothing has gone in and he wasnt learning anything.

Nobody has mentioned them yet. lost a year of school and no doubt having to do the full GCSE exams with no leeway/teacher based assessments. They have returned to school and are now having to go over everything that they did last year to ensure that everyone is on the same page

Id imagine Year 12s are much the same - first year of A levels disrupted, but expected to sit A levels with no additional considerations given.

The uni students who have paid full whack, including in many cases accommodation costs. I feel terrible for them.

Everybody has had their own issues with it, its not great for anyone, but Im not sure competative whataboutery is helping

My 20 year old lost 4 years of schooling due to ill health. she will get there, but in her own time. There isnt a time limit on learning. At least with whats happened here its universal, not personal.

I mentioned year 10 and 12 on page one.

You seem utterly determined for them to be the lost generation
It's like you really want it to be
Are you projecting onto your kids ? They may be doing better than you are ?

It's actually quite worrying how narrowly focused and self-absorbed some posters can be.

@Marzipan12

I guess what I'm trying to say is year 8 should be treated as a priority. They haven't settled properly into high school yet, their entire time there has been one disruption after the other. Alot of them still feel like they are new to the school and more like year 7 when they should be fully settled. They will start year 9 still settling in to what is deemed normal school life. I feel there should be more support and awareness for this year group, last year and this they have just been lost in the crowd and expected to just get on with it.

If you’ve got a specific issue with how your child’s school is dealing with the transition for them, probably best you speak to them about it. After you’ve calmed down a bit.

@Troublewaters2021

Personally I think the whole thing is slightly exaggerated. I have seen commend from parents as young as year 1 “ my entire child’s education is ruined, their future education destroyed “

My opinion - the parents have mainly been the issue.

We decided to let ours be free for longer so they missed the first 4 year of school. I won't insult home schoolers by saying we home schooled because if I said we averaged an hour a day of "school" work on school days I'd be a liar. Some days we did but it was only if they wanted to.

They passed the 11+, they got firsts at good universities, have post grad qualifications.

Missing a whole year of school (they haven't have they) won't ruin their lives. I think the biggest threat is everyone telling them their lives are ruined.

I have a Y7 and a Y4, and the Y7 has definitely had a worse time of it. Yes, he got to 'finish Y6', but they were only in for two days a week for a few weeks.

Yes, they didn't have to do SATs, but they had spent so much time working for them and preparing for them that a lot of them were upset. My DS is very academic and was on to absolutely ace them, so he felt like he missed his time to shine (after seven years of never winning anything at sports day and not being picked for sports teams etc).

They missed their Y6 camp, and they missed leavers assemblies and dances.

Now at secondary school, they have missed the away day team bonding type day they would normally do in the autumn term, they are not doing a Y7 camp in the summer that they normally would. They aren't allowed to do various sports (PE has been running and circuits, they aren't allowed to play any ball games at break/lunch). As a result, my shy DS hasn't really got to know many of the children that didn't come from his Primary school.

So maybe Y7 didn't have it the worst, but lots of them have had it really tough.

Personally I think it worked out pretty well for a lot of the Y11 last year. Many of their parents have happily said that their teacher predicted grades were over inflated and they did end up with much better results than they would really have achieved. I feel for this Y10 who will take their exams next year and will not have the inflated grades of the last 2 years, but will have had 2 years of interrupted education.

I hunk it's been pretty shit for all year groups and wouldn't want to get into w competition as to who had it worse.
My DD is in Year 7 and it's been hard. She missed out on proper goodbyes in Year 6, all the things she had been looking forward to watching previous year 6 , like discos, trips, cancelled. It just wasn't the same and I felt sorry for all her class.
Then straight into a completely new school, with stricter rules, homework, detention punishments, and new friends and this whole stop start then lockdown again.
But every mother will have a tale about their child's experiences,
I am sorry for all children who missed out on normal experiences - year 11's last year and this year for a start.
No one really wins and just glad we can try to get back on track.

@Troublewaters2021

Personally I think the whole thing is slightly exaggerated. I have seen commend from parents as young as year 1 “ my entire child’s education is ruined, their future education destroyed “

My opinion - the parents have mainly been the issue.

Absolutely. The dramatics are very tiring.

A lot of year 6 didn’t go back in the summer, as the government told schools to prioritise year R and 1. This was really shot for those poor kids who missed all their leaving primary activities, and then missed a big chunk of year 7 too, just as they were settling in.

Sorry you can’t empathise with that or realise that’s worse than solely missing the second half of year 7 and a bit of year 8.

Hope you kid enjoyed their leavers trip, disco and other fun events in 2019

I don’t think there is a ‘lost generation’ and even if there were, a year group does not make a generation!

Educationally, it's the two exam years who've probably been hardest hit. But overall, I do think the year 7s have had a rubbish time, missing out on all the usual end of primary school fun, and making the big change to secondary school without the usual clubs and sports and settling in activities. I've got a DS in year 7 and he was the only one from his primary school to go to his secondary school, and he only knew a couple of others through a sports club. He's managed pretty well, but I know a lot of his year have found it very, very difficult.

My year 4 hasn't missed anything that he won't get another chance at, and my youngest in reception seems fairly unfussed about it all. Their brother has lost a lot of lasts and firsts.

I voted YABU because you claim Yr 7s have been one of the most fortunate yr groups, which is patently untrue.

Every schoolchild has suffered. Every school child has lost out. My summer-born yr 2 son is really struggling and is nowhere where he would have been in “normal” times.

But my yr 7 daughter has lost out on more than him. No formal end to her time at primary school - no rite of passage - no end of yr disco, end of yr assembly, etc.
No transition days to secondary school.
And her start at secondary school has been very limited - she’s only seen one tiny block in the school ever. She’s never set foot in a science lab, an art classroom, the drama studio, a DT room. She’s never done a practical food tech lesson.
More importantly, her ability to make friends has been limited - they’ve been sitting 2m apart in classes, they’ve been wearing face masks in corridors, they have lost a lot of opportunities to socialise and make new friends that other years would have taken for granted.

I’m very grateful that my children have not been in exam years. If she’d been in yrs 10-13 it would have been much worse for her. I don’t think she’s a “lost generation” and I’ve never ever heard anyone suggest that they are except the OP. But it’s not right to suggest that they’ve been in any way fortunate though all of this.

OP, where have you heard that year 7s have missed out the most?

Not up for a competition about it but I was thinking about this.

They also missed out on all their Y6, leaving primary school events which is sad, but not life threatening, obviously.
And another poster saying this year's Y7 seemed young.

They missed out on that bit of being the oldest and some of the responsibility that brings. They also missed some of the ceremonial aspect of transition which helps us mark it and come to terms with it. There's a reason cultures do things like mark comings of age. And a lot of people have missed out on that sort of thing.

Your AIBI isn't 'year 7 are shouldn't be the lost generation'. Your AIBU is really 'MY child is the most affected, years 8s like MINE have had it worse and MY child is the lost generation'. Self absorbed and ridiculous. He's struggling partly because you're making a massive song and dance about it. PMA etc!

I have a year 7 and a yr 8, also a reception and yr 1 child.
All of them have lost out on one thing or another, my reception aged child didn't get to finish nursery and had 6 months at home so when she did go to school she was so stuck to me it was very upsetting and then had to go through it all over again after this time of school.
My yr 1 has ASD and all this in school not in school has made his behaviour awful.
My yr 7 the school have changed there tutors 3 times already and the groups.
One min there having to stay in one classroom and now have to get used to changing with each lesson.
But she has done so well and has just got on with it as she is that type of person.
My yr 8 had half a year at school and then no school for 6 months, in for 3 months and of again.
Thats without all the self isolating in-between.
And she was struggling and has needed a bit more help with her mental health.
What I'm trying to say is that it will depend on your child and how they are able to cope with change,learning in different situations and dealing with a pandemic.
Its not year groups as such but treating each child or young person as an individual.

The thing is, everyone has missed out on time, education and experiences they will never get back. What your own child has missed out on is obviously going to feel more important to you than what someone else’s child has missed out on.

We can all have empathy for other situations and feel glad we are not in them but also feel sad for whatever is going wrong in our own lives no matter how serious or trivial in comparison, at the end of the day what is happening in our own lives will always be more important to us.

I’ve got a year 5, 7 and 9. I feel incredibly lucky not to have anyone in year 11 or older but I can say that in our personal experience my year 7 has had it hardest out of the three. But we are lucky, he’ll get over it, will experience other things and life will go on.

@perenniallymessy and @ChazP I've just read your posts, and I agree with what you both say. No, they're not a lost generation by any means, but they've lost out on a lot of very concrete things. Leavers' celebrations, new year 7s trip away (unlikely to ever happen now), trying new clubs and activities at secondary, meeting classmates in advance at settling-in sessions, getting to use the full facilities at their new school etc.

DS1 also lost a sport he's done for years as the lost training time was never going to be made up - so both big parts of his life other than family have been lost at the same time - primary school and his sports club. He'd probably have given up fairly soon when there were all sorts of other options at secondary school, but that would have been a natural transition, with other things to take its place.

My child is 3 so I have no direct experience with this. My neighbours have a year 7, however, and I've come across her sobbing her eyes out a few times over the past year. From chatting to her mum, she's found the transition from a small primary school to a big secondary school very hard. Missing most of her last term at primary school and all the leavers' stuff has hampered her in coming to terms emotionally with the move and with being at 'big school' and everything that means.

I don't know whether year 7 have had it harder than any other year - is it a competition? I suspect reception and the older exam years have also had it tough. Got to be honest, OP, out of all the years, year 8 isn't a year I'd particularly single out as having been the worst affected. University students have had a dreadful time and missed a large chunk of their university experience.

In summary, it all sounds shit, some kids have really suffered and I've never been happier to have a child under school age.

Every year has missed out on something. I wouldn't say that Year 7 was the worst hit tbh. Many had some time back at school last summer and many parents overestimate how much secondary school transition stuff goes on - the teachers on here have said a week is ample to get through what they normally do.

There are kids in Reception who missed out on all of the social lessons that are needed to cope in the school playground right through to y13 who had to apply to universities without visits. Academically y12 are the worst hit imo - no proper GCSEs and next years exams also needing special consideration but they seem to be ploughing on regardless and not getting into petty parenting competitions.