How to prepare child's room for secondary school

[user1461609321]

Hi everyone

For those of you with older children already in secondary school how have you organised their personal space/bedrooms for maximum efficiency eg do they have a desk in room for homework, where is the homework computer or laptop for homework?

Where are Oyster cards, school bag etc kept?

Are there any furniture items that have proved really useful for your preteen?

Do they have their own hygiene products in their room?

Own wash basket in room etc?

Finally did your year 7 have their own room or share with siblings?

Sorry for so many questions but really want to get it right

My DD's had their own rooms with desks - they never used them, they used the kitchen table. Bags downstairs with school shoes.

Washing stuff in bathroom, deodorant in bedroom

@kittensinthekitchen

Do you realise how few secondary school pupils actually have or need an Oyster card, let alone somewhere special to store one?

Not everyone lives in London.

There are around 80,000 secondary school pupils in London and the last transport survey found around 30% travelled by public transport.

So whilst not everybody lives in London, there are around 24,000 kids who need to have somewhere secure to keep their Oyster cards. Which is generally in the back of their phones because if there's one thing they're unlikely to ever lose, it's their phone.

Then there are all the kids in other areas who also have smartcard passes or pay using chip/bank cards. They also need to have somewhere to keep those.

Another thing he has found really necessary is a Fitbit that has alarms that buzz but don't make an actual noise.

My son is autistic and finds it difficult to remember when something out of the ordinary is happening and has two music lessons a week which rotate times/days to avoid having to miss the same school lesson each week. I remind him on a Sunday night to set these silent alarms for his lessons and we also set it to buzz at the end of the school day when he has a club to remind him to go.

He has got better at remembering these things with time but in Y7/8 he would have missed many many paid for lessons without it!

My son is in a box room, in prep for grammar school I bought a new high sleeper bed with a wardrobe, drawers and a desk underneath.

My DD has a bedroom with desk and storage. She mostly tries to keep her belongings strewn throughout the house and likes to do homework at the dining table.

My dc don't/didn't have desks in their rooms, I think bedrooms are for relaxing and sleep not studying. All mine use/used the dining room table for homework.

My year 10 son has a desk in his room with an ikea peg board on the wall - it has little shelves/penpots/hooks etc to put bits in. Next to that he has a tall shelf unit - a bit like a kallax but the holes are taller so are rectangular not square.
His school bag fits in the bottom one and the others are used to store school workbooks/folders etc.

Most things stay in his bag - its a laptop bag with lots of pockets/places to put stuff so more organised than some bags where its all in one compartment.

DD is 13 and she organises herself so I don't get involved but she also has a desk and peg board in her room.

We re-did DD's room in year 6 - new bed, wardrobe, desk, shelves. Left to her own devices, she keeps clean clothes in the box outside her door where I leave them for her, dirty clothes on the floor, school books in a pile in the living room, does her homework on the bed (or the living room floor) and has been known to sleep under the desk. She does at least seem to know what the bookshelves are for!

White board on wall
For him
And you to remind him of stuff

@ArticSaviour

My boys have a set routine. They come in, sling their coats and school bags into whatever empty space they can find, dump their coats on the sofa, go to the loo and abandon their ties in there and sometimes their shoes. (If not then shoes go in the middle of the hall floor where they can trip up the next person to enter the house).

Then in the morning they stroll around at the pace of an elderly snail until two minute before leaving and then shout at whoever is around because they have hidden their tie/shoes/bag etc.

Works for us

😂 Similar situation here with teenage DD and DS. I don’t even check their homework…just occasionally ask if they are up to date with everything. All seems to be working out fine so far

@kittensinthekitchen

Do you realise how few secondary school pupils actually have or need an Oyster card, let alone somewhere special to store one?

Not everyone lives in London.

Good heavens What a bizarre post

How much organising do you all do for your year 7?

My son…. Struggles!

Ps

Blazers don’t need to be dry cleaned!

Inside out
wool wash
Specialist cleaner
V Low spin speed

Our eldest is only one in high atm, 2nd goes in September. She shares a bedroom with 3 sisters and not got room for a desk, I got her a little fold out table thingy from IKEA so she can do her work in her bed. She has her own laptop, though could do with a new one now. She keeps her bodyspray in her bed but other toiletries are kept in the bathroom. There are 2 wash baskets, she has her own set of drawers. She sorts all her school stuff out, I just make sure she has clean clothes and she let's me know if she needs new pens, books etc. Keeps the bag in her bed so younger siblings don't mess with it, they don't touch so much now a bit older. Walks to school. I pre-pay for meals online but she can take stuff from home if she likes, I let her do whatever she wants to do each day. She's up and out pretty quick in the mornings, I don't need to kick her up the arse like the primary aged ones.

My approach was to follow his lead and create storage as close to where things ended up anyway.

He has a desk in his room that never gets used because he does his homework on the kitchen table.

We have a drawer with extra stationery, paper, scissors, etc in the kitchen, also masks when they were needed.

Other than that I recommend avoiding lids and doors and other impediments to things getting inside baskets and boxes (I model organisation systems on basketball)

I'm probably not a huge amount of help, as my eldest is 8. However, he has had a desk and laptop in his room for the past 2 years, thanks to lockdowns/homelearning. So I wonder if whatever worked for you then will also be the way to go, for homework etc?

Ds had his own room. At 11, I installed a desk, chair, desk light, laundry bag and alarm clock.

He's now 13 and has taken over the desk in the sitting room so he can ask my help while he does his homework. He sleeps through the alarm as if totally deaf and I still have to physically shake him awake

But he uses his laundry bag.

@Chely

Our eldest is only one in high atm, 2nd goes in September. She shares a bedroom with 3 sisters and not got room for a desk, I got her a little fold out table thingy from IKEA so she can do her work in her bed. She has her own laptop, though could do with a new one now. She keeps her bodyspray in her bed but other toiletries are kept in the bathroom. There are 2 wash baskets, she has her own set of drawers. She sorts all her school stuff out, I just make sure she has clean clothes and she let's me know if she needs new pens, books etc. Keeps the bag in her bed so younger siblings don't mess with it, they don't touch so much now a bit older. Walks to school. I pre-pay for meals online but she can take stuff from home if she likes, I let her do whatever she wants to do each day. She's up and out pretty quick in the mornings, I don't need to kick her up the arse like the primary aged ones.

4 girls in one room!! How do you cope?!