DD is 14, in year 9. She loved primary - always wanted to go in, got excited about the simplest activities/events and got involved with everything.
Now I know secondary is very, very different - more pressure (especially as she goes to a grammar), more independence expected of them etc. But I just feel like her school is slowly grinding her down.
The emphasis is on tests and perfect uniform. If someone misbehaves, they all get shouted at, all the time. In fact it feels like their approach is to assume they’re all badly behaved (even though she’s clearly not) and are hard on them all just in case, iyswim. She hasn’t bonded with any of her teachers and some of them just seem really harsh disciplinarians. She also finds a lot of the lessons uninspiring.
She’s successfully put herself forward for several roles (think school council etc) and then….nothing…there have been no activities associated with the roles she’s supposed to be doing. They’re just titles.
And so far, she’s been on two trips since year 7. That’s it. I know they need to focus on work/study but would a little fun here and there hurt? My secondary years were great fun and I still managed to do well.
She’s just not enjoying school now and doesn’t look forward to going in.
I feel like she started off an eager, proactive, enthusiastic student and they’ve totally knocked this out of her.
Is this just what secondary is like now? And if not, what can I do? There are no opportunities to give this kind of feedback and even if I did, how can I get this across without it sounding like “DD is not enjoying school and finds it boring” which is how it’s going to sound isn’t it?