DD, 8, bad behaviour at school

[msteeth]

Hi mumsnetters, name change though I haven't posted for ages anyway. DD1 has entered year 4 with a bang: lost homework, lost books, stuff dumped all over the place, familiar complaints from teachers about her being a 'free spirit' and 'a handful'. All typical from her behaviour in year 3, and not a thread of awareness on her part that it is having consequences. I did point out that her end-of-year 3 reports was anything but glowing on this front, but she doesn't get it. She thinks it is part of her personality. OK, she loves the usual suspects (Tracy Beaker on TV, Naughtiest Girl books) but it is dragging us all down. Can nayone suggest what we could do? We've discussed a couple of action plans with school but they all failed so far because they rely on her either realising that this isn't cute, or her remembering to bring things home... Thanks for reading.

No advice, just copious sympathy. Our DD is exactly the same, she recently started at a new school where the academic expectations are far greater than her old school. In Switzerland if she didn't fancy doing her homework (which amounted to about 45 over the week) she didn't bother and there was no school imposed sanctions. Her Belgian school is very much stricter and she really doesn't like it. Our DD used to watch TB, read HH and generally we found her behaviour reflected whatever she was watching/reading. Very difficult to introduce new role models at that age IME. What worked (up to a point) with ours was sitting down and laying out the expectations of the school. She is a little much better now and has only lost three cardigans since the start of term.

Sorry, that should be 45 minutes over the week, now it is around 40 minutes a day

Thank you, Kreecher! I think it may well be protest at homework - she now has 30 minutes a day and it was more until some parents complained (!!). Good idea about setting ground rules. In fact, two HH books have come home this week, which may well be another hint of revolt. Prhaps MI High gives good role models (of sorts)...

Can't school help her be more organised ? I'd ask the SENCO or form teacher to set her individual targets and introduce a visible check list at the end of the day. /tv won't be affecting her this much and as she thinks, it probably is 'who she is' ... and that's not a bad thing, just not idyllic for school. My son had visual aid in the classroom to help him organise his books, homework etc. We also had a print out of his daily timetable on the front door so he could check as he left in the mornings. Good luck !

MmeSin, excellent tip - thank you. I'll do a timetable forthwith. Before I forget (indeed, it may well be a hereditary character trait)...