Dromratlee
wow! You are going to be invaluable, none of those tricks would have even occurred to me. Kids are nothing but inventive 
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Given that I woke up at 6am ...I'm still a bit over excited about the whole thing.
He had a really good first week. Likes his teachers. Liked the homework, although somewhat bemused at being asked to comprehend, digest and think in order to be able to do it, rather than "eat the book, vomit the book on the teacher's desk orally in front of whole class, forget it all to make room for the next indigestable lump" style he is more used to.
He got really good grades! I am so chuffed. He is over the moon and his confidence is picking up.
I had a couple of questions and the teachers got back to me quickly and in a friendly manner 
, that is going to take some getting used to.
I'm mulling over the purchase of a printer. I guess we could just open the pdfs on the iPad and have him use that while the classroom runs on the laptop......but then I'd have no iPad to play with during schooltime and be forced to housework ro something equally unpalatable. If we get one with a scanner he could do handwritten work too and still send it in to be marked. Found one for a 100 euros, but it will take two weeks or more to arrive. Not much choice to buy immediatly in this backwater.
It's nice that so many of his class are in the same position as him, English speaking kids living abroad. A couple are 50/50 like him which is a novelty cos he hasn't come accross that before.
He skyped with classmate, hot topic, "have you done the Geog. homework and what did you get in English?". I'm trying to,persuade him to set up a study group, but he still feels too shy to suggest it. However I think the ice is starting to get broken.
Pretty sure now I did the right thing holding him back ayear. I think adjusting to the British education culture and content on top of being the youngest in the class (August baby) would have put him at a disadvantage, this way he is still able to give it his best shot and succeed, and he is really enjoying the sensation of being "good at learning".
One more hour and I can wake him up. I will brush up on my lurking skills so I can eavesdop more today.
Oh and the two week half term! With brill geog homework (ahem....that lesson library is addictive...I sort of peeked ahead) is going to be a blast.
This week isn't going to be so shabby eithet, now I'm sure we can fit the homework in and still have free time l.lwe are going to make paneer cheese for the first time ever and plan the veg plot for next year, before he goes off with his mates/to football/youth club etc.
I always used to get HE evnvy cos all the other home edders seemed to go off doing interesting things while we (he, to be honest) dragged his feet over schoolwork. Looks like onw somebody else is in charge of the learning we'll finally get time to do groovy things too. Helps that I feel lighter in general (lack of total responsibiliy on me I think) and get a chance to do my own thing while he is gainfully occupied, so I'm less grumpy and fed up and more enthusiastic about doing fabby things together.
Must sit down and write an Italian programme of study though. Poo. Don't want to.
Think I'll wait a week, the schools here don't go back till Thrursday so one more week off Italian is not the end of the world.
PS, anybody know what happened to Academus They were my second choice, and it's a bit odd that their site is down right around this point of the year when you'd expect things to be busier.