GCSE '18s (20) - half term beckons!

[mmmz]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/further_education/3355907-gcse-18s-19-new-beginnings

This week he has washed entire wallet containing bank card, Oyster card, sports club card, five pound note, fob to access music block and fob to access sixth form common room.

Bizarrely, all seem to have survived unscathed...

DS2 kept leaving tissues in his pockets before dropping dirty clothes in the laundry basket. I asked him again and again to make sure he emptied his pockets and he just sort of half did it and half didn't make any effort.

Then one day, I went to take the washed clothes out of the machine and found that once again, they were covered in a shredded tissue, and my patience snapped. This time, I called Ds2 into the kitchen and made him shake each piece of clothing outside, then remove all the scraps of tissue from inside the laundry drum.

That was the last time I've ever had to ask him to empty his pockets. He gets it now.

Loose I have a professional duty to report all cases of money laundering of which I am aware. However, in your case I'm willing to make an exception and risk the fine & prison sentence! Apparently several chums have wiped the magnetic strips in their season tickets by storing them with their phones, hence why DD knows the procedure for getting a replacement.

Good news on your FIL Loose

Money laundering!

Stickerrocks I am grateful for your discretion and promise it was only a fiver - although probably shouldn't say anything more as it could incriminate me!

Is anyone else's DC finding that they have a lot more homework this year and thinking that they are hard done by because of it?

Ds has 15 hours a week. Some of it is difficult, but mostly there is a just a lot of it.

Honestly i am looking at him and wondering what I did wrong that made him expect that things wouldn't change? Was it not obvious that A levels are harder than GCSEs and require more independent work outside of the classroom?

Does he have 'free' periods available in the week when he could do some. The girls found if they used those it took the pressure off the weekends and evening.

DS not finding it too bad at the moment, but I don't know if it will ramp up as the year goes on or, as is common with DS, he thinks he's doing ok when he's actually nit doing enough.

He's probably only doing about 8 or 9 hours max a week at the moment. But they do have 6 hours lessons a week for each subject so maybe that helps

DS is making use of his free periods in order to keep the load down a bit at home. He’s not complaining about the amount he’s getting, but then again I think he’s just doing what’s set and no more (so no reading around the subjects as far as I can tell)

I intend to use next week’s parents evening to flush out whether he’s doing enough

Dd had minimal homework during GCSE's. She's only doing 2 A levels but already she has mentioned having to hand in several essays for English. I don't think she gets any free periods.

I have no idea what DS does in his free periods...

DS also only doing set work - but I think the difference this year is he will follow up and get help if he doesn't understand anything and I think teachers will be more on top of it (approx. 8 in each class). He spent a lot of time drifting in years 9 and 10.

DS3 isn't doing much as far as I can tell, but he doesn't have frees, only supervised study periods so hopefully he's getting some work done then. There's a VLE that homework is set on, and he doesn't seem to be behind on anything.

Yep- lots of homework here too. Mind you DD declared English as being the best subject EVER. She was laying in bed at the time (3pm) reading Tess.

....less keen on the 3 hours she spent on Sunday writing the essay though

DS gets a few frees, and he uses them 50/50 for redoing homework and socialising. He still has a couple of hours work per evening and about six hours at the weekend, and that's about to increase when he starts doing project work.

He's out of the house either at school or travelling to and from there for 9 1/2 hours a day, and then there is the two hours of homework each evening, so its a lot more than the secondary school was giving him this time last year, but that's life, surely?

In two years time, he'll be at university and in 5 years, he'll be starting work and at each stage the amount of hours spent working goes up. Is that not right?

doing homework not redoing homework (but he gets some stuff to re-do too which adds to the burden).

Ds is another one that gets all his homework done in his frees, although I don't think they are given that much. Then he is spending 2 hours each night going through the text books for the sciences and making his flash cards which he will revise from.

Oh that’s organised bluebelle and very conscientious.

Whistl great news if your ds is socialising in some if his frees. You must be delighted at that - and at this stage in new school that’s probably more important than extra study.

DD2 has gone down with ‘freshers flu’ so missing lectures 😡😡. It wasn’t helped by a weeken socialising and partying with flat mates and bf visiting from home but I can’t help thinking she s better off missing lectures (which are all on line anyway) than missing out on getting out and about in these first couple of weeks when connections are made

I wonder if it's because homework for maths is very task orientated, whereas background reading for English & history is more fluid? You can see whether or not you have completed 2 sheets of maths questions, whereas analysing someone's actions in the French revolution can take as much or as little time as you wish.

DD has 5 structured hours per subject each week. She says she has some maths to do this evening & she did spend most of yesterday working, but that could be because she was terrified that I would bring up her season ticket again! I have no idea what she does in her free periods. I think she is writing up notes from her lessons and playing tennis, but I could be m8staken about the notes.

Just to be clear, I don’t make DS account to me for what he does in his frees grin. He volunteered the information that he’d rather use them for working than cut further into his social life at weekends!

even...

A child who volunteers information....I can only dream of such riches!

Oratory1 yes, exactly! I can't imagine ever wanting to tell DS not to socialise so much!