Year 12 #1 - GCSEs are sooo last year!

[bpisok]

New thread to see us through to Christmas?

2,000 is a huge year group!

It has made me think: last year when we were all talking about sixth form choices, there were fears our DC would get lost in a large school. That hasn't happened though has it?

I went to a huge 6th form college serving a city where no schools except 1 Catholic school and 1 private school had 6th forms.

We still had parents evenings every year that our parents were expected to attend.

DD loves the size and independence. She is still a typical 16 year old, losing stuff everywhere (she's left a ring in the toilets last week and lost a pair of Apple headphones yesterday) but she loves being able to decide when to come & go, how much she needs to get done and so on. The only issue seems to be how wide-spread the student base is, which makes it harder to do all the usual stuff outside of college, but some of you have been dealing with this for a long time already.

We have similar locally (although not on the same scale) and I had relatives at PS. It seems some people thrive in that environment whilst others struggle with the more hands off approach. I guess it’s like most organisations there are advantages and disadvantages at both ends if the spectrum.

I'm here (formally known as Oddsocks)

To bring you up to date.....

DD is been attending 6th form at College rather than the one attached to the local secondary school which was attending. Her GCSE results were unexpected, forcing a move to College. She is doing A levels; maths, further maths and physics

Like stickerrocks she is enjoying every aspect of the interdependence that it has brought

I'm wondering whether college is actively discouraging parental involvement. I phoned them today as DD (as usual), is giving nothing away about her progress. They were vague as to when and if there would be a parents evening. We are nearly at the end of the first term, is it too soon to expect a progress report/parents evening?

Dd's parents evening is in January.

Twinplusone
I don't think it is too soon. Two years ago, i got a year 10 report in Mid-November which did not seem superfluous and the A levels are as close now as the GCSEs were then.

I've had a school report about DS1 already and a parent's night. Neither were about settling in and orientation - they were firmly about his progress and the usual WWW and EBIs.

(All schools use the shorthand of WWW and EBI, right?)

DS1 has also done a full set of exams and has another coming up in a few weeks time.

So, we are well into the A level courses now, and there should be something worth saying about how your DC are getting on.

Www & EBI?

What went well
Even better if

they are ways of giving feedback

WWW and EBI?

I'm feeling a bit in the dark at the moment too (small non selective independent). We've had two sets of grade cards but they are just grades out of 3 for effort and attainment ie below, at or above expectations, so mostly 2's !! Parents evening isn't until after exams in June. I know I could ask for a meeting and be given a full discussion if asked but trying to hold off a while before curiosity kills me :):). I just have no idea whether DS should be aiming for A's or C's - but actually I suspect the teachers don't either he's such an outlier.

He's happy, working (if not hard) and enjoying school so perhaps I should just settle for that ?

Ha - never heard of that before !!

whistl

DS (y10), have FAR (feedback, action, response). They also have different coloured pens depending on who has marked work (teacher, peer, self) can’t remember which colours go with which! 😱

Just asked DD whether she knew when parents evening was, met with a “NO”.... Suppose it’s getting me used to Uni when I’ll know nothing

Twinplusone school calendar?

you can tell who did the feedback without needing a pen colour:
self - recognise your own handwriting
peer - likely to be a bit childish (even at 16!). May have smileys on it. tends to be generous (or in DS's case his peers just suggest he improves his handwriting, which is like telling someone who is blind to look around more)
Teacher - feedback tends to be meaningful and the handwriting is often a bit more elegant

Have you got a parent portal? We get emails reminding us to renew season tickets and laying down the law about everyone not being invited to parent's evening, but then there is a whole raft of info on the parent portal, including progress reports, targets etc.

My last school used 2 stars and a wish, 2 things that went well and one thing you could improve on, but that was for marking books, not parents’ evenings or reports. Green pen for peer assessment. Current school uses purple for peer assessment.

DS has had one set of grade cards so far but it seems really early to be making any predictions. They’ll have to do a few more assessments before they’ve a better handle on outcomes. The school calendar is my bible, DS tells me nothing useful.

I don't know about the rest of you, but i have always found Parent's Evenings very uninspiring.

Even now, at the selective 6th form, the teachers just don't seem to have anything to say. It was worse at secondary school, when sometimes I felt like the teachers were trying to guess who DS was. And at primary school, you'd get 10 minutes, of which 5 would be given over to the teacher trying to get DS to say something about what work they enjoy most.

We have had one parents evening with form tutor very quickly into term and it was more of a settling conversation. And a proper parents evening coming up in December.

You've all just prompted me to look up key dates in calendar. Exams not till the summer term followed by another parents evening.

Popping back in! Still preoccupied by house selling / buying so apologies for not joining in. No offers yet 🙁

We have DS1 parents' evening tonight. It's actually a 15 minute meeting with his tutor. I think it will be quite a useful overall chat about his plans and ambitions rather than grades. We did have half term grades and all were v encouraging so I think it will be more about direction than achievements if you know what I mean.

By a strike of luck his tutor is head of admissions for the school so we have lucked out. Will report back later!

whistl I’ve always found them vaguely helpful to the extent that it was a chance to hear directly how the DC were doing and if there were any issues, like late/missing homework (looking at you DD.) I think the one we had this term was just too early for the teachers to have anything particularly meaningful to say. I guess it would have been helpful if there had been any real problems with subject choice etc. And it did give me a chance to raise our concerns re the maths teaching.

Speaking of which, the maths sets have now been decided at DS’s school. He has 2 new teachers and so far finds them both easy to understand. He said he actually learned something in a lesson yesterday without having to come home and go over it online/in the textbook

At the most recent parent's evening, DS's tutor said "no news is good news" as she (fruitlessly) hunted the notes in front of her to try to find something/ anything to say about DS.

No parents evening or report cards here. We had 2 meetings at the start of term. One to meet her tutors, discuss the syllabus and their expectations. Another about university applications. I also had a phone call about changing subjects.
Apparently there are some parents going in this week but you are only called in if they have concerns- so no news is good news 😀

Currently she's churning out 3 or 4 essays a week along with reading the text books/novels (they are expected to do this at home/in frees so in class they can debate and discuss what they have read). She's loving this style of 'teaching'. Her entire life now revolves around study and martial arts - better than boys and booze I suppose!

Whist nope nothing on school calendar - I agree with you can tell who marked without the need for different colour pens but hey ho 🤷🏼‍♀️
Have also been pondering over the actual usefulness of parents evening too. Have mostly come away feeling that nothing more than a “tick box” exercise so from that POV are they even worth going to. Having said that with DD moving from local school to city college environment, I would like to how things are going. I’ve always been a firm believer of “no news is good news” but then found out after the event about issues with DD when she attended local school. All water under the bridge now, but mindful that it may happen again

A few years ago, teacher started to tell me about the wrong child. DS was sat next to me and were looking at each win bewilderment 😱

That’s really bad, Twin!

Cherryburn glad to hear your DS has managed to lose the unpleasant teacher.

I’ll have to check out the school bible calendar for the first parents’ evening. Hopefully not for a while yet.