Year 12 #1 - GCSEs are sooo last year!

[bpisok]

New thread to see us through to Christmas?

Thanks for all the replies.

I think DS1's problem is that he's struggling to adjust to how busy he is. I don't think he is exceptionally busy - chances are your DC are all equally, if not more, busy - but DS is unhappy about it.

The school has a lot of lessons and activities outside of A level classes and a lot of them are mandatory. So there are very only two free periods per week and he is often expected to give up his lunchtimes and stay after school for nonA-level stuff. On top of that, he has a longish commute (about an hour - so,again, nothing worse than many of your DC will have). Then he has approx 15 hours or homework per week.

The upshot is that he is busy from when he gets up at 6:45am, until about 9 or 10 pm every day, plus usually a day and a half at weekends.

Somehow its all getting on top of him and he is losing his concentration when working. He knows how to do the work, can easily do it when relaxed and hasn't come up against a topic yet that he hasn't easily understood, but he's making mistakes all over the place in his work.

Unfortunately, i think the school will try to help, but they will think the issue is that he is struggling to understand the concepts and make his days that bit longer by putting him in catchup classes.

I don't want to interfere, because I don't think i can, but I know Ds will not try to speak up for himself at school, and he'll just try to take on the extra burden, when the real problem is that he just needs space to centre himself. DH calls is "resilience".

Any advice?

Galicos welcome and those are great results. Where I work we celebrate every grade 4 so you are way ahead! I am rather concerned about the way Moodle is being used at your DD's school - I am very surprised about the timed tests and being locked out. That doesn't make sense to me. I think sometimes the dc needs to say something but in this case I think it would be absolutely OK for you to raise concerns over both issues. I'm sure your dd isn't alone in this.
Whistl - I suspect he's doing fine, just in very high achieving company and this term is a killer energy-wise. Reassure him but if necessary email the school and ask if there's anything extra they think he should do over Christmas - but wait until Christmas because at this stage I honestly think they're just exhausted!

whistl you know your child. Do you think he would benefit from down time more than enrichment? There is such a mixture of ability on the thread and a mixture of kids with and without extra needs that I can’t remember who has extra challenges. My neurodiverse kids would get really exhausted by your DS’s regime. However some of the schools would struggle to see this and assume it’s lack of effort.

Returning I had a child restart year 12 and one leave and go down the apprenticeship route. The one who did a 3 year sixth form has now graduated and is very happy and thriving at work. She was so stressed in her first year 12 that her hair was falling out.

I think I would focus on getting back to school and just picking up where they are now and after a little while start to fill in the gaps in what he missed once he is settled.

One of mine got very anxious in year 10 and needed to drop a subject, have an amended timetable, stay home if had free time, have a quiet place to go during the school day. It’s so hard arguing for the right support if school doesn’t seem to get it. Some forms of support aren’t even much effort for school. It’s more getting your child and having a flexible, can do attitude.

Whistl - remind me - is he doing 3 or 4 A Levels? I know he's a bit of a maths genius but if doing FM along with Maths and 2 other then it's an added strain. Pretty much all the girls at DDs school have now dropped FM - not because of the difficulty simply due to the workload.
The new school is probably a bit of a culture shock too - some types of schools do tend to heap the work on but these schools normally have very high expectations (and the results). To be honest his typical week sounds similar to DDs but she's used to it....they have been increasing the workload year on year. Social lives seem to have universally been put on hold (other than Instagram and the odd trip to the theatre or bookshop- which she justifies to herself as English homework). Even her martial arts have been reduced.
Are the others in his class feeling the strain too?
DD describes it as 'character building' whilst rolling her eyes and shaking her head....then toddling off to do some more work. Pretty much her entire cohort spend the entire 1st week of every holiday sleeping. Let him chill out over Xmas to recharge his batteries and not do any work until a couple of days before he goes back.

DD aged 16, at college, doing BTEC, working hard, exhausted.

She has been trying to finish a piece of coursework due in end of today. This is the first deadline she missed and she wrote to her academic tutor today from the study support department and with the support of the support tutor. DD said she was concerned she was going to miss the deadline due to her anxiety and dyslexia, dyspraxia and adhd.

She got this email back.

“I understand the you have ongoing difficulties with organisation and time management. However, emailing on the day that an assignment is due in is not acceptable. At the open day, interview and enrolment you were told about the volume of work and how hard this course would be, you are also accessing your learning support team which are helping you combat these issues. We have no medical evidence to support an extension which needs to be granted in advance of a deadline not on the day. You need to have extenuating circumstances which need to be supported by evidence under the BTEC rules. All work is expected to be handed in by the deadline, any late submissions will mean you do not get a chance to resubmit. Your tutor was not well last week but she has run at least two assignment workshops with you where you could have asked for help and you finished learning the content for this assignment 4 weeks ago.

What is it that you are wanting from your email? Or are you just informing us that you are struggling?”

Peggy - wow! That was HARSH!!!!
Is your DD Ok?

Wow, Peggy

Your DD should reply: "Compassion"

That’s not helpful at all. Was it an internal college deadline or external submission one - I hope the learning support tutor will support her

Thank you so much for the comments. It is so helpful to have an outside perspective.

I was shocked at the tone. I can’t quite believe a tutor would write that to a child with identified extra needs or any child in fact.

DC1 never got anything as harsh as that at university in spite of some bumps in final year.

DD has been a sobbing mess so has not been able to finish the bloody assignment anyway.

We are now watching Boris on the Inside the Foreign Office documentary so that’s making us all laugh.

I need to decide how to respond. DD determined to go in to college tomorrow. She has a tutorial with the author of the email. I feel like joining them.

Sigh. At the very least I will insist all emails to DD are copied to me in the future as she is a minor with a history of school anxiety FFS

Oratory I think it’s internal but with BTEC strict regulations if that makes sense. They can grant extensions. I’d understand a bit more if she had missed multiple deadlines.

Peggy if they knew about her additional needs then surely they should have put support in place for her to help her to manage organisation of assignments and deadlines. Also, the tone of the email they sent her is patronising and borderline rude.

Sending brotherly love over to you Peggy & your Dd. How unsympathetic of the tutor.

If anyone is feeling Christmassy PM me for a Facebook link to some carol singing.

It’s the tone that’s so poor - v upsetting.

Bloody hell - that's unduly harsh and inflexible Peggy. Your poor dd

Peggy the thing about that reply is that the teacher's tone is terrible. You'd think she'd been asked for something that's beyond the pale. But, then, in the last line, it becomes clear that she has not been actually asked for anything.
To me, her last line asks your DD if she actually wants something or only to whine? And that is massively hypocritical given the preceding paragraph which if she doesn't genuinely know what your DD wants, reads as nothing more than a rant against your DD, some of it centred on her SEN.

There is a lot of hostility in that email, and it seems to broaden out from the point in question I.e. that your DD is unable to meet one of her deadlines.

I would be tempted to not reply directly to the teacher but to take it up with her line manager.

To be honest, I think your DD needs either a day off today, or at least a dentist appointment that means she will miss the tutor session. Sending any 16 year old into that would be a grown up challenge for them, but for your DD it could do a lot of harm for her to be alone in a room with this woman before the woman has calmed down and perhaps had a little bit of re-direction from her boss.

bpisok DS1 is doing 3 A levels + 1 AS level. The work connected with those is a lot but ok. It's the rest that is wearing him out.
To be fair to the school, the rest is all good stuff. It's either centred on doing things to put on a personal statement, or developing skills which will stand DS in good stead at university or rounding him out. Every single one of them is a positive, but DS seems to need some time to himself to just chill and he's not getting it.
He's not even getting enough sleep because of all the homework at weekends. And the result is that he's making mistakes in his work that is just not like him.
Now I think the school will make things worse when trying to help by taking another couple of hours out of his week for intervention classes.

Any ideas for the next thread name? I'm drawing a blank apart from agreeing it should be Christmas theme. Maybe:-
Year 12 #2 Jingle bells ring... are you listening?

Whistl how would he react if you were to get him out of an enrichment activity. Would the school understand all dc are different and some (often those with spld) get tired more easily and are less physically and mentally robust. Also you don’t need to be doing random extra activities for a ps.

Alternatively hang on to the fact that it’s nearly Christmas and hopefully some down time.

Ds has always got tired easily and is less able to cope with constant activity but I’m grateful for the benefits of boarding in that his commute is a 5 minute walk and even with enrichment and prep he is done by 8 30 each night. And I am very impressed that to survive he endures the ridicule of his mates and takes himself off to bed at 9 30 two nights a week

He'd love to get out of the enrichment activities, but, to coin a current phrase, I think that would be a red line for the school.
His tutor isn't great. It's a great school, but not flawless. Last week he got a detention - his third since he started school and his first for 5 years. It was for not doing one of the enrichment activities. He asked his tutor when it would be and she told him a date, time a place. It meant he would have even less sleep because it was early morning. So, he went in, got there very early and waited for an hour but no one turned up.
Eventually, he left without seeing anyone. He emailed his tutor to let her know that he'd done the detention but she did not reply. Then, this week, he was told by a different teacher that his detention is going to be this week.
An email exchange followed between me and the teacher with his tutor cc'd in. The teacher was saying that DS had the date wrong and he'd have to do it again ( the implication was that he had not done it the first time and the undertone was that he is a liar). The tutor was copied in on everything and she did not own up that she'd given DS duff info. In fact, she didn't even reply.
For someone who is struggling with a lack of sleep and to meet all the extra requirements, it was harsh.
I've told DS that going forward if his tutor says anything to him, then he should confirm it in writing afterwards. (A bit like you would if you were at work and you needed to protect yourself against a bullying boss).

That sounds tough whistl, sorry. A supportive and pragmatic tutor can make a big difference at a busy time.

Whistl I'm slightly shocked they're giving out detentions like that in sixth form. I definitely agree with putting detention dates in writing - maybe try to insist you are copied in?
If he's very tired he may actually need a day off sick to sleep and recuperate but I also think this term is the worst for wearing everyone out - teachers included! He is working harder than ever before, adjusting to a new environment and travelling further so it is a big deal. Do they have parents' evening soon?

Parents evening has come and gone.

TBH, Parent's Evening was when I first felt uneasy about the tutor. She was supposed to coordinate with all his teachers and give a me full report about DS and then answer any questions I may have (that's what the HT described at the new parent orientation a few weeks earlier).

I wanted to ask whether a teacher for one of his subjects was seeing any problems specific to DS's SpLD, so i emailed the tutor advance warning of my question a week before the meeting.

When I got to the meeting, the teacher had not tried to get the answer to my question and she spent the meeting flicking through her emails to see if any teacher had anything at all to say about DS. In the end, she concluded that there were no emails so "no news must be good news" and that I should go and find the specific teacher and ask my question direct. She pointed out where the teacher was.

So, I went out and asked the teacher who seemed a bit surprised that I needed to speak to her direct since all communication is supposed to go through the tutor...

TBH, I have misgivings about DS's tutor, but the friends DS has made are all in that tutor group and he wouldn't want to move. I'm just hoping that he'll get someone more interested in their students next year.

Yes - they had out detentions at DDs school too. Pretty much half the year were in detention for not attending a lecture given by a guest speaker that was held at 7pm so I don't think it's that unusual (or I didn't think it was ?). They all used the detention time to do homework or so it didn't really make much difference- it was more symbolic

Whistl - is next week different? DDs school abandon their timetable and start Xmas festivities (carol services, school Xmas dinner, house music competitions, 6th form run parties for their houses, year group parties, teachers perform in a pantomime etc etc). With any luck your DDs school will do something similar and it's a great chance for the DC to just have fun and wind down. Get him to check.

You might find them amenable to a reduction in extra curricular next term if he can convince them that his grades are suffering (they won't want their league table position to be impacted!!). The thing is though, he will need to ask which means he will need to speak up about struggling. If it's anything like DDs school they expect the girls to take ownership and only if they reach an impasse for the parents to become involved. I suspect this is partly why private school kids have a reputation for being overly confident and pushy. You need to prod him to fight his corner....not sure that you can/should do it for him.
That's only my view - all of our DC are different and their school environments seem to be very different too. 6th form at school seems very different to a 6FC

A sick day may be in order. DH is concerned too though, and he thinks DS response should be to decide to toughen up. I'm torn, tbh.

Detention at 6th form level really surprises me!

I'd have thought at normal school (as opposed to dd's school where you knowingly sign up for them to own your life vocatinally wise) thatthey couldn't insist students attend activities out of hours. Suppose they had other commitments?