ds1 isn't happy at all....

[KevinAndMe]

Im really after other people's experiences.

dc1 has started Y7 and is really unhappy.
Some of it is xx teacher who ins't that good but mostly it's the fact he feels he isn't learning anything and that what they are doing are easier/even more boring than Y6.

Not going to go and see the school. It's too early days but I'm wondering what helped your dc to cope with being disengaged with school and in some ways feeling let down in these early stages.

The very fact you are even concerned means it's highly unlikely your ds would ever take it to the extremes I did, I was on my own to all intents and purposes, so while it's good to keep tabs, don't think following my route is inevitable. It's only the kids without that who will be following my route.

It's tough OP.

I had an education much like lurked but I kind of went the other way and ended up as not only the first person I knew to attend university, I went to Oxbridge!

That said, though it ended well, my school years were not good.

I have avoided this for my DC by paying for independent schools.

You say they wouldn't be better OP. What makes you think that? Are they not selective? Do they have a higher % of high ability students? Do they set?

I'm a few years behind you with my son so I've read this with despair. I had also hoped secondary school would be different...

The thing is we are in the North. No University is going to come and do some outreach.

Sorry, but that's daft, unless you're north of Orkney, maybe. Outreach to yr7s is unusual, but there are lots of Unis Oop North that will do outreach to at least older kids in local schools.

I'm wondering what helped your dc to cope with being disengaged with school

Mine have only been disengaged at school when they were socially unhappy (I realise this may be as impossible for you to change as anything about academics). Good social life is the key I find, anyway. If he can't get it at school, might be possible to foster outside of school at least.

Most of the northern universities do outreach.

Am sure this has been said already but I suspect much of the first few weeks are about assessment. This means that all pupils, even the most able might repeat stuff they are confident with. It's frustrating but the best way of assessing who needs support, who doesn't and who needs extension work.

You might find after half term that it all changes as work becomes more specific to each pupil.

It's hard but then again in life all our kids will find some stuff repetitive and boring. It still has to be done though if they want to achieve greater and less repetitive stuff.

It's not easy though to sit and watch your child struggling. I'm at the other end as my DS has learning difficulties and is autistic. My feeling is that schools do an amazing job trying to meet the needs of pupils at both ends of the academic spectrum. I also feel that because of the system neither end gets the absolute best of things. That's not down to the teachers though.

I would hope as time goes on they will nurture your DS though as he's one of the pupils who will add to their league table results.

she not counting the odd female who opted for the domestic route, I was the first not to go to university. It was the expected norm in my family. I was also the brightest in terms of academic ability in my generation and compared to parents and their siblings. And the first to be sent to a sink state school with the added bonus of unsupportive parents to put it mildly. I think there's a definite link between those factors and my outcome. And I also think it's not that unusual that there won't be children like I was repeating my route.

yeolde funnily enough the social side was the one thing I did love about school. It was what kept me sane!

Lurked - if your parents went to university, and everyone around knew the value of education, why did your parents send you to a sink school and then not bother supporting you once there? Where did your siblings go?

Was it some sort of Jeremy Corbyn ideology? I read that he divorced his wife when she sent their child to a grammar, rather than to a failing school in 1980s Hackney.

lurked that sounds pretty rough .

My experience was the opposite. We lived on a sink estate and I went to a sink school, but my parents, despite having both left school without a single qualification to their name at 15, were highly supportive.

And my mother, based on no evidence whatsoever, decided I was clever and would go to the 'best' university in the land (as she had heard it described on the telly ).

Don't get me wrong, they couldn't offer any educational assistance nor anything that might cost (we were utterly skint), but boy did they cheer lead.

If he really is bilingual in French, I would be making it clear he needs to be put in a much higher group and fast tracked through the French GCSE. He will be a major disruption for the rest of the class otherwise (had a bilingual French girl in my class, it was a nightmare for the teacher). This is for everyone's good. No way would I let my son sit through that, it would be beyond boring. I would even ask if he could just do quiet French reading in the library in that time instead of sitting through what he already knows.
Do they not have a part of their website about what is offered for gifted and talented? Why does it need to be connected to a uni? I went to a northern comp and we had a really active G&T club, loads of trips, extra lunchtime classes etc. All my friends were in this club (geek). If not this school, phone around other local comps. I really can't believe none of them do anything.
A private school with smaller classes would alleviate the problem somewhat. Less children per class would always be a help.

var and she. New found idealogy was banded around as the public explanation. And if there was an audience worth impressing, eg other middle class or anyone in authority such as school they did a wonderful job of pretending I had the same childhood and parental support as my siblings. The reality was my childhood sucked in general.

With hindsight I think there were two major factors in my school choice. Firstly that the small red flags I was waving even at 11 were easy to miss at a school with massive social problems. Iirc the naice primary were already getting suspicious. And secondly it was just another demonstration of how unimportant I was. With the added bonus that any future fucked up behavior could be blamed on exposure to the low brow thinking of those from rough council estates. Not my words or opinion even then.
That all sounds a bit sob story like, but I moved on from my childhood a long time ago, and tbh being deliberately sent to fail in terms of education was one of the milder reasons to feel resentment. Fwiw 'mixing with the rough council estate kids' was the one thing that was a huge bonus in my favour in loads of different ways. One set of parents are still what I base my parenting on now.
My point isn't really poor me didn't I have it hard. My point is more that education should have been one area I got away from all that. And that there are children that also have unpleasant home lives now, who are equally missing out on the one thing they should have going for them. A miserable home life isn't unique to me, or something that doesn't happen anymore. Low ability with outward signs of poverty or neglect etc are usually picked up on. Able kids are better at masking things. And therefore easily ignored and down trodden by the one place they should flourish. And must be even harder when it's a background like mine with the added disadvantage of poverty.

This may have already been said, but could it be because last academic year (I think, but may have been 2 years ago), primary schools started teaching a year above? If your Dc was in year 2 for instance, they would have been taught the previous year 3 curriculum. Don't know if they're doing it in secondary schools, but if not, maybe that's the reason for it?

*not previous, just the year above curriculum.

I can seconded, some of what lurked has said. As the similar happened to me. The signs weren't picked up on, maybe because I came from the Typical well off middle-class family.
I didn't turn up for School, or I left the premises when I felt like it, I run away from home numerous times from the age of 14.

I was bored in class, so didn't write anything down, or do any homework.
I sat at the back and tossed it off.
Of course the school were always calling my parents in, and I was in trouble for it.
On parents evening the teachers would say, we know she's intelligent and knows her stuff because if we can engage her she can answer correctly and give long detailed explanations. But she won't put anything on paper.

My parents blamed the school and me getting in with the wrong crowd. But they never spent time encouraging me at home or helped or took an interest in my school work ,

Most of the people from the 'wrong crowd' did the same as me, skive school run away from home, they all ended up with a social worker and in some cases taken into care. Some also got expelled.

Not once did the truancy office even, get intouch with my parents.

TheOddity I've already had a chat with the Head of language on that. Next year, about 30 children will be fast tracked to do GCSE French early so he will clearly fall into that. In the mean time, they should give him work at an appropriate level.
At the moment, it has meant some harder homework (that I had to explain to him because as much as he is speaking fluently, he doesn't know how to write so spelling and grammar and verbs are high on the list of things to learn).
But clearly there will be a need to see exactely what he is going to do during the lessons themselves. It's not helping that he has two french teachers and one of them has already been replaced for one lesson so very little continuity so far.

Alfie I agree with you re the issue is with the system.

I also have a child who is on the spectrum (dc2) so I've had to deal with that too. Unfortunately, I haven't found schools very supportive either mainly because dc2 has his own issues due to AS but is also just as clever as his db so a lot of it is very hidden.

Trout YY to the fact the social side is what can keep some children going.
Unfortunately, dc1 is very social but feels out of sync with his peers. There is an issue with maturity, some with the fact he isn't interested in the same things (ie football) and finally the fact that we are not 'mainstream' compare to the average person around here. HE feels that he is different from everyone else, that we never do the same things that everyone else, wo talking about his 'nerdy' side.
Bottom line, he has friends from the outside, he can easily talk to people etc... but can't really relate to anyone.

Btw I've never said that the Universities weren't good. Just that we aren't local (Our closest Uni is 60 miles away). We do live in the middle of nowehere.

I only remember getting pulled on truancy once when a teacher caught me. I remember debating with the head of year at length as to why he had a problem with it, as being in school didn't advance my education and that with my by then renowned history of bad behaviour if anything my truancy was allowing overall improvement. With specific and insulting examples and opinions on the quality of teaching. It wasn't mentioned again, despite the fact I would sometimes walk out during the school day. And tbh they were often too busy calling parents about far worse than truancy to bother with mine. In the first few years it was reasonably common to have one of my 'interviews' with the head/ head of year etc ended abruptly because there was a serious fight going on somewhere. One cocky teenager turning up relishing the entertainment of debating the justification of their behavior and attitude just wasn't something they had time or energy for. Whereas I had pretty much nothing else to do in school.

Lurkedforever1 - I have hesitated posting until now because I don't know what to say, but I do not want to say nothing in response.

Its awful. Don't get me wrong, my parents were not models of loving, supportive concern, but yours took it to a whole new level.

All that I can really say is what you already know: no child ever deserves to be treated like that. I am really sorry.

Thankyou var. Tbh though it was mentally a life time ago, and daft as it seems having dd was like quick acting shock therapy, because my normal and natural feeling for my child made me realise that it was they who were abnormal to not feel like I did for my child, rather than something I had done to deserve it. Thinking of my childhood is more like reading a book about someone else than it being personally upsetting anymore iyswim. And tbh parents aside I was otherwise a golden child, good at sports, naturally talented at the one I lived for, popular, with lots of lifetime friendships from those 'council estate scum' etc, so I'm not trying to paint a picture of the worlds worst childhood.

It only bothers me because I know there are others right now exactly where I was that nobody will ever pick up on.