Anyone want a secondary transfer support thread?

[HarrietJones]

dd1 is going up in September, had an interview with her year tutor last week and induction days in a couple of weeks.
I've started looking at uniform & it's getting closer!

i think lunchtime is difficult - DS used to play football in a big gang at primary school, but now he says the big lads play but they don't have a ball or the space to play, so they just chat. DS will soon find chatting really dull and walk off on his own I suspect. He has joined a couple of lunchtime clubs which I think will help enormously.
Hope she has a good day today Lonnie, and you can have a lovely weekend!

dukat my son is v musical but got low marks in Musical Aptitude for a church school which has music places. I suspect they are lookign for people with formal musical training, high grade level in instruments, theory knowledge, although they pretend it is a test for "raw" musical aptitude. No musical instruments played usually, just multiple choice answers in our case. I think we were misled about how the test works, thinking everyone had equal chance even those without formal training.

everyone else, ds is finding it all fine, but I second as many lunchclubs as possible, as it seems to help that "lost" feeling at lunchtime, as quite quickly you find a little subgroup of likeminded people to get on with.

Ds exhausted by the organisign required and the homework, and just keeping it all together. So am I, quite frankly!

So far so good, no detentions, only lost his Oyster card and burst into tears once on school premises, and seems to be enjoying the hustle and bustle of secondary...up to a point. It is exciting after all! He said Maths teacher was Awesome. He is useless at Maths so that is good news..
Upset in D&T because couldn't do it.

Their school has an v. annoying Learning Journal they have to fill in everyday when they get home, about which lessons they enjoyed/hated, reflections on what they learnt. Soo tedious and time consuming (when you add it to all the other stuff they are meant to be completing), but on the other hand he gets to say I DID NOT UNDERSTAND x y and z, or the History teacher was SHOUTING so I suppose it has its blessings when things go awol.

ugh at that LJ swanriver - does it go on forever or is it just a settling in thing?

Lonnie :( your poor dd, I'm sure it will improve but how hoard for you all.

dd is much happier today :) homework was a sensible level and she had some interesting lessons. Hooray! Quietish weekend for all of us I think...

This is actually good to read. I shouldn't be too surprised ds having "tantrums" and in tears. DS is quite confident normally but at the moment a bit overwhelmed by everything. Losing stuff, confused about when to hand in homeworketc. Doesn't help he is the only one there from his old school.

Dd1 seems to have settled in well. Only got lost once, been threatened with detention once (forgot her PE socks- she left them on the floor at home so I wasn't sympathetic).
She's helping at the year 5/6 open evening this week where we start again with dd2.

we're still having a lot of emotional "episodes" over homework. It's not actually so bad, content wise, it's just that he feels overwhelmed by the way it is dominating weekend, evenings. I think we all have to get into a different mindset so that it done quickly, not too well and doesn't assume bogeyman status. My husband is getting into a real tizz about it too, because sometimes ds can't explain what it is he actually has to do, so the anxiety is reverberating round the house.

dd1 is in a tizz about the homework too, she was busy after school Tu-Fri so it's mounted up, and then she couldn't do the maths at all, doesn't know how to log on to the website for the French, and wants to go to book club but can't work out how to find it or the relevant teacher.

I suppose it's normal but she does seem to have spent a lot of this weekend struggling with the maths homework, several hours.

well, I think we've done it all now. But it has taken ALL weekend what with one thing and another. And that's not to a particularily high standard. Writing a paragraph on Pastoral Symphony for example took him 15 mins to write, but that doesn't include looking it up, making sense of v confusing adult info, listening to bits of it.. deciding to do Pastoral instead of another piece of music....Same with history research "shortie". Part of it is just not quite knowing what it is that they want Ds to do, he only seems to be able to explain by shouting at us whilst he is doing it...

spoke too soon. Homework continued till bedtime. And beyond.. as he still has to rewrite a paragraph on his First Day at School.

Your poor DD Lonnie

DS2 has been full of cold all weekend, much better today. Has the CAT tests for the next three days, half hour each morning. It turned out last night he still had one piece of homework to do, so I said it must be the first one on the list tonight. He said he wasn't sure what to do hence why he left it. He has to define some words for art. But, we have had guests all weekend and the house has been rather busy. Homework is 15 pieces a week.

15 sounds about what ds1 has too, Bella. But often he has a week to do some items, so they seem to expect about an hour input for that subject alone. I suppose it works out at 90 mins a day if you average it out over seven days, except that on Friday of course he's fed up and won't do any...And he still has the pesky Learning Journal to fill in every day. I think that is only going to last another week or so, thank goodness. And he hasn't even started doing music practice yet

DS has gone off to schol on his birthday.:(
At primary school it was always a lovely day, hope someone makes a fuss of him!

15 bits of homework a week?

dd1 seems to have 4 bits of homework a week - maths, literacy, MFL and science, to take 30 mins each, + bits of journal and this and that for drama and personal learning stuff. So not that much at all. But the maths took hours and she tends to dither and not get around to it, hopefully she'll get better at that.

I think the shiny excitement of Big School has worn off, dd1 was saying yesterday how nice and small the primary is, and how the secondary is Too Big.

DS's timetable highlights which lessons he should expect homework from. Its 14 in wk1 and 15 in wk2. He has also been given tasks by other subjects not on the list - backing books for instance (hopefully it will just be the specified ones once all the books are backed and research done??). All in all he spent 2.5 hours on homework this weekend and that's got everything done to start afresh today! I don't think I expected it to be so intense so quickly!

The excitement has worn off here too fennel - last week ds was getting up before the alarm and today he completely slept through it and it only gets worse the colder and darker it gets on a morning I suppose.

dd declared a little while ago. 'I like homework!' I had to restrain myself from taking her temp. Much much better today, though she is a little anxious about tomorrow (has to take her violin in and it is her pride and joy that shes scared of losing)

Phoned the school to speak to the form tutor more or less got told it would be better if I waited until \thursday when they have a presentation. i insisted and got told I was being put through to the form tutor then got the "PE" department now completely unsure if it was the form tutor or the PE department so giving it 1 hour then trying to call again.. floods of tears yesterday she feels desperatly lonely and is unhappy the senco teacher is encouraging her to use the pink lay over as she feels it makes all the other children feel she is stupid (She is very dyslexic) oh to have her back in primary school

Hi

Allow me to introduce myself - DD has started at a brand spanking shiny new school (£20m worth). She has disabilities. She has already been pushed in the back and picked on by some of the boys. But she is happy, and very feisty so I'm not worried but I have contacted the learning support coordinator. The behaviour manager at the school is excellent and I'll let you know how things go.

My view on schools in this country - unnecessarily divided, socially, culturally and financially. We need a fairer system. Free schools and home education are a symptom of a failed mainstream system, choice is for the few not the many. But you don't have to agree with me on any of this!

In the meantime we have to work with what we've got.

Lonnie Do call back and speak to the form tutor, they can ensure she is included in groups with some of the friendlier children - however awful it seems now, there will be some friendly kids in her form and most likely others who are feeling the same way.

Its very upsetting for her (and you ) to feel this way about her new school, but it won't always be this way.

well that didnt make me feel better as I called and got told that this form teacher hasnt got a phone but now apparently and email has been send. well unless she calls me back today and I cant see that happening the earliest I will get to speak to her is thursday..

Really not impresed by their system I am still trying to fidn out if they received her cheque for flute lessons and I querried on the very first day as her lunch money had not gone in

Oh Lonnie thats awful, I can see why you are so worried, they don't seem to be listening to you at all.
I hope you can get someone to listen and help your DD settle in soon.

DD came back and said the boys apologised today.

There is hope.

Dd1 is helping at the open evening for yr5/6 this week. She's like an old hand

We went to the yr6 open evening last night, as we have dd2 who is in yr 6, and I'm a bit embarrassed that instead of focusing on dd2's experience I used it as an opportunity to corner dd1's form tutor about her problems with remembering stuff and doing homework and all that, I also queried the maths and MFL homework with those departments. I am turning into such a helicopter parent (for dd1), and meanwhile a hands-off parent for dd2 (who's very organised and confident and would thrive anywhere, like a weed).

at DD2 being like a weed Fennel!! I'm so focused on DS, I have had occasions when i've forgotten all about DD -she's only 6 but so different to DS it's untrue! We've got a settling in open evening next friday with DS's form tutor they have given us a 10 min slot but my list is getting longer every day!