Anyone with a year 7 starting today?

[seeker]

I feel like a cat on hot bricks- can't wait for 3.30!

Oh totally - but interrupting me while I'm trying to explain does not help, dd! .

She also goes ballistic at the merest suggestion of a sigh from me - I have to be careful how I exhale or it is malevolently interpreted!

And yeah, I wish we didn't have to have the tampax issue just yet, but I think it's necessary unless she wants to Take A Note, which I doubt. I did exactly the bath thing with dd1, but she was 14 and relieved to have started at all, so a bit cooler with it, whereas dd2 is pretty flummoxed and ill at ease with it all anyway, so tenses up in every sense I think .

Humm ...maybe note for 1st swimming seeing as this is her 2nd P ...would she have time to sort her self out before the lesson....she is not going to be able to "do" anything or change it if she is in a rush /panic....oh poor thing I do feel for her ..this is the last thing she need in her first few weeks ....

Oh I sent off a nice boy this morning ......but a "KEVIN" !!came home tonight !!! (no offence to anyone wh has a son called Kevin ...bukwim !!!!)

Our DS, 11, seems to have been a 'Kevin' for about three years.... and we too have had the whole homework issues already.....hopefully in a few months they will just knuckle down and get on with it but it's more than a tad frustrating....GRRR

Hi Everyone... don't know why I didn't find this before....
Glad to hear things are going well for you son seeker
and good news that everyone's dc is settling in ok, on the whole.
Ds2 has settled in really quickly to his new school thankfully.
Not had too many worries or issues yet..He's getting an enormous amount of homework and he's not got the best concentration either so that took up nearly all weekend. He's in the grammar stream at a comp but he's getting more than my yr 8 grammar son, so that's come as a bit of shock.
Also this yr, all yr 7's have an ipad on which they do their schoolwork, which sounds incredible and in any ways it is...but they seem to stand around playing games on it at lunch...am not sure ds2 is talking to anyone or making any friends,..I don't think any of them are.
not sure if this is something that should be mentioned to the school or not... seems a bit helicopter parenty but I hate the thought of them standing there like zombies staring at a screen and not interacting...what do you all think?

An Ipad?!! Lucky buggers! My DS would do no socialising at all if he had an ipad at break time... I am sure the novelty will wear off soon though and they will at least start playing the games together or talking about them

I know takeonboard! it's amazing! ... their text books are ibooks with embedded video for demo's, they're using brushes to create artwork..all great.
except for trying to drag him away from various apps at all hours of the day and night!
Dh agrees wth you and thinks they'll get bored soon enough, I think they should try and disable games throughout the day

Awesome to the IPads but don't they make the children a very real target for muggers from other schools and the surrounding areas? We were specifically told that DSs were only to have very basic mobile phones as all the local 'hoods' know that boys from the school have no phones worth stealing or mugging them for.

But on the subject of IPads, I've just got one and both DCs are on it in the blink of an eye if I leave it lying around. DD (6) has downloaded about five pages of silly Barbie type apps.

Maybe the novelty will wear thin after a while? Is your DS into Minecraft though because our DS is totally obsessed with it and would play it to the exclusion of anything and everything else given half a chance....

Is your DS2 at a school in SW London, Ingles2 - if so, know two DDs of friends who are there and had loads of homework during the summer hols too!

we're in Kent gazzalw and rural, so there are no other schools around really.
also the ipad is effectively leased from the school/apple, so if anything goes wrong/gets broken/stolen it's insured by them and replaced.
Ds2 was saying everyone is playing minecraft... good job he hasn't got into it yet then.

That's okay then - generous school ;-)!

It will only be a matter of time before he does get into Minecraft - have had to change the passwords on the PCs otherwise DS would be trying to play it 24/7 when he has homework to do....

IPads, wow! My 2 would kill for one of those each!Oh mine craft, my 2 have it on Xbox, and desperately want the even more involved PC version, but I have refused to download it for them on my laptop, or I would never get it back, or have them do any of their homework on it! I am seriously looking at getting 2 re-conditioned laptops for their birthday/Christmas presents b/day in December as well), but only on the condition that mine craft is not all they will do on it, it will be primarily for school work!, or should I be looking at a tablet type thing instead?