Year 7 and 8 - what are the expectations?

[4seasonsin1day]

My daughter is in year 8 and we are struggling. I am hoping that some parents and teachers can help me understand what school life is like generally, how children are taught and what the expectations are for work done in class and at home. I would like to understand if I am expecting too much or if there is a genuine problem. If I outline what I am seeing could you comment on whether this is pretty much how it is i.e normal?
At school they don’t use text books at all and hardly write anything down. I did ask the school about this and they said that ‘they don’t take notes these days’. Consequently her work books contain very few notes, in fact very little writing is done at all, most of the work is done on a laptop.
For English she has a grammar workbook for homework however the concepts are explained in class – it is just set for homework. They do not study set texts or books, 1 lesson a week is spent in the library – choosing books and reading.

For Maths she is often set homework on areas they haven’t yet covered, in the guise of seeing if they can do it. Homework is various worksheets, in fairness this year these do seem to be consolidating what they have done in class. The questions are of a general nature – not worded maths challenge type questions.

In year 7 I didn’t see one piece of long writing i.e. a detailed story, critique/analysis of text. She had to prepare a speech and they do ‘inquiry’ however the majority of this is done and produced on a laptop. A lot of time is spent in class searching for info for the inquiry they are doing.

Homework is marked in class, I haven’t seen one piece of detailed work come back with comments from the teacher. We were told that they should be doing an hour a night in year 7 and a bit more in year 8, when I asked why she wasn’t get set this amount I was told she should just find things to do if she isn’t getting an hour.

The upshot is that I see my daughter losing confidence, she doesn’t seem to know how to learn, she isn’t shown where she has gone wrong.
That said, it is quite possible I am expecting too much. When I went to school we were taught isolated subjects eg. History, geography, English – everything seems to be mashed into one now.
Hope you can help set me straight! Thanks

I have a child in Y8 at a state school in England.

He has textbooks for Maths, History, Latin. Other subjects use photocopied sheets.

In English they do study set texts, but not back-to-back. Last one was War of the Worlds.

Maths homework is always on the topic that was covered in class that day. An exercise or two from the textbook.

He does have to produce long pieces of writing but is allowed to type these (for which his teachers are very grateful as his handwriting is almost illegible due to his SEN).

Homework is usually marked by the teacher, or occasionally by peers.

everything seems to be mashed into one now I'm not sure what you mean by this. He has a timetable and separate teachers for each subject. In Maths lessons he is only taught Maths. In French lessons he is only taught French.

That doesn't sound right at all. I would complain. And keep complaining.

Apologies it wasn't very clear re the 'mashed' together. Maths and French are taught as individual subjects however she has 'social science' which seems to cover everything and is often merged in with English. Science is taught as one subject but last year they did some stuff on clouds - I thought this was geography!

I am a secondary teacher. I only use text books for cover if I am not in, or to send work home if a child is ill or very occasional if I can't be bothered. Text books are rarely suitable for regular use IMO because they are not differienttiated.

Mymaths is regularly used in schools for homework and your daughter's teacher should be checking prior understanding before teaching a new topic.

The social science bit is odd, are you in England? Is this psche? Some subjects will overlap eg RE and History and a few schools will teach humanities as one subject. There is cross over between geography and science.

One reading lesson a week in English is standard.

The lack of writing in books seem odd, but then I would have to see a book to see how much they are doing. They maybe doing lots of cooperative learning which in my opinion has its place but should not be the prodomiant way of learning. In one of my subjects students don't have lots in their books but they do long written assessment every six lessons. I do don't let them take their assessments home because I fear they won't come back.

Thanks Mostly. We are not in the UK. They do Social Science which seems to try and cover different cultures, societies and environments.

Your comment re co-operative learning is interesting, I hadn't heard that term before but having googled it, yes that is done a lot, in fact it seems to form the basis of how the classroom works. The teacher 'facilitates' learning, many of the lessons seem to run in this way.

So would I be correct in saying that in the UK at the moment most schools are:

• teaching individual subjects in isolation (even where there is cross over in say geography and science) and test along these lines with progress reports year on year
• English is taught as language and literature - plays/poems/specific set books are studied and discussed.
• Pupils still write a lot and work is corrected across all subjects if grammar is poor (as opposed to most work being done on computers i.e. the computer is not always on the desk being used)
• homework is handed in the to teacher and they mark it as opposed to homework being almost multiple choice/worksheet based and being marked in class

Most schools will have individual lessons but I do know of several outstanding schools in our area who teach across topics.

In our school in English children will have one reading lesson a week, will do some work on spelling or vocabulary or grammar, and literature work. For literature teachers will be free to pick books, poems, article which they believe will most interest the students.

Still writing a lot depends on the school. Our school is fairly old fashioned in that sense as we are ofsted good but the nearest other secondary to us is all cooperative learning and they are rated outstanding. To be honest close marking of all work does not happen their is just not the time. I teach humanities so I will mark spelling errors of new topic words and high frequency words. The current big thing in marking is acting on feedback, where students use marking to help them redraft work or answer additional questions. Some school uses paper but that is due to economics. Again I know a local school, sponsored by an IT company who use computers regularly. IPads are a very big thing in the UK and the majority of secondary students will have one to use in schools. What is it about computers that you don't like?

-Again with homework it depends on the school. Most teachers hate it and for lower school we tend to set project or research tasks so it requires less marking so we can mark GCSE and A level homework, all class works and assessment in detail. Flipped classrooms for homework is a big thing at the moment but I have not tried it. Peer and self assessment are very good tools to improve learning if used correctly.

A lot of this makes teachers sounds lazy but UK teachers are paid 32.5 hours a week with only 10% of that time for marking class books, assessments! homework and planning lessons not counting reports! attending meetings! contacting parents! responding to lots of emails, data tracking, intervention! after school clubs etc. in reality with all these time saving cuts the average secondary teacher in the UK is still working a min of 50+ hours and the head of Ofsted says a teacher should working 70 hours a week to do their job properly.

I am eating breakfast and trying to be quick so I have not proof read any of this!

Dd is taught independent subjects but English covers lit and Lang, science covers all 3 sciences and tech covers food, textiles, DT, graphics and something else which I forget

Maths homework is done on my maths on the computer so marked by the computer

Science, history and geography will have worksheets but they do have some extended writing in history

English they have never read a whole book as a class but do examine extracts and watch the film of books I hate that

Text books are not used and computers are only really used for research and maths homework

Homework swings from nothing to about 2 hours a night

Lots of peer marking and books are marked by the teacher every 2-3 weeks

Is your Ds following the MYP programme at an international school, the use of inquiry certainly sounds like it .

I would search on here and Google PYP/ MYP and brace yourself

Just to add ds is in year 8 at a moderately selective outside London.

He has separate teachers for subjects although Science covers all three sciences , separate from year 9

Books for this year were Merchant of Venice last term and Animal Farm this and next it's an anthology of poems ..

Geography is on the amazon and was project based but history they do an essay or a source question each week.

He has text books for pretty much every subject except RS

Thanks everyone for your comments. My DD isn't following IB yet however if we stay here I would want her to. I understand re the marking Mostly and can perfectly understand that focus would on GCSE work.

I can see how the inquiry process could be amazing however it needs to be well taught and I think some pupils may need a lot of extra help. I think my DD is one of these and she just isn't getting that support. I am struggling to help as I was taught the old way, I just need to get my head around it.

Re computers, I feel they are overused at my DD's school. A great deal of time is spent information gathering for the inquiry which is all very random. I want her to be taught at school not spend hours surfing (she can do that at home!). She doesn't seem to understand how to structure what she is doing once she has found some useful info.

I think at the bottom of it all I am so disappointed that there just isn't the depth of curriculum here - she isn't learning any history, studying any texts/poems etc but most importantly she isn't receiving the guidance she needs to improve her work and the expectations are not very high. It's just different I guess.

OP, what country are you in?
It seems really wrong. Not taking notes? DS takes notes of everything and has had to produce long analytical pieces of writing from the start. I constantly see returned homework coming home with detailed corrections and suggestions from teachers. He has textbooks but mostly relies on class notes. Do you have any other options?

Yes, what country?

I don't see what OP describes as bad. The expectations are the broad minimum DC have had in England. There's lots of opportunity there to push themselves harder if they want to. I wouldn't expect 12-13yos to take notes. I had social science which broadly covered geography-politics-history-other stuff and I don't see that as wrong.

And I absolutely don't want 1 hour homework/night as normal minimum. In fact, we deliberately avoided a school that suggested that.

We are in New Zealand. Don't misunderstand me, we have had lots of conversations with DD re note taking etc however when it is not encouraged and the comment re notes from the head of year. This started when she was 11, she is only just 12.

I am getting used to the system - I think it's like anything - if it's taught well it's very good and encourages students to work and learn, if taught badly or children are left to cruise it is a problem.

I posted because I wanted to get an idea of what happens in the UK and to see if I am being precious. I think I am being too precious if I'm honest but there is a problem with lack of content, marking, recognising where a child needs gently pushing. We are moving on though, we have been to see a couple of other schools and it was enlightening to say the least - we will either be moving her or coming home :-)

Thanks everyone.

Lots of questions...

1. Re subjects - in my dds' school they do a lot in rotation, so on the timetable it says {can't remember the word they use, it's not humanities, but that will do for example}, and they will get taught Geography for 9 week, drama for 9 weeks, history for 9 weeks and RE for 9 weeks. Same idea with Science - it says 'Science' but they might get biology for 1/2 a term then Physics then chemistry, then back to biology again. Same for technologies - they do a stretch of 'cooking' some 'woodwork' some 'sewing' some 'graphic design, etc. But they get all the 'History' say, in a block, rather than a single lesson across the course of a year.

Other schools will choose to do single lessons on a fortnight's timetable, but for a longer stretch of time. I guess there are arguments for and against, but, as long as all the curriculum is covered, it doesn't really matter how it's taught. In Yr7, they did a lot of work, learning how to work. I feel it's been really positive - they taught them critical thinking, how to research, how to do presentations, how to work in a group, how to look critically at reports, how to revise, etc.,etc. Of course, to put that in the timetable, there might be a bit less time to teach "facts" for them to remember, but I know which I think is more valuable.

1. Text books - as others have said, they are used FAR less frequently than when we were young, but then we didn't have the technology available these days. Far more interesting to have the most current, up to day, and often far more graphic resources you get on the internet than a musty old textbook that's seen better days. They are heavy to carry, get lost / not returned to school / get out of date quickly / rarely have much differentiation in them. It's great they only use as and when they are the best tool for the job IMO.

1. My dds school don't have laptops in lessons, but I know there are schools that do - it's keeping up with today's world if they can work out a way to ensure everyone can have one. I go to lots of meetings in the voluntary sector and with work, and virtually everyone now works with their laptops infront of them. Not sure why that's an issue.

1. I would expect them to be taking notes in some lessons, but remember - this is school, not a lecture - often there is a lot more 'doing' in the lessons rather than just 'listening' and taking notes.

1. I'm confused by your maths comment. First you say they are given homework on stuff they haven't done in class, then in the next sentence you say they are consolidating what they have done in class....

1. I wouldn't worry about them not getting an hour a night's homework - my 3rd dc is now in Yr8 and none of them have ever had that much (2 different schools) and they are doing OK.