What do you wish you'd done with your kid since Yr7/ what went right?

[shortwriter]

I'm a secondary teacher and have a child about to start Yr7. Her dad and I were both bright, but lazy at secondary school, and although DD is better than either of us were, she still shows tendencies to do the least possible amount of work to skate by.

I see my students, a full range from extremely hard working to lazy as hell, very bright to struggling, and without doubt those who have support at home have better outcomes at Yr11 than those in the same situation but without support.

I'm wondering what good habits I can start with DD right from the beginning of Yr7 that will mean she has the best chance possible.

What did you do that worked well? What do you wish you had done?
I'm considering buying her textbooks to keep at home for key subjects that she struggles in (Maths) and asking her to tell me each week what she's been doing and spending a bit of time on it with her, but maybe that's unrealistic.

All tips appreciated, thanks.

I gave practical help for the first year or so, packing bags and PE kit the night before. And I went over his homework planner with him daily to start with, but gradually less and less. He is now yr 9 and I haven't seen it all year!

I don't help with homework or revision, but he does them punctually anyway though not with the care he should take. But this is improving as time goes by. He is fiercely independent so I have to back off, which I find hard.

When his progress in English stalled I told him I would get him a tutor next academic year unless he improved. He started to put effort in, I don't think the tutor will be needed, though I will employ one if I need to.

He usually does homework before I get home , he gets home before 4pm, I get home at 6pm.

He does loads of sport - athletics, tennis, cricket - and this really helps, it calms him down, helps him make friends & keeps him off electronic devices.

He doesn't do social media, says it is a waste of time, so I am lucky, I don't have to police it. HTH

Thanks all, I appreciate all the comments.

My DS is in year 7 at the mo. Some things which help us:

School got them to laminate a mini timetable to carry around in their blazer pocket. We copied one for in the kitchen as well.

We have a shelf in the hall bookshelf next to the computer, for books etc. / homework. library books, to keep in today.

our school use an online homework programme called Showmyhomework, this is very useful. HTH.

Boundaries and routine, we have a chill out time after school before dinner then after that no screens or TV, homework / bath / reading.

Dd has her two week timetable on the fridge in a magnetic clip. She swaps the one for that week to the top. That tells her what exercise books/kit she needs to take to school each day so she doesn't have to carry them all around.
I helped dd a lot with making sure she had the right equipment/books/signed planner/kit/homework each day in the first term. Partly as i didn't want her not to have what she needed and partly as i wanted her to focus on settling in happily, making friends/being on time for everything and making a good impression and thought she had enough to cope with with that without getting detentions for forgotten stuff too. There's a big change in what they need to remember between primary and secondary. Once she'd settled in happily i handed over responsibility bit by bit and it's worked fine. She got kept in at break once as she didn't get me to sign her planner but was in Year 8 by then.
She stores her books on top of the printer, but a box is a much better idea and I'll be buying one.

They can have a locker and leave their bags there as well.

Make sure they keep reading for pleasure. It's so easy for it to get forgotten. Keep going to museums, galleries, concerts etc. Get a quality newspaper/news magazine and leave it lying around for them to read -- then discuss if it comes up.

Definitely keep or start outside activities -- a godsend if life at school goes through a rough patch, apart from anything else.

Don't buy DC a smartphone if you haven't already. Complete time suck.

The good things:

-We continued to drive her to after school sports, unrelated to school. It's good for her fitness and lets her broaden her circle of friends.

-I helped her with language homework until after Xmas of that first year, it seemed like a huge mountain to her; she had never done rote memorisation before (state primary), and had no ear for language so answering oral quizzes seemed impossible at first. Luckily I speak the languages she chose and I was just really patient and helped her learn the long lists of vocabulary and repeated again and again words so that she could start to develop an ear. (I realise that not everyone can do this, but you can help them to memorise those vocab lists.)

-We did not get involved in manic friendship group forming, defining, trying to defend etc. A lot of girls' mothers seemed really tense and wanted to set up lots of group outings, playdates, sleepovers etc. right from the start. I think they want to define and create a friendship circle or clique for their DDs from the first few weeks. It was a lot of pressure and did not let the children find their own friends. I stayed out of it. (Despite my husband panicking and wanting me to join the fray.) I let her make her own choices. I kept reassuring her that it was normal not to really make friends so quickly, that the most important things were: 1) be kind to everyone, don't burn bridges before you even know who people are, 2) It's more important to know who you like before you worry about impressing everyone else, 3) you are with these children for 7 years, you are going to have to forgive and forget sometimes or you won't be talking to anyone by your GCSEs, 4) don't panic if you feel left out or slighted, the best way to handle that is to ignore it and remain calm and genial. Result: she is extremely well thought of by her classmates and actually gets stressed out about how to split her time, attention, friendship between all the kids who want it. It did take till Easter though. Any "friendships" before Xmas are superficial and there will definitely be lots of chopping and changing in the social dynamics.

I have been pretty hands-off. My oldest is 16

I agree about respecting that the way they learn may not be the same as yours. eg they might do homework later in the evening that you would like, because they are more relaxed then

I'd advise 3, different-coloured plastic folders. Labelled as: Homework to do, homework Done, and Letters/other stuff. Other than this, I've luckily not had to organise mine.

Go into the school at the first signs of bullying. Luckily, their school has a great team of mentors and dealt with it sensitively and robustly.

Limit screen time. You can't make them do their homework, or do it to your satisfaction (nor should you, IMO), but you can help them create the time for them to do it.

What I regret not doing: keep looking at the school website, to keep track of not only homework (and, actually, I have pretty much left the management of HW to my DCs), but, more importantly to look at the curriculum for each subject and what they are being taught term by term. Our school website is a great resource - get hold of recommended revision books, and look at websites if needs be

Just knowing what they are doing at school is helpful once it comes to GCSE's. You can casually chat about how they are finding their topics.

Whether they show any particular aptitude for foreign languages or not, buy the biggest dictionary that you can afford. It makes their homework so much easier as it includes phrases & idioms. Small dictionaries, even if provided by school can genuinely make things harder & cause frustration/feelings of hopelessness. "It's not even in the dictionary/not fair/can't do it....."
Oxfam bookshop provided cheap medium sized dictionary for Spanish & French & I then went on to buy the jumbo Collins Complete & Unabridged version in each (£25 ish each) when it became clear that dd1 would take both languages to GCSE.

The questions "how was the food" and who did you eat lunch with" were invaluable in the early days as a way to track friendships, spot the shifts in friend groups etc. It seems like an innocent-enough chatty question but often sparked longer discussions about classmates which might have been hard to get into without this opening.

Yep, I m quite hands off too.
So I do ask if there is any homework, I'm telling/remind them about what is happening at the weekends and let them decide when they want to do it.
I've left them asking mistakes too.

So dc1 did nothing in one subject because he thought he would be good enough/was better than everyone else. It came a but as a shock when he was told that xx was really bad adtaht actually so and so did much better.
Same with dc2 who did no revisions in maths for a test, and didn't do as well as he could. It became clear to him that good results=revising and putting some effort in.

I have bought the revisions guides etc but TBH I don't think that any of the dcs have found them helpful.

Oh and yes, plastic folder for each subject, clearly labelled. Notebook and random sheets of paper to go in it. It helps them not to loose anything and be able to dd whatever they need when they need it.

One thing I did that didn't work was a big year planner for them to write homework and tests on (and be able to plan for them). Was never used at all.

I also think that it depends on yur setup as a family.
In Y7. Dc1 was coming back home on his own and was waiting for someone to come back until around 6.00pm 3 days a week.
It proved a disaster for him (cue the amount of time spent on Xbox and the like, attitude etc etc) so we've organised time so that he has stuff to do on those days and isn't at home on his own all that time.

For my Dd2, I found that rewards worked really well. I did not like the way she was approaching her homework - it caused both of us a lot of stress. So, I told her how I wanted her to do it and said if she managed to do it all week she could have a small treat at the weekend e.g. A £1 or some chocolate. If she kept it up a whole month, she could have bigger reward. She asked for a new pair of PJs as her big reward. I did it with her for two months and after that the desired behaviour was her new habit.

We got them into routine of homework every night, for the first term, a few years were spread as they were so tired. Then left them to do homework at a time they wanted. They had a couple of deletions in year 7 for late homework, so rules the brought back in for a week or so.

Ask them about their homework(not all homework and not every day) and what they think, be interested, give them pointers as to how to look at things from another angle.

Have endless supplies of stationery ready to replenish the pencil cases. I have no idea how they lose so much so often. They never tell you so ask them every now and then if they have pencils, pens, rule protractor ect.

*tears not years

Shed not spread.

I give up

My daughter is in year 9. I wish we had set clearer boundaries for social media earlier, rather than attempting to claw it back once the horse had bolted. I remember her transition talk from the school when she was in year 6 and a teacher giving us some pointers about ensuring teenagers eat with the family etc. Teenage life seemed a world away from her at 11 but it all happened so fast, we felt we were scrambling to catch up.

We have an invaluable Whatsapp group with her friends' mums- this helps with 'but xxxx's parents say they can stay out til 7pm' etc. It helps to know their friends' parents even if just superficially.

My DD is pretty independent so I trust her to remember homework, PE kit etc. She has only forgotten once and got a detention. She seems to be doing well academically so I leave it to her to get on with it. I think as she gets nearer GCSEs I will keep more of an eye on that. It is her emotional health that preoccupies me really as the teenage years can be so hard.

I'm at the other end of the telescope from you (my youngest is on his gap year), but from having raised two I'd advocate much of what has gone before with a number of additional things for you to consider.

No television/xbox/phone/tablet etc upstairs EVER. Bedrooms are for sleeping and rest/reading.
Have a regular homework time every night for all your children so that they do it together around a table. Ours was in the kitchen where they could be supervised. Computer with internet access was also in the kitchen. Make sure that their friend's parents know what time homework time is so that no-one calls for xx to come out. We found some friends decided to have the same homework time as us so that the kids have no-one to talk to and just get on with it.
No-one under the age of 14 needs a smart phone.
Have dinner together every night if you can and don't talk about work or school.
Teach children how to set goals for themselves and how to reach them.
Let them fail. Preferably early on. This is particularly important if they are very bright and have good retentive memory. (One of mine has a photographic memory.)
Praise effort not results.
Think about the skills you want them to have at 20. in order to have those skills they probably need to learn one new one a year.

The big thing is to hope that she makes a lovely lot of friends who are bright and motivated. If so, that will motivate her.

We were very hands-on at first because DS was stressed and hopeless when he started secondary. We'd sit with him and "hand hold" him to do his homework and pack his rucksack with him every night. We have a family meal together and then it's homework time for him. After homework, he can do what he likes, such as Xbox or internet - sometimes he has no time if he's had a lot of homework. We've established a regular routine.

Over time, we've pulled away and now he does it all himself without any help from us except the occasional prod.

One good thing of being very hands on was that we we very close to his school work, i.e. looking through his exercise books etc. This was the "norm" from day 1. Now in year 10, we can still look through his exercise books freely (we do it very occasionally now) - he doesn't bat an eyelid and regards it perfectly normal, so we have no issues with him wanting to keep them private etc.