Have we got a starting Secondary School Support thread?

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

I’ve just just asked DD what the sandwich box and bottle are for in the fridge. It turns out she’s made her first packed lunch ready for school. She doesn’t start till next Tuesday

Lougle that kind of homework does not go well in my house either. DS1 just can't, DS2 can cope better, but it's usually a painful process.

Witchend, sorry about your friend . Your poor DS too, it must just be overwhelming atm. I hope you're able to work something out with the school. I like the sound of becoming a bear. I think I have the skills, I'm an excellent sleeper. When given the chance!

DS2 hasn't finished his homework as he "forgot", so I'm expecting a tense and tearful day tomorrow. I actually hate homework more now than I did when I was at school.

We are managing homework fairly well here - 5 lots with weekend although some of it is not due for a week. We have a rare day of doing nothing today so DD is currently holed up in her room doing 2 lots of project work.

Trying to keep up with DD's appetite at the moment - she is constantly hungry as her sports training has ramped up this year after winning a national title in June. She now has to travel 45 each way straight from school to training 3 times a week and then trains for 2.5 hrs so she eats a food flask of pasta on the way there and when she gets home she has something else (soup or a sandwich etc) . She also does 2 lunchtime sports club and 1 afternoon sports club so there is only one day a week that she is home straight from school. Been trying to get more fruit and veg into her diet but she is living on carbs at the moment.

Ssh...can't you hear the sighing

DD is doing homework.

We had bold declarations of taking a detention over speaking in front of the class. Work is now done, but I am not sure how tomorrow will go for DS2. Especially as he also has PE which he hates.

DD did the one piece of homework due in tomorrow, took her over twice as long as the estimate - all of them are taking at least twice as long at the moment though!.

Sunday is a packed day because I nag her about homework, then she has to fit the top 40, strictly and the x factor in before bed

Thanks very much for all replies on school clubs etc, very useful. We've agreed to 3 x per week, gymnastics, 1 gym with friends or after school club with friends and army cadets she wants to join. We will see how it goes but she's getting much better though not sure if restarting will trigger things OK.

I did do one of DDs homeworks but she generally always does them and I was bored. DS I have no idea what is happening with his homework other than its patchy. His homework system doesn't work and school haven't corrected it. He's really scatty at noticing homework - partly absent minded partly selective memory loss. So I have no idea what homework he has. Asked him if needs help no. Though at this stage just getting him to go to school and do lessons is main target and homework can resolve later. I do know he's got a massive 5 sides of A5 English project to do and I can take a good bet at how much of that has been done. Had to sort out things for my work all weekend though so not got time to sort this.

My DD eats loads too but she's 5 foot 6 and very sporty - about 8 hours a week of sport so she stays thin. She's vegetarian but doesn't like many veg!

Witchend So sorry about your friend but please don't identify as a brown bear as its brown bear hunting season, at least in Finland! My DS did once have a policy of only communicating with school staff as a dog but not sure if that works for parents

Witchend I'm sorry to hear your sad news.

Does anyone else have shared lockers? I've never heard of this but all kids at my sons secondary share lockers which is causing problems as my sons friend is forgetting to lock the locker and already had his own pe kit stolen

No, NoLogic I wouldn't be happy with that. We had to pay a £20 deposit for the key and £20 locker hire charge for the year, but it's for DD2 only. DD2 couldn't reach her assigned locker and one of the older kids noticed and told her to go to pupil reception and tell them, and they immediately took her key back, and the next day she was given a new locker that she could reach.

The problem is it's a huge school and it's been like this for ages as no room for lockers for everyone, either you have a shared locker or no locker.

Penguinesetpandas I don't think there's much of a hunting season in England, so I'll risk it.

My ds also had a time of communicating as a dog at school. His first headmistress thought it terribly funny that the first conversation he had with her was entirely barks.

Witchend at the fellow dog. My DS also once only answered the Headmistress as a dog - he would only woof and answer questions about dog treats. He used to spend lunchtimes as girls pet dogs.

He also would only learn swimming with me as a dog. One time off he goes swimming lots of lengths doggy paddle woofing at the top of his voice - I have to be Mummy Woofie who cuddles Woofie at the end of each length and gives him bones. Then realise another Mum from school is watching us - thankfully she's just laughing a lot and nice.

We pay £8 a year for locker,no deposit

So the school did listen to DH and switched the detention from DS to DD! DD went along gladly as she felt so bad and has pulled her socks up now with regard to getting ready for school. Thank god as I thought DS was going to start refusing to go in due to his upset over the unfairness of the whole situation.

Homework is up and down here. I've really got involved this year in organising them and it is paying off. They do 30-45 mins a night and everything is getting done in time and to a decent standard. However DS is struggling with organisation so sometimes the homework isn't getting back home - he might write in his planner that a subject homework is due in on a certain date but not write down what it actually was then he'll forget what the teacher said or he'll not write it down and forget all about it until reminded the day before. So for example yesterday his French teacher gave him (and half the class) until this morning to hand in the homework due in yesterday. He hadn't written in down in the first place. I asked him what it was and he said "oh I don't know". Argh! He vaguely remembered seeing someone else hand in a poster with some writing on it. At this point it was too late to call the teacher and I'm worried about him getting detentions right now as he is kind of enjoying school finally and I don't want to push him over the edge. So I said let's just do something based on what you are learning now and hopefully it will be right! Will see how he got on with that later. Tonight we have to make a model of a cell as he forgot to write that down too! It has to be in tomorrow . I think I need to talk to someone about these memory/organisation issues but not sure who! I don't want to cover for him constantly and he does need to learn but it is a real problem for him. It's honestly not laziness.

Those sort of problems are linked to dyslexia, dyspraxia and ASD TitsyWoo

Too much YouTube in my dds case

Well played with the detention Titsy.
Could you speak to the form tutor about the organisational issues so they are aware before he starts getting put off by getting detentions. They might be able to suggest something

Yes cheminotte he does have an ASD diagnosis already and we took him for an assessment at a sensory clinic who said they are 99% sure he is dyspraxic (although wanted more money to diagnose him officially) but after the ASD diagnosis noone's really bothered to find out about dyspraxia. Even the OT's he has seen shrug it off when I mention it. Either way I did talk to the SENCO about these issues before he started and his teachers are all aware of his ASD but I don't think he'll get any leeway for it and I'm not sure how much he should be allowed really. He does need to learn but how capable he is of learning is another matter. We've assumed many things of him in the past and been proven wrong so I don't want to hold him back assuming that he can't do it but I don't want him ending up being punished all the time if he really isn't able.

Ah I have found the thread I need!
May I ask how much freedom your yr7s get?
We live in central London, busy and safe area. Dd gets bus home from school and many of her friends get off half way. She wants to get off with them go to tuck shop then get back on her bus.
Sometimes in a Friday they go to McDonald's I was horrified when I picked her up once and they were wandering the streets around McDonald's, bits on bikes doing wheelies.
Now I see it is always the same kids who have this routine. I have no idea what is normal and what isn't but I feel I need to insist she stays on her bus and just comes straight home... cant work out the right balance (except definitely no to wandering around associating with anti social behaviour!)
Really hard not knowing who the new friends are or any of their parents....

I have a new phone that isn't trying to stop me looking at MN. I really will try and catch up now.
Sorry about your friend Witch

My DS is also super scatty with homework - he's suspected ASD and loses everything, seems completely hit and miss on noting homework and their homework online system doesn't work for us. I have raised it via form tutor and head of house and they are being fairly relaxed with him.

He's also having issues in lessons so I've asked them to deal with one issue at a time and we've had a couple of school refusal days. Had a meeting this morning - they got me to interview him last night as he won't communicate with anyone at school. He answered everything but we had some very silly answers and an awful lot of giggling but at school he had just been sitting between 2 chairs with his hands over his ears most of the day so just glad he was happy and talking.

Re freedom we had this issue and I initially gave her freedom as our area is super safe rural but school reckoned not to so we've taken it back. It led to some terrible out of character behaviour from DD though now we are having the I've got no life battles. I'm only agreeing to 3 x per week at activities adults are running or at so army cadets, gymnastics and school gym. We are completely new to this area so know no-one from the school which makes it hard, school said to meet all parents first but that's not easy so have gone with adult led things. Some kids do seem to have no rules though here but I know at my comp kids like that would sometimes end up pregnant etc very young but doesn't make you popular with your child.

DD has to come straight home from school (3 miles) for the moment. We are in an average suburb and I don't want her hanging around in town. In a couple of years maybe. She is allowed to play with her friends from the neighborhood on the street we live on and walk down to the local shop.

my youngest often goes to the park after school but its 3mins walk and where we live is very central 10mins top walk to school

sometimes he drops his stuff of before the park.we are very lucky we live right in the centre of everything,i know some mums are finding it tough as they live further and there son wants picking up from the park later etc but she has a primary pick up

im fairly relaxed about it but i do have two 19yrs olds so been through it with them

dc comes straight home, though sometimes meets up with a friend in the neighbourhood.