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

The homework has really ramped up here too. Dd has 100 spellings of terms for different subjects to learn over the weekend, plus other stuff.

We have a meeting with the LA and school about dd next week ahead of mediation to work out what needs doing. I just have to get my manager to agree to let me go!

That is good news Penguin I could do with some hiding places at work right now! The loos are only so useful.
DS appears to have something like 6 pieces of homework outstanding which means most of the weekend written off. I really want to start the week with a clear deck.

The homework feels ridiculous my daughter has at least 7hrs worth on the homework app I counted up before tea she’s done 5hrs worth already inc last Sun & tues. FFS they are 11 yrs old not studying for gcse yet!

Homework is getting under control here. Some of it has been revision, so it looks worse than it is in his planner. DS2 is trying to get through his homework tonight.Though he came downstairs and told me the keyboard bit of his desk had broken. But it wasn't him, he had gone to the bathroom then come back and found it broken

I got a message on the My Ed App saying DS2 had been selected as the secret pupil in his French lesson. This wasn't quite as exciting as it sounds - it was feedback from the teacher on how he was doing. I have no idea if I should send a reply or not.

Homework would have been manageable for ds if he hadn't had around a week of not being in a fit state to do much at all. So he's now got a huge amount and the mere thought of homework is too much.
He was being so good, doing it all on the day it was set without making any fuss at all, and now we're back to 2hrs of upset before 10 minutes of reluctant work.

He's gone to bed cheerfully saying "oh good it's Friday."

Three hours of homework ticked off yah! Feel like we are back in control again phew! Took fair amount of nagging though I’m going to back off the nagging after Xmas once she has got the hang of it and see what happens! We’ve had a couple of sporting competitions this weekend which has been good motivation to get it done. It feels hard though juggling sports clubs, family life and lots of homework.

Felt like the homework ruled the weekend here. Did some yesterday am, more yesterday pm and still some left this am.
Feel like —I— DS needs a homework timetable and maybe an agreement that certain subjects are done at school to his standard, eg PSHE and that I don’t even see them to protect my sanity!

Argh school have sent him home again today unofficially due to lack of staff. He ran outside. Trying to get LEA to help and made complaint formal but not looking hopeful.

Oh no. Penguins. Hope you manage to get some support with this

Thanks very much. DDs home and she said school lost him for a while too - she's thinks about an hour. She said they asked her if she knew where he was and said he was lost. School isn't secure either, kids can get out and adults walk in without anyone seeing and there's a main road and river nearby. He's sensible with roads and rivers but still.

I am not a happy bunny. DS has come home today absolutely heartbroken because they've had a reshuffle of the sets and he's been moved down to Set 2 for all his subjects. This is on the basis of his mark in a maths assessment they did a couple of weeks ago, which he didn't finish because he had a nosebleed for the last 20 minutes of the 50-minute assessment - he was out of the classroom finding tissues and cleaning himself up, and then had to work while pinching his nose, changing tissues etc. We need to ring the school tomorrow to find out whether this has actually been taken into account, because he has absolutely flown through all his work in all his other subjects, getting 'above expectations' for homework and classwork, and he got a 5 upper for his English assessment. He's been moved away from most of his friends and is going back over work that he did and found easy weeks ago. He has to get to know all new teachers and has a completely new timetable. Don't want to be That Parent ringing up the school, but I've honestly never seen him so upset :( Apparently they'll be re-assessed at Christmas and we're telling him he just needs to work as hard as he possibly can until then, but that feels like an eternity away to him. Maths isn't his strongest suit, but he's a blooming bright lad, was on the more able and talented list throughout primary, and it seems crazy that he's being penalised in every other subject.

Oh no both of you!

Losing him for an hour is bad, Penguin Did they not contact you in case he'd gone home? I think asking his sister and not telling you is awful. Ds' sisters would have been terribly worried about him. Do you think he might have worked out that running out of school gets him sent home? I can see my ds clocking that.

Spider I bet they haven't taken the nosebleed into consideration. Probably the people sorting it have nothing to do with the people who were with him.
I don't think saying he might go up at Christmas is much help. He'll then have to go back to old classes and old teachers from this half term. That's going to make him feel so unsettled.
Nor is it fair to change things on one subject. I was top of the year in maths, but really struggled with English, so either I'd have been bored stiff in maths or totally out of my depth in English.

My ds came home once more proclaiming he'd been given the most useless and stupid homework ever. He did manage almost a smile when I pointed out he's said that nearly every day for the last scale. he tells me this is perfectly possible as they're getting worse each time.
I've let him go out with friends for an hour in the hope it cheers him up. He's still very low about school.

Thanks Witchend Hope your DS gets happier at school. I think DD was worried, she pretends she doesn't care but loves him a lot, if gets a bit jealous - she phoned me as soon as school was over to ask if he had been found and said they told her he was lost at 10.45am and lots of senior staff were looking for him. He told me he left lesson before 10am, they phoned us at 11.30am, no mention of him being missing. I think its bad they didn't call as he was outside and could have come home by himself. Don't think that idea has occured to him yet but the idea to run outside so you get sent home definitely has.

Sorry to hear about your DS Spider I would bet they didn't take nose bleed into account either and I would be complaining.

Penguins that really is not good enough! They should have informed you much sooner and not left his sister worrying :(

DH is going to ring about the nosebleed in the morning and ask if there's any possibility he could re-try the assessment. We're looking at maybe doing some extra maths tuition as well to get him up to speed by the next assessment if there is a genuine issue, but going by this assessment, he has apparently gone down more than a full level since the end of Primary, which isn't really a ringing endorsement of the school :( I'm just so fed up of it all - it was our fourth-choice school out of the five we had to apply for but we had no chance of getting into any of the others because of catchment/oversubscription and the fact that he has no older siblings already there. He desperately wanted to go there to stay with all his friends but I'm so worried about it. Need to win the lottery so we can move.

oh pinguin that would awaken my mama-bear modus. what incompetence.

on laptop front, school has aquired a sponsor which will distribute laptops to all y7 pupils. we were told last week. today they told us using the school ones is mandatory and that a parent has to pick it up one day this week, between 3 and 3:30.

do they think every pupil has a parent that can slink away from work with a couple of day's notice?

I'm just glad that we put off buying one until half term...

Spider We got Mathletics at primary which is really good for maths and covers secondary year by year. You can adjust the year too up and down up to 6 times. It's about £39 for the year. I might get it for DS again as he's missing so much school though he tells me he just missed the 1% lessons you will never need today - dance and RE, he also missed French and DH is French

Red Our school seem to think the mother is permanently available at no notice and the father apparently won't do, has to be mother or they moan. Though I send DH a lot anyway.

Thanks Penguins - I'll look into that.

Red we've just had our booking slips to see the form tutor and head of year at parents' 'evening' - the latest slot offered is 4.50-5pm.

I get that teachers don't want to do long evening, but then don't complain about lack of parent involvement...

We have got a form teacher how is your child settling in meeting and you get a 5 min slot!

I'm sorry things are so tough for you Penguins, and I'd definitely query that set, Spiderlight. Not much changes here. DD2 is still agonisingly resistant with the homework. It's like death by a thousand paper cuts.

spiderlight
I'd send a polite email today if i were you. In a large school the info about his nose bleed could easily not have been passed on. My eldest is in year 10 and over the years I've resolved a few things by sending a polite email and been satisfied with the response

Looked and Mathletics are doing a free 48 hour trial, got one for DS but he won't use it. He will be if he ends up home tomorrow.

Caramel I sent a polite email directly to his head of year about an issue we had last week but she didn't reply and it took DH going into school to get anywhere with it. DS has now told me that his actual maths teacher has said to him today that if it were up to her, she'd let him do the assessment again, but that it was entirely in the hands of this bloody head of year, who is a complete battleaxe. Really don't know if we'll get anywhere with her :(

Sorry things are still problematic Penguins. Poor DS spiderlight I'd be querying it to and I hope the school respond positively.

Trudging along here. DS2 didn't bother getting himself any lunch today as the queue was too long. I've said he can have a packed lunch but he doesn't want take one . Got the GP for him tomorrow, it's during school hours but otherwise it was a v long wait. He'll miss PE which he is rather pleased about!

Is the head of year a maths teacher? In dc school a Maths teacher sorts out the sets. Could you email the head of maths and explain the situation?