Common problems at secondary school- your experiences

[hls]

As part of some research I am doing, I wondered what were the most common problems your child has experienced at secondary school- anything from teachers picking on them, friendships going pear shaped, homework problems - anything at all. Need to see if there are any common themes.

Any ideas?

I seem to have forgotten how to spell! MNET does not mix with work. You will have to give me lines.

I can't spell!

I spell check all my lessons. Can't be bothered to do the same for MN

DS2 haa also had multiple maths teachers some years (most was 4 in Y10) - unfortunately there is a shortage of maths teachers in state schools so this often happens.

thanks mb and fizzbizz for explaining why there's no holiday homework. That's one worry I can strike off the list!

mb, I wish our school had a progress day like the one you describe.

I think the most common problem for new kids is getting used to having a locker, and packing their bag for each of their lessons.

It's extra hard if they have more than one teacher in any subject, and so have to remember one teacher's book on that lesson, and the other teacher's on the other lesson.

yes, agree very much with that, scienceteacher. Also losing the keys to their locker padlock and not being able to use locker or get at their books. All the more stress for everyone.

Also, the sheer weight of the books my son carried into school some days was worrying.

But perhaps this was because he should have made more use of his locker.

My DS2, while he was in prep school, couldn't get his mind around his locker, and so used to carry all his books in his backpack. He got told off for this (for obvious reasons), and so had to go back to using a locker. Then he didn't have the right stuff for each less and earned lots of minus house points - not popular with his house captain.

He starts at senior school this week, and he won't have time to nip back to his locker base for anything he has forgotten, as the school is far too big. I am praying that he will up his attitude to having what he needs at the right time.

we don't have lockers, as unfortunalty we don't have the space in the school to have them . They kids have to carry a lot, but as we don't have the cash for them to have text books to take home, it reduces the weight.

getting themselves organised is a major issue for many of the year 7 kids.

Changing teachers every hour or so, with changing demands re behaviour etc is also an issue