Year 7 what will she need

[RevolvingPivot]

Hi. I need to budget and put money away. I know it's months away but I'm stressing.

I'm not sure it would make much difference but just for info:

She won't turn 11 until the end of august

Has a little anxiety.

Has never walked to or from primary school alone before due to me going for her younger sister. Plus she doesn't want to meet me away from school.

Has dyspraxia and dyslexia

Is very unorganised.

Thanks x

Indeed @steppemum. While neither of us have national average data of parents who do use such apps or those ‘morally’ abstaining, the majority of parents I know do & quite frankly you can’t disagree with what is my lived experience. ‘My bus has broken down in x’ calls may work for you but we live rurally and knowing exactly where the bus has broken down in the middle of nowhere is bloody useful. I work full time and if I’m on the phone/meeting, it’s a hell of a lot easier to check on my phone my DDs progress home with a quick glance at Life360 than to excuse myself for a series of phone calls.

If you don’t like using trackers, don’t but the implication that others using them are participating in something immoral I find lacks common sense.

well I haven't used the word moral or immoral at all.
You did that.
I don't think it is helpful to our kids in the long run, hence my choice not to use them.
Nor did I claim to deny your lived experience, I challenged the idea that most parents do it, as the threads about it would suggest that many don't on purpose.
You sound very defensive.
I am simply putting the view that this is not by any means a universal thing.

Perhaps you need to seriously think about your wording then @steppemum? ‘We do not think it is fundamentally the right thing to do’ implies a moral choice & what we have chosen being ‘the fundamentally wrong thing’.
Hardly surprising then you have a defensive response.
Quite honestly, if my 12 year old has been ejected in the middle of nowhere with a couple of others between hamlets as the double decker can’t pass some idiotically parked cars, my priority is retrieving and finding her a quickly as possible not her personal freedoms.
Quite obviously we disagree on this so suggest this ends here.

@SJaneS49

Perhaps you need to seriously think about your wording then *@steppemum*? ‘We do not think it is fundamentally the right thing to do’ implies a moral choice & what we have chosen being ‘the fundamentally wrong thing’. Hardly surprising then you have a defensive response. Quite honestly, if my 12 year old has been ejected in the middle of nowhere with a couple of others between hamlets as the double decker can’t pass some idiotically parked cars, my priority is retrieving and finding her a quickly as possible not her personal freedoms. Quite obviously we disagree on this so suggest this ends here.

perhaps you need to think about your interpretation! The right choice is not a moral thing!

We had three things that helped a stressed child.
We sealed a key in an envelope and left it with someone who lived near by.
We had a £2 emergency bus fare, that was replaced if used, they were not allowed to spend, I actually put this in an envelope, in their bag.
We put the tracker on the phone, I also let them track me, it really seemed to settle their nerves.

Very tempted to use a laughing emoji here @steppemum but from experience they tend to be used when someone hasn’t really hit any decent solid basis for their argument. Any decision that involves a right or wrong is a moral decision. Nothing wrong with my interpretation.

Are you seriously going to continue this?

Don't be tempted to buy a black backpack or pencil case. Buy brightly coloured ones. She is more likely to see them, not leave them behind. DS (who is dyspraxic) 'lost' his black pencil case and got upset on the first day, but it was at the bottom of his backpack. He just didn't see it.

Look for a map of the school, call the school if it's not on their website. Make sure she knows where the toilets are. Make sure she has sanitary products (although schools do have some available for kids, it can be embarrassing to ask). Name tag everything.

Get a larger backpack if you can. DS found it easier to have a large backpack with one large pocket as opposed to a backpack with many different small pockets.

DS found it easier to have a large backpack with one large pocket as opposed to a backpack with many different small pockets.

That's interesting. DD found it helpful to have some smaller sections for things she didn't need to access much.

So in one external section she had her pac-a-mac.
In one internal section she had her emergency period pack and her geometry set.
That left the main section for planner, homework/books & pencil case.

OMG I forgot a back the Pack a mac.
The fights over taking a coat, so the rule was keep the Mac in your bag.
I actually used to check it was there, took about a month for them to realise how nice it was to use when a sunny day turned wet.

Oh and get a pac a mac that has a zip all the way down, not one that fits over the head.

Dd has never worn skirts. She will definitely be wearing trousers / leggings. Whichever is allowed.

We already have the 260 app I don't know why as they are never out without an adult but me and their dad have it as he works away so I can see when he's set off home and I added them both. They know I have it. Maybe once they are older and out and about they will delete it!!

She doesn't write at all at home but when I've seen her write birthday cards etc it's quite neat. Her younger sister joins up her writing and I can't read that. Most of her year and even year 4/5s are allowed to use a pen once they have good writing but neither of mine are yet.

I put her a Mac in now but she's not worn that yet.

Her bedroom is tiny as it is. There isn't space for much else 😬😬

Thanks all.

Does anyone take pack lunch? I assumed they would all buy food there?

He may change his mind next year, but yes my Y7 takes a packed lunch - aparently the covid queueing system is awful.
He does have money to spend - our school uses a thumb print to "pay", and I can top up remotely (and see what he has bought!), but rarely uses it - I think we are still on the original £15.

We dont track DS, but have shown him how to send his location on WhatsApp- so if he ends up somewhere random and needs rescuing, we can find him. Not tested yet!

The lunch queues can be very long, even though most schools seem to run on a cashless finger recognition system which speeds things up.
So some pupils prefer to take packed lunches to avoid spending 20mins queuing.

The lunch queues at my daughters secondary thanks to Covid are very long (they have a canteen and food van) but this isn’t usual. At the moment, she & friends are sometimes skipping lunch as they don’t want to queue. I have suggested a short term packed lunch to her but she’s not keen and just eats ravenously when she gets home.

We have a fob system you top up and DD tends to spend between £2-4.50 daily. We can also see what she’s eaten.

Don't buy loads of uniform before she starts, just enough basics for one on & one in the wash, wait until she has been there a few weeks & you know which items she wears regularly. I bought ds several school sweatshirts & he only wore one on the first day & never bothered again, preferring to wear his hoodie & stuff it in his bag.

An amazing tip I got on here that really helped my dyslexic was a magazine holder for each day and put the books for each day in it. So if Maths is on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It starts the week in Monday, Sunday you get out all the Monday books out they in the bag, when you come home maths book goes in Wednesday Folder, got out Tuesday night into bag, home Wednesday in to Friday and so on.

When DD was at secondary school all lessons were timetabled over a two week period @Lonecatwithkitten, so it wasn't the case that maths was on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and PE every Tuesday etc. In fact she had three PE sessions a fortnight, so there would be two one week and one the next week.

This made remembering to take PE kit to school on certain days tricky.

DD had a copy of her planner on her wardrobe and on her bedroom wall as well as in her bag.

Oh, and if she has long hair put a couple of hair bobbles in her pencil case because she will need to tie it back for science and PE.

Thanks all. I've had done good tips.

I was going to get 5 of those magazine racks that stand up. She has a malm IKEA desk and one tall but narrow kallax unit plus her bed. I'm not sure are will have room for 5?

Might something like this work better in the space?

Same boat as me. I have got her purple pens for marking - gel pens from downstairs. Highlighters from her draw. New black handwriting pens. Pencil, protractor rubber that other thing that draws circles with a pencil attached.

I've just bought p.e kit online at 16 pound for hoody, p.e t-shirt 14 pound and p.e bottoms 14 pound. I got her new shoes recently that are leather and they will be fine as they are new.
I also have x2 ties.
Still need to get 5 skirts at 15 quid each blouses and a 30 pound blazer.

@Christmasfairy2020 I wouldn't buy five skirts - my DDs have one or two skirts each and that's plenty. The skirts can be washed mid-week and hung up to dry overnight if needed.

@RevolvingPivot check out Ikea Fluns magazine files they're slightly narrower. I know you can fit 5 in a Billy bookcase as we used them for our DDs

Before you buy files, do they bring their school books home? My DS leaves all books at school and homework is done on paper.
When DS started we had lots of ‘What if’ conversations. He can get anxious and having a plan helped him. E.g. What would you do if you forgot your lunch? What would you do if you couldn’t find the right classroom? etc.