Y7- 2023/24 support thread

[BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz]

Hi, just dropping in a thread for those of us who have kids starting secondary this coming September. There was a lovely thread going last year and they are carrying it on into Year 8, so here is a place for us the year behind.

How is everyone feeling as they finish Primary and prepare for Secondary?

Dd is moving from a single form entry "family feel" type cosy Primary into a large 8 form entry, multiple building secondary. She's going alone, her primary class are really split up across multiple secondaries.

The transition days helped, and she is excited,but has been really sad this weke saying her goodbyes

Is everyone prepped for uniform etc?

We've had reports too but no parents evening.

They've also just put them into sets for maths. DD2 got top set but would have preferred set 2 as the teacher is nicer and she feels a bit intimidated in set 1. Their teacher told them in their first lesson that they needed to get at least 45/50 in their next test or would be given detentions - doesn't strike me as the best method of getting Yr7s enthusiastic about your subject!

@Stokey wow that seems a bit harsh for the teacher to say that!

Anyone else's secondary school have fights? Not sure to what extent these are (eg a bit of shoving or hitting)

Dd sometimes says "there was a fight on the yard today"

Apparently there are regularly scuffles in one of the oldest and most crowded classroom blocks, and there was an incident this week where a Y7 has had a week in isolation for violence... horrifies me quite a lot but DS seems to be taking it in his stride and says there were fights in primary, too.

Ours has a segregated space for the Year 7s and DS does activities half the time so he's reasonably insulated from it I think...

I think so but the y7/8 arent really with other years a lot.
Behaviour overall a lot worse than primary.
Despite all the formal warnings - dd says about 20/30 have had at least one.
There just wasnt this use of detentions etc when i was at school in 90s.

45 of 50 seems very high to need to get!
Well done on set 1!

dd science test is going to be very hard i can tell

DD1 gleefully relays all of the details to me (she relishes drama that child - she was stopped from live streaming when our road flooded with Storm Babet to the entire year group - who were equally gleeful about the fact they lived at the top of the hill we're at the bottom of to be fair) but I tend to assume it's like a couple of shoves, the kids all gather around and yell "fight fight" to watch which of course immediately alerts all the teachers who come to break it up (generations of teens have never quote figured this one out have they)

She seems to be doing OK - had a parents evening where she had a mixture of glowing reports from staff who "get" her (she can be a bit of a marmite personality) and a science teacher who wanted to log a safeguarding because she asked all the questions about how they could die from stuff in the labs when they were doing all the start of year safety stuff. I'm unconcerned about this because she's a bit of a doom monger anyway and it's simply her lack of filter between brain and gob! I told her Y6 teacher about it (we were in primary for the other child) and she was like "yep we went through it all here as well - it's just her being her"

She seems to be raking in the good behaviour points though - the incentive from them is to get to go to lunch 10 mins early and skip the canteen queue. Academically stuff comes easy to her though - socially less so, but they seem to be breaking away from the groups they went up from primary school in and forming new friendships and she seems to have palled up with a nice girl and spent the weekend at her birthday party and stuff. They also seem to have semi-adopted DD2 and taken her under their wing as a friendship group which is reassuring since DD2 has lots of SEN and will be going up to Y7 next year so having some big kids looking out for her will be reassurance to me.

Chem test - told to put calculatoe ob desk to use.which she did then didnt use it.
i dont think theyve ever used one in a test as all mental arithmetic. So obviously she didnt finish.
the question didnt even sound like the topic they are doing.

i think though science you can always use calculators??

DD is in a foul mood this morning. She chose to join the choir at the busiest time of year obviously. So last night was the Christmas concert, didn't get home until 10pm and now has to get up to go to school. Next week she has 9 Lessons in Chapel on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so won't be home until around 10pm on those nights. She has a cold and is feeling rubbish so naturally I'm getting the blame for all of it! I have pointed out that it was entirely her choice to do this but nope that isn't washing with her.
Roll on Friday when they break up, I am tempted to shove her in boarding Tues-Fri just so I don't have to deal with getting her up and to school 😆

Can't believe we have survived/reached the end of the first term!
DD breaks up today and after 3 late nights of choir for Festival of 9 she looks ready to drop.
Wishing all your DC a lovely restful break.

That's a nice early finish! Mine doesn't finish til lunchtime on 22nd

She is buzzing today that she started Food Tech this week

Yes mine finishes slightly early on 20th.
Seems late in term to change d&t topics.
Dd has had football but only about 2-3times as switched early nov i think but alternate weeks.
Looks like no more tests which is great!

@twistyizzy always such a busy time of year for singers! DS lives to sing, but even he is glad that his run of concerts/services is over… and he has come down with his second cold in a fortnight.
He finishes lunchtime tomorrow, and it can’t come a minute too soon! He’s desperately in need of some downtime.
First term has gone better than I expected! He’s managed to just about keep up, has good rapport with his teachers, and seems to be developing a little group of friends. He’s enjoying his status as “the boy who reads more books than anyone else” 😂
Homework was starting to get a bit close to the wire by the end, so time to implement some better habits in the New Year (all good intentions…!)

Sending strength and resilience to all those with still a few days to go before breaking up 🎄

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz most schools around us aren't breaking up until 22nd, it feels so late after such a long term!

My daughter finishes lunchtime next Friday too and she's also started food tech today. She's so glad sewing has finished. She had a horrible unsympathetic teacher who didn't care she had a fractured arm and expected my daughter to carry on as normal 😞

DS who is usually up well before any larks can be arsed to stir themselves was still asleep at 7.30 today and I had to wake him... I think the long term plus the carol concert + Christmas concert finished him off. As @TeaandHobnobs says it's a crazy busy time of year for musicians and he's missed about a day and a half of lessons for rehearsals, but then still has a bunch of end of unit assessments next week.

Mine thought he was starting food tech but has found himself making a wooden box instead - he's a good cook so I think he was actually looking forward to food tech! What a shitty teacher, @BeverleyMacker, your poor girl.

Wow beverley thats awful.
Turns out dd has also switched - she has woodwork now for 1 double.
its been surprising how little they got done in d&t so from sept -early dec made 1 item but in primary my youngest class made an item in about 2hrs (with support)

Shes been saying she loves art so would want to continue that, but the gcse topics seem quite odd for that. I think they only get 2 free choices. And seems odd that one is a geography /history choice when nowadays IT would probably be more use?

Yes it's EBacc isn't it so really strongly weighted to traditional subjects.

DS is a history and geography nerd so it suits him reasonably well, but he'll likely want to do both (at this point!) which leaves him with only one other option.

Yes i think hist/geo go well together. They cant actually take both at her school - i think.
I guess i think the subject being controlled isnt such a great thing in some ways.

They've got a couple of years before they need to choose and you may find what they like changes quite a bit. Generally they all have to do 2/3 sciences, Maths and 2 English, meaning 5/6 slots are already accounted for. Then some schools will make them do RE (because it's a compulsory part of the curriculum), a language and a humanity.

DD1 has just had to choose, and only got 3 real options ( and they do 10 at her school) as they had to do Triple science and a modern language. But she has changed her mind about which humanity to do this term, so you never know. DD2 is already saying she'll drop a science as soon as she can but we'll see!

@Stokey it is interesting how it differs so much within each school. DDs allows up to 11 GCSEs (9 as minimum), RE not compulsory but 1 foreign language is and they can choose Geography AND History.

True may change. And long time away. But i can rule out pe and music as she has consistently not like those for years (and music she wouldnt have the grade 5 or whatever needed)
Looking at the gov data there seems to be maybe 10-15 kids who sat both in 2023 geo and history. And interestingly about 100 kids who didnt sit any languages. So either the rules changed or they were allowed to drop out.
middle prior attainers did 8.1 gcses and high 9.1 but that may have been the ones doing separate science. Only 30-40 did Computing.
so i think most kids will do just 8 subjects maybe leaving only 1 real choice.

Nearly the end of term! DS has been coughing away for weeks and has had loads of exams. He finally succumbed this week and has had 4 days off with a chest infection. He’s on antibiotics and steroids.
he finishes next Wednesday until 8th January so hoping to get him back to school for 3 days and then a break to get well. He’s worried about how he’ll catch up.

His favourite subjects have been Latin and history. He prefers German to French but would happily drop both! At his school they have to do 3 science and a modern language (so not Latin!). He’ll have 3 real choices - they do 10.

Congratulations to making it to the holidays to those whose DC have finished already. 21st here so we have to make it through 4 more days. Here a friend was going to visit at the weekend but unfortunately had to cancel so we had a free weekend - the DC really needed it tbh, they actually got up without me nagging this morning! So am feeling more hopeful about surviving this week than I did last week which had several end of term events in it and felt a bit like a marathon.

Not sure about how GCSEs will work here as we are in Wales and they have a new curriculum since DS1 (in theory, though doesn’t seem to have changed that much) and so GCSE’s might change a bit too. We will have to see. Not sure DS2 has a favourite subject atm particularly, he’s a bit of an all rounder.

Nearly at a third of the way through the first year. Is this everyone's first dc at secondary? I can't work out if this will male me much more relaxed for dc2, or I'll have the added stresses of (1) knowing about the worser parts of secondary (2) the worry they may not get into the same school and (3) the pressure on dc2 if teachers compare siblings, positively or negatively.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz yes first and only at secondary so we are only getting 1 shot at it 😁