Is there a Y7 2024-25 support thread?

[Eastie77Returns]

I’ve been following the 2023-24 one as DD starts secondary school this year so was interested to read about the experiences of pupils who started last September. I’m ancient and things have changed so much since I was at Secondary school. I’m already struggling to keep up with the e-mails and flood of information from her new school and the new term hasn’t even started yet!

Next week she is attending a week long summer school / transition week which I thought was a really good idea to help her get settled ahead of September but she is complaining she doesn’t want to go and it’s unfair she has to spend part of her summer holiday in school (which is fair enough). She has already spent a day at the school and came home overwhelmed saying the buildings are too big, she felt lost and lunch was rushed. On the other hand she really enjoyed the taster lessons and as she likes structure she was excited about having a timetable of different classes.

I’m sensing the months ahead might be a bit tricky and DD is my oldest so the first to attend Secondary and I’m really not sure what to expect!

@Snowdaysandhappydays I'm really surprised to hear that. That sounds like a dereliction of duty on their part and I would be raising it with the governors to be honest. Totally unacceptable.

I am really surprised to hear this as well. I'm not sure how this incident is anything other than unacceptable, and having a massive impact on your child.
I really hope some alternative solutions can be put in place for your child. Keep going with the meetings and review all the school policies and processes. I believe you should be getting more support with this situation.

Had a report card home today. Bit of an eye opener. It seems that the targets from Y7 upwards are based on the child’s Y6 SATS result. So if they scored highly in SATS (which was only based on maths and English) they are expected to perform at that level for every single subject between now and GCSE. 🫤

That's how the government sets the targets for "Progress 8".

Yes, seems a bit much to expect someone to be working at greater depth in every single subject. Especially one term in to Y7. I guess that’s the system we are dealing with now.

Its even more ridiculous for a child who scraped a pass in one subject, but greater depth in the other (its an average of Maths and English) so they get the same target in both. (Like my elder DD... her official target in English is 7, her actual predicted is 4/5...)

That’s mine - had an awful year 6 but did well in his English but just failed maths

he hasn’t yet though he has done his CATs but are waiting for kore info before setting the attainment band

Seems that way at ours as well. If you did well in sats, kids are in the higher groups for most other subjects.

Presumably it doesn’t matter what secondary school they go on to, if they took SATS their target / banding will be set based on that result. So high SATs means top banding for progress whether at grammar school or non selective secondary

In my experience (my year 11 is at grammar who admittedly didn’t do SATs) and of the area (Sutton Grammars) they don’t set that much at Grammar- they don’t have to because the margins between them are smaller. DD did everything with her class (apart from tech) until year 10 GCSEs where they were set for maths and science
this was then based on all the data (including the 11+) the school had and the only real difference is the top set maths does further maths and English does a different book
and they didn’t make a suggestion as to GCSE grade until year 10 the rest was colour coded to where you were in the year

DS for example is a tricky case he had huge school anxiety in years 5 and 6 ending with 65% and 28% attendance. Was not able to do any SATs intervention groups and very little revision so it is hard to really gauge where he is at maths. We chose the school he is at partly due to its good mental health support but also because it doesn’t set until year 8, he does all but maths/PE and tech with his tutor groups and maths is also mixed ability and won’t get a banding until end year 7

Not always. The sets at my DD's school are based on tests they give them in Y7 She sat a maths test 2 weeks after starting for example to determine the maths set, and P.E sets were determined after 4 weeks observation.
I assume her official "targets" will be based off SATS though.

DD’s school seems to have determined sets via a mix of SATS results and tests the pupils sat once they started Y7. I agree the expectation that good SATS = working at greater depth across all subjects is unrealistic. DD did well in SATS and is in the top set for Maths but struggles with Science. She has nevertheless been told that her expected grades, based on just 4 months of secondary school, are 8-9.

What is the rush to put kids in these attainment bands at such an early stage..

Ours is the same as @Eastie77Returns , a combination of SATs and CATs. However for DD as she did neither they were pulled out of the air by asking her what she thought they should be, this has resulted in her having a target of 5 for Spanish despite the highest possible being a 4+ (by the end of year 7) because her form tutor didn’t know that MFL has a different grade curve to the other subjects.

I don’t think the targets matter that much, they will shift the sets based on attainment not targets.

We have a table that shows how the kids should be progressing through the years that applies to all the subjects (except MFL).

Belated HNY to everyone. I hope the post Xmas return has been a smooth one for everyone’s DC.

DD has been unimpressed to discover a few changes. Dance has been removed from the Y7 timetable as the teacher suddenly left! The school has also now introduced detention for incomplete/missing Maths, English and Science homework. It’s odd as they made a big point of telling parents during the open evening at the beginning of term that they do not believe in punishing pupils for not completing homework. Otherwise DD is very happy with school life. She’s on the year football team that won a county level cup last month is also enjoying being part of the Netball team. Academic wise, she hates Science and loves languages which mirrors my preferences when I was her age so the apple definitely hasn’t fallen far!

Happy new year! Hope everyone has had a good beak and no drama's going back to school for year 7s.
My daughter was fairly pleased to go back. A slight change to some of her timetable. They do some creative lessons such as cookery and woodwork in terms rotations.
She only had one piece of homework over the Christmas break and generally homework has been ok - only 2 or 3 pieces a week. Hope everyone else's homework has been fine.
No change to detentions here as yet!

general question. are you pleased with the school choice for your child and would you have made other choices knowing then what you know now?

my family has made it through the 11+ london frenzy and just wondering what the school selection process looks like once the kids have made the transition.

100% pleased with our school. Wouldn't change a thing, even if it was stressful getting there. DD is thriving.

Yes the school is absolutely perfect for DS - it isn’t the school I envisaged sending him to.
It would have been awful for DD who did go through the London 11+ plus and is at a Sutton grammar - was perfect for her for 5 years and she is moving on (ironically to the school I thought DS would go to as it lets girls in the sixth form).

DD is very happy at her school. She passed the 11+ but was on a waitlist as she wasn’t in the top 120 or 180 scores (can’t remember!). Eventually an offer came through from the Grammar but after lots of soul searching we declined it as DD was genuinely distraught at the thought of not attending this school as she had completed the summer school orientation and felt she would love it.

We’ll never know what the outcome would have been if we’d chosen a different path but so far I’ve no complaints. DD takes part in multiple team sports and other extra curricular activities. She is top set in all subjects grouped by ability. But most importantly she is happy has made a nice network of friends.

I've been following this thread from the start - hope all your year 7s are settling in well the second half of the year. I'm struggling a bit with my daughter at the moment so any advice or solidarity very welcome. She seems very down and tired all the time, doesn't want to go to school and sees it as something she has to endure every day. She says it's not the school itself as she would rather be there than at a different school and there's nothing underlying happening at school- it just seems the general grind and slog of it all has sapped all the happiness out of her. She gets on well with the girls in her class (including a couple she knew from primary) although hasn't got a "best" friend yet. She's doing a couple of clubs, but is not keen to try anything else new and is quite shy generally and slow to warm up to new people. Definitely an introvert and so I think finds all the people and activity quite tiring. Possibly hormones at play too? I really don't know how to help her, I hate seeing her so sad.

Sorry to hear your daughter is struggling a bit. Year 7 can be such a massive change, tiring and overwhelming.
Hopefully all she needs is some more time -Maybe some relaxing movie nights, days out of things to look forward to out of school may help. Would it be worth having a quiet word with her form teacher/pastoral care as well to see if they can suggest anything to support her?

Aww your poor daughter! We have ups and downs a bit like that as well. It seems to come and go. but year 7 is hard - they are still young, the daily trek to school and back can be hard going for any kid especially with the new environment and homework and so on - a lot of responsibility.

I will occasionally give my kid a day off. I know MN don't like it much, but I see it as a mental health day, perhaps once every half term if she needs it. She seems to bounce back a bit then. She can also use it to catch up on homework. I figure that her MH is more important at this stage. Perhaps a day off might help? middle of the week or something? And planning a getaway weekend somewhere she'd love to go? Keeping time outside of school relaxed but also fun is good - cinema, clubs she enjoys, movie nights etc.

Thanks for the replies. I'm reluctant to give her the day off as I think that would probably make it harder in the long run, but I'll think of some things we can do together to spoil her a bit and things she can look forward to. Today was a slightly better day, but it still all seems very tiring for her generally. I think she finds the social side and being with relatively new friends quite exhausting too and its a large school with lots of kids, which is a bit overwhelming when you're a shy year 7!

How is everyone doing?

@FloraBeetroot I hope your DD is feeling a bit more settled? Y7 is hard. Such a big change and it's exhausting. It's particularly tough for shy kids in a large, busy setting.

Has anyone found the weeks since the return after half term a bit of a slog? It feels as if Easter has come around later than ususal and it's been a really looong couple of months. DD is ready to break up next Friday.

She is still generally happy and has made quite a few friends. Her 'best friend' is in a different form from DD and the bestie's parents have written to the school asking for her to be moved to DD's form because she has fallen out with a group of girls in her class. Apparently they sent the request via e-mail, named girls who had been bullying her and for some reason decided to copy in lots of other parents into the e-mail. This kicked off a huge argument and the Headteacher has sent out an e-mail warning parents not to gossip amongst themselves about their children's classroom issues!

One thing I've found odd is there hasn't been any kind of parents evening at all since she began. I'm not sure if this is standard? I haven't heard of any plans to hold one at all this year so wondering if this school doesn't do one and we are just supposed to follow the kids progress on all the various portals.