Y9-2024/2025

[CouldNotStayAway]

Hi everyone, just starting a new thread for the new academic year.

Link to the previous thread here - Y8-2023/2024

Travel and Tourism - I think it'll be good for him because it's more coursework and gives him fewer exams. He's worried because he'll be in 'with all the badly behaved kids', which may be a fair concern. They only offer T&T to kids who won't make the grade for French, I don't think it's an option for kids who want to take it by choice (they do 'functional skills' for kids with marked learning difficulties). I'm wondering if he might get some choice over coursework topics, because if so he might, for example, be able to do some work on Japan, which he's fascinated by and I think would help him with other subjects.

I suppose it would have been better for school to have warned this may be coming earlier rather than the teacher pretending everything was fine, though in truth I don't think it would have made much difference. DH is immovable in his belief that DS just wasn't trying, I'm immovable in mine that he just can't do it because of the adhd,

That sounds tricky, @Echobelly – especially as you and DH aren’t on the same page with this one. (Obviously, you’re right, haha!) It sounds like the school are offering a sensible option at a sensible time (I bet they don’t mention it earlier in case lots of people stop trying in French to get put on the BTech which is clearly not their aim.) I hope he doesn’t get put off the BTech by peers or his dad – there seems to be a lot of positive comments about them on Mumsnet.

@PuttingDownRoots – that does seem early for their end of year report! Perhaps they stagger the timings across the school years so the teachers don’t have them all to do right at the end. DD had her ‘full’ report in March this year (before options were submitted) so we think she’ll just get a sheet of tick boxes in July.

Any movement on your DD’s options, @Lisamummy22girls

It’s all very quiet here. DD doesn’t even seem to have much homework – it’s all ‘look at where you lost marks in your exam papers’ which is useful, but boring!

My daughter sorted her options, she is doing business studies and looking forward to it

we worried that history might be a bit much for her.. she is ASD and gets extremely over whelmed and lacks self confidence … she struggles with the essay writing in English so I think adding History to the mix is a bit much

@Lisamummy22girls That's good news that your daughter is now happy with business studies!

The French rollercoaster continues... having said they don't want him to carry on French, DS brought back his French listening and speaking exam results today - 41% and... 75% respectively, which puts the cat among the pigeons. He's never got 75% in a test on anything so DH (and DS) are back on the page of potentially pushing for a shot at the GCSE. Just as I'd relaxed that finally we'd be out of all this bloody aggro about French. I'm sort of hoping they just gave him a really easy spoken test just to put him at ease (after all it's one test they could do that as it's 1:1) and that's why he did so well.

Gah! If he does well in the other ones I guess we ought to ask for a meeting to discuss... if they they say 'Sorry, it's too late' then I think I might have to tell DH that I reckon if he hadn't created so much stress around French, then maybe DS wouldn't have been too anxious to write anything in all his other tests this year and might have got to do French GCSE.

A rollercoaster indeed, @Echobelly !

I'm forever telling DH not to be so hung up on percentage scores in random school tests (even 'end of year' tests.) He always asks DD what she got, and if she says (eg) 70% he says 'That's an A' and I have to remind him that 70% on a very easy test might be a disappointing result, but might be an amazing score on a hard test. I tend to ask DD whether she feels it was a good result, based on teacher comments and how the rest of the class did in that particular test.

Best of luck with navigating this!

I've asked him (though he failed last night) to discuss results with me first before talking to DS about them because he has previously upset me by lambasting DS for marks that I would say either good enough or actually very good. As it happens last night was OK and maybe DS just came and told him (I was in the office, DH wasn't). I think we need to see how he does in everything else before we decide to push French or not.

@Echobellyhope you managed to sort out the choices, and make that final decision.

Hope all the other dc have been doing well, and enjoying the last 2 weeks. I can’t believe we’re at the end of year 9…I’ve said to ds, next two years and I do expect a little more work 😂

Winding down next week, have had speech day, sports day, and enrichment week. They’ve had a maths exam to assess where the boys will be placed next year (sets for maths from year 10).

I think the next 2 years will fly by. As soon as ds starts year 11 I’ll have next dc sitting 11+, feels like it’ll be a busy academic year and nail biting with the stress of secondary school places and GCSEs 😩

Thanks - DS did unexpectedly well in his French speaking, but ultimately DH asked DS if he wanted us to try to make a play to keep French, but DS said he thought it best not to. Still sounded a bit regretful but I really think it's for the best. I think the next battleground with DH will be agreeing on realistic expectations for DS's GCSEs in general.

We have DS Y9 report now, looks good and he has turned a few more things from 'working towards' to on target, which is encouraging. Having a final meet of term with form teacher tomorrow morning - the school does a day off each term which is just teacher meetings. But seems a good note to finish the year on.

Well it’s been a crappy year for us tbh. I have been asking for ND assessments since December of Y8 and behaviour has got steadily worse leading to several suspensions second half of this year.

We finally have a private ADHD assessment tomorrow and we are on the CAMHS wait list for ASD.

i have a new SEN contact and SLT contact who both seem to understand more about my daughter after a couple of days than the previous Senco / HOY in 18 months! So we are all hoping Y10 is a fresh start.

Is it too late to join? 🙂

I really hope you get the right support now. It's awful having to fight for everything.

It’s definitely not too late to join, @apaplantte - welcome! I hope your DC has had a good Y9 and hopefully @CouldNotStayAway will set up a new thread in September. I expect we’ll use this one until then though?

So sorry to hear your DD has had a tough year, @Fluffycloudsfloatinginthesky – and you too, dealing with it all. Hope the ADHD assessment tomorrow is helpful and the school listens to any recommendations given.

@Echobelly well done to your DS on his report! Hope the teacher meeting went well. That’s a nice touch, having a meeting with the form tutor at the end of term. Ours doesn’t do anything like that!

Nothing exciting here really. The report was just a just one-pager with tick boxes, and we’re still non the wiser as to whether they have been given their GCSE options or what set they are in for Maths in Y10 (there have been no sets for anything thus far - grammar.) We have been emailed to say that the students will receive a printed timetable which will include new class groups, subjects and teachers, so I suspect everyone will be picking through the timetable to work out what’s what!

@Echobelly definitely well done to your ds; it’s nice to see them make improvements and do so well; also hope the teacher meeting went well.

@Fluffycloudsfloatingintheskythat is awful, I remember reading your previous posts. Really hope the assessment is helpful and your dd gets the support she should have been getting.

@apaplanttenot at all :)
hope your dc has had a good year 9; when we start the year 10 thread please do join ☺️

@LetItGoToRuinyour dd school sounds similar to ds (maybe all grammars have this thing about sets). Found out ds is in set 1 (he’ll be happy because maths is his favourite subject). The letter has explained, that even though they have sets for maths, all the boys are entered into higher tier, and the sets are there to offer the right amount of support. I like that, and I think that would be reassuring for all the parents.

Final week, happy to be winding down. Hope everyone has a lovely summer 😁

@CouldNotStayAwayneed the official report but essentially positive for adhd. She is also showing strong signs of asd now as well - more so than 6 months ago. She will be recommending the school treat her as if diagnosed as well.

she mentioned the school have really failed her. I am going to write a long letter to the head when I have got my thoughts straight- 18 months I have been telling them she’s not just naughty.

They apparently get their options and class assignments tomorrow. So tomorrow night will either be joy or upset.

Can't believe tomorrow is last proper day of Yr9. Friday is party day (feels like they are 5 again! Its a mini festival on the field)

Mine still has 2 days next week! Very jealous of the Friday break ups. We've had a very difficult second half of the year due to ongoing illness. Very ready for it to be the summer holidays. Despite feeling awful a lot of the time my DD has managed to do well in her end of year exams, even one where she felt so ill she basically didn't do a 12 marker essay. She did write a bit of an outline and got some marks for that, which gave her a bit of a boost and I feel was a valuable lesson should a real exam go wrong. I'm so proud of her for battling through this term and hoping we can get the health stuff sorted out.

How are the summer holidays going? I can’t believe it will be year 10 in September!

Pretty good. DS is finally on his growth spurt and his voice is very croaky and breaking. He had a fun time at 2 week Jewish summer camp, including his 14th birthday there. We've now done all his laundry and are off to Scotland this weekend for family holiday.

I'm glad I've taken the tip from some people to book the day after we get back off work, as I'll need to take him to the school uniform shop and that's a military operation in itself but easier on a weekday. Obviously this year I want to leave uniform until as late as possible!

Have fun in Scotland Echobelly. DS shot up in year 9 and now has a deep booming voice! He needed a whole new set of uniform (even blazer) in March. Usually I can get away with restocking just at the start of the year. I expect he’ll slow down a bit now.

The only thing DD1 needs is tights now.

She has a plethora of trainers as her younger sister has had another growth spurt leaving behind barely worn trainers in DD1s size (who seems to have stopped growing her feet at 4.5... herv12yo sister is 6.5!

How are they feeling about not having to do their least favourite subjects snymkre? We've had lots of relief about no more History

Dd1 is no longer taking any languages and is extremely happy. We have school bag to buy, and then check blazer and branded skirt/sweatshirt when we return from holiday in case we have had any more growth.

Holidays seem to be going well, dd joined a rowing club at Easter after doing a programme with school. It runs three afternoons a week and a three hour session on a Sunday. She is going to 3 or 4 sessions a week so keeping her busy. We had a first meet up with school friends in a while just before they broke up but nothing since.

We are currently away and our caravan has zero phone service though, which has been interesting for all of us. Including two very grumpy teenagers at times.

DH has been out with DS to get him some revision books - says, as I agreed anyway, I need to handle the English stuff but understands my feeling that we might want to get a tutor for English Language. The way they need to do eng lang is so specific I'd be scared I would 'teach' him something wrong - on the other hand, he might take well to it being very structured. I think we'll see how Y10 goes.

Psychology next year makes me slightly nervous - he might really take to it or really not. It was sort of a hurried decision to take it after school kind of vetoed one of his choices. Idea seemed led by DH, though DS did seem genuinely interested, but it is quite a challenging one and as he hasn't taken it yet I don't know how he'll find it. I would happily have picked a Btech as his other choice, although actually now he's doing the travel and tourism one instead of French, maybe that's just as well his other choice is quite a rigorous one. Honestly, if he doesn't take to psychology I might deprioritise that one for effort in Y11.

My son seems too laid back about year 10. But he assures me he is “locked in” - which he says means ‘concentrating and learning’ - this remains to be seen.

But I’m a little worried about the fact I suggested he takes “Citizenship”. A friend tells me it’s the lesson they put the more challenging students in … urgh. I thought he’d enjoy the political side of it (which is what his school promoted it as).