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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

pfb -in fact only child - off to secondary on Thursday...

788 replies

MaryAnnSingleton · 02/09/2008 08:07

am being calm but every so often panic strikes me - ds is fine about it, it's just me fretting about roads to cross/ money for the canteen - will it get lost/stolen, what about the lockers, arghhh ! Plus,as with the beginning of every term,I'll miss him - I love having him here in the holidays !
It also means that I have no excuses not to sit at my desk and work on the job I'm meant to finish by the end of Seot...

OP posts:
bellaBuonNatalevita · 06/12/2008 14:12

Thanks for that MAS - I am not very tolerant with situations (or my DS's) unlike DH.

How do you feel about them living so close MAS?

roisin - gosh you would think they would give anything to miss languages!

christMAScomesbutonceayear · 06/12/2008 18:42

I'm a bit intolerant most of the time, but surprise myself by being incredibly forgiving sometimes !
Am very happy my olds are so near - for the first 6 yrs of ds' life they lived about 10 mins away and then moved to the West country..we then moved to Hampshire but still 2 hours apart. Now they are so close I think on the whole it'll be great,though we don't want them to rely on us too much - they are getting on but dad is very active and still works,but things like technical stuff (how to sort out the tv,computers,heating etc) will fall to us !

bellaBuonNatalevita · 06/12/2008 18:53

Aww bless!

christMAScomesbutonceayear · 07/12/2008 08:44

...

lisalisa · 09/12/2008 21:53

Hello - can I join in please?

have a dd in yaer 7 - she is my first child.

It's going really well for dd which is great - lots of really nice new friends and great teachers.

for me - its not going so good. Big wake up call as dd had always done well in primary school - hovering near the top of her form. In this school she was put bottom set for english and middle set for maths. Was initially going all guns to get her moved up for English but Head of year completely disarmed me by looking into dd's results and showoing me exactly where her weaknesses were and that she needed to stay put. She did however say dd was very near the top and would probably move up in a few terms provided she did well.

What i having difficult with is the levels . They seem to be graded for every major piece of work. Whereas at primary school they were given A, B etc - which is easy to undersand , here dd is given 4A for example or 5A on something.

I have just worked out that these corresond to nationally used expectations and that she ( I hitnk ) is exepcted - along with all yr 7 pupils to be a level 4 or 5. is that right? And are they expected to reach level 8 or 9 by GCSE stage?

christMAScomesbutonceayear · 10/12/2008 08:38

hi lisalisa and yes, do join us
I am a bit perplexed by grades too..am sure someone can enlighten us. Glad your dd has settled well and try not to worry - am sure the school will know what it's doing - I have no idea what sets ds is in,though I can guess he is in top one for English (by seeing which other children are also in his set and knowing that is one of his better subjects) - we have only had a brief meeting to meet his tutor and an interim report.

bellaBuonNatalevita · 10/12/2008 08:54

Hello lisalisa

It's daunting isn't it? Wondering whether this is the norm or not.

I think your best bet is to let the school guide you on what sets she is placed in and then maybe if you are still not happy, have a word when it is parents/teachers consultation day.

DS has just announced he is playing the part of one of the ugly sisters in Cinderella for his drama play next week .

He has also found out that they are having a school disco (yr7 get their own) on the last friday of term in the afternoon.

At the end of last week he told me that yesterday he would be doing cross country running instead of indoor pe as mock exams were going on in the gymnasium. Well he got that slightly wrong and it was Monday (which is rugby) and although he had outdoor kit, he only had his rugby boots with him. He is not the best runner and came 3rd to last - said he thought he was going to be sick half way!

bellaBuonNatalevita · 10/12/2008 08:55

oh forgot to ask MAS - how has the moving in gone?

christMAScomesbutonceayear · 10/12/2008 09:36

well done bellavita's ds being an ugly sister !!bless him...
moving in has gone very well,exhausting and everything,but they're in and sorting through boxes among the debris of things like a new loft hatch being put in ...my mum tapped on my back door yesterday having tramped up the garden with some flowers - aaw ! (dad has sawed a hole in the fence that adjoins the houses!!)

bellaBuonNatalevita · 10/12/2008 10:12

tis nice to get flowers

christMAScomesbutonceayear · 10/12/2008 14:19

my mum is very good at doing things like that - I wouldn't get any otherwise ! - actually, bit unfair as dh occassionally brings me a bunch from Sainsbury's !

roisin · 10/12/2008 18:01

Welcome lisalisa

I'm happy to explain national curriculum levels to anyone who wants. I've posted quite a bit on Lisa's thread here

At ds1's school every piece of homework/assessed work is marked as:
above target
on target
below target
(He knows what his target is for all his subjects.)

In addition they are given 'next steps for improvement'.

This is a good system, as it doesn't encourage them just to look at marks and compare with one another; but to consider instead the progress they are making and what they need to do to improve.

In addition he has at least one test/assessment or 'levelled' piece of work in each subject each term, to confirm his CWL (current working level).

christMAScomesbutonceayear · 12/12/2008 16:38

ds has been writing to a French boy in their French lessons - a pen friend I mean - ds wrote back with the beginning in French and the rest in English apparently - he said how neat the boy's handwriting is (in fountain pen) and said how the penfriend was shocked at the 35 mins we have for l lunch break here !
I wonder, do French children all learn that particular writing style ? my own penpal wrote in that way (her English was a million times better than my French !)..ds' is called Maxime, sounds lovely ! Mine was called Sylvie and when I went to lunch with her they gave me so many courses to eat I was in pain. I explained to ds how the French take food seriously.

magentadreamer · 14/12/2008 17:28

Last week of term, I can't believe how quick it's gone! Yesterday I recieved the ultimate in snoop on your DC - DD's school sent a letter containing a transcript of every thing DD buys in the canteen - they have a swipe card system. DD seems to be rather partial to crumpets at break!

DD made me smile today we were looking at Xmas trees having decided that we'd have an artifical one this year she looked at one with lights on it already attatched and said the only problem with that mum is if it's a single circuit then if one bulb goes then none of them will work and we'll spend ages trying to find out which bulb has blown... Yup DD has been doing circuits in science!

roisin · 14/12/2008 20:23

I wish we had that canteen system magentadreamer! Is it cashless too?

christMAScomesbutonceayear · 14/12/2008 21:22

and at canteen !!

bellaBuonNatalevita · 15/12/2008 12:46

I do love a crumpet!

DS told me a while ago he was not sending any christmas cards to his form peers. On emptying his bag last night he declared he had received a card from a girl called Carla in his form, so perhaps he had better send some after all. I have had to go out today and purchase some for him.

He is insisting that he will be wearing his scruffiest jeans (they are yukky) to the school disco on Friday afternoon, but little does he know that they will be finding their way into the bin before then.

I used to love having pen friends. I wrote to boy in America for quite some time when I was about 13.

lisalisa · 16/12/2008 11:43

Hope I'm allowed a proud mummy moment - anyone who begrudges or thinks I'm blrowing my own trumpet etc please see my thread of last week about difficulties of my dd since starting secondary school - anyway.....

Dd has had the first part of her end of term science exam result ( she takes the second part today so fingers crossed for that )and she got a Level 6B!! We are all incredibly proud of her since its the first good result she's got - her interim report averaged Level 4s across the board in all subjects and there were a good sprinkling of Level 3s which was a big shock so this is a great result!!!!

must be a clever class as dd reported quite a few level 7s were achieved too!

christMAScomesbutonceayear · 16/12/2008 11:57

lisalisa - wow ! and congratulations to dd !! bask away....

lisalisa · 16/12/2008 14:02

thanks

roisin · 16/12/2008 15:25

That's great lisalisa: well done her!
Some subjects have different
expectations/targets, so L3 can be "good" in some areas.
Praise her up!

christMAScomesbutonceayear · 16/12/2008 15:39

woo ! ds has a 100% attendance certificate today - not as impressive as lisalisa's dd but still

christMAScomesbutonceayear · 16/12/2008 15:51

Do you think we need to buy something for our dc's tutors in yr 7 - or have we escaped that now ? what do you think ?

lisalisa · 16/12/2008 15:57

Well done for your ds's attendnace cert christmas and what a lovely idea!

Thanks roisin - you def remember my other thread and held my hand for a bit last week. Nice to share some good news with you now

And we have really really priased her up!

bellaBuonNatalevita · 16/12/2008 15:59

Well done lisalisa's DD and MAS's DS -

On the buying thing for tutors MAS, I was kinda thinking we had done with all that now...

I was feeling relieved that I only had DS2's teacher and assistant to buy for

What does everyone else think?