Please explain my child to me....very long, sorry!

[seeker]

Dd is in year 8. Doing well by all accounts - last monitoring sheet all 6s and 7s apart from 5s in MFL and Latin which she only started this year, letters home about how motivated and hard working she is, prizes for effort - all the bit.

Apart from IT, which is a 4. A bit strange, we think. Teacher at parent's evening seems evasive, but seems to be talking about a different child - she needs to focus, never speaks up in class...Dd has said before that this teacher is really bad at explaining the task they have to do and is not approachable. Seemed to us nice but dithery and not really on top of things.

Anyway, the next day we get a call from the Head of IT - dd hasn't handed in some homework. We know that the work was done - we saw it being done. Said we'd talk to dd.

Turns out after forensic questioning that she hasn't handed in any IT homework since November,(even work she has actually done) and has constructed a complicated structure of lies to us and the school about it. Can't explain why. Lots of tears and apologies, but still no explanations. And actually, more lies until she was metaphorically pinned to the spot and the truth came out.

I'm amazed that the school let her get away with it - it's a strict and "on the ball" place. But I'm just baffled by dd - she is by nature a conscientious and hard working person. Not superbright, but clever and organized. We've never made a big deal about achievement, only about effort and we have a happy and supportive family environment. And she is very happy at school.

She is grounded until she has caught up with the work - not for not doing the work but for all the lies. But it's an explanation I'm looking for and she can't come up with one.

I need one, because I have been badly rocked by the lying and I need to find a way to rebuild my faith in her.

Former classroom teacher, school head of department and educationalist here.

It sounds like either a) failing to give in IT homework is her perfection release valve, b) the teacher isn't very good at inspiring them or getting them to give it in, or c) some other wierd thing amongst classmates is going on.

I would recommend stepping back from this. Let her get into trouble at school for not submitting the homework, whilst warning her at home that school will be onto her if she doesn't comply. Eventually she will sort out her own way of dealing with it, or ask for advice on how to catch up (if you have left the proverbial door open for this). Just loosen the reins and perhaps just confine yourself to cocking an eyebrow if there is more lying, until she feels she has the space to be frank with you again.

The world will not end if your daughter continues to be sloppy about her IT homework, especially if she has actually done it anyway. I also wonder if she needs a bit of private space to experiment with being less than perfect and hardworking, which might be how the lies arose. I don't think she's on the path to a criminal career, but rather this sounds to me like a combination of a slightly flaky teacher, a girl trying out different identities, and possibly some shift in the class culture and ethos the minute they walk into the IT room.

I hope Twinset reads this thread as I would be interested to see her take on things.

Doing her homework yet not handing it in suggests a self-esteem issue for her. She doesn't think it is good enough, and doesn't want to get marked down. If she is otherwise doing well in her other classes, she may not want a blot on her reputation amongst her peers, and most of all herself. She would rather take a hit on behaviour than actual achieivement.

Sounds like she needs some encouragement that her work is good (if it is), and that she can make it even better.

IT is a funny subject because there is always more to do. There is always an improvement to be made, which can be frustrating for a perfectionist. Part of the work with IT is to do two or three draughts annoted with what will be changed before the final piece, and even that needs to be evaluated to say how it could be improved if she were to continue working on it. She needs to draw a line under her work at some point (and hand it in ).

Ah that is a very good point, ScienceTeacher. Could well be that.

Thank you so much - 2 of the people I was hoping for have posted already - what a result!

I am interested in the 'safety valve" idea - I hadn't thought of that before.

She only didn't hand in a couple of things - the rest she just didn't do. I wonder if she saw what other people's work and it knocked her confidence? She's usually pretty grounded - but a combination of that and the safety valve thing is an interesting thought.

Oh, and she may not actually be level 4 - it may be that the teacher just doesn't have any evidence to the contrary if the levelling is based purely on what DD hands in.

I wouldn't worry too much about it and would agree with BoffinMum's approach. I think that it stems from a problem with the teacher.
At one point my DS1 had 3 teachers for French, it was one of his best subjects and he took it through to A'level. We discovered at parent's evening that he could have been 3 different children! We spoke to teacher1, head of department and she couldn't understand it, she had an able, enthusiastic pupil and got all homework on time, teacher 2 got most of the homework and sometimes it was late and teacher 3 got very little homework. It turned out that he really liked teacher 1, he was OK with teacher 2 and he disliked teacher3. I am not sure that he was even aware about what he was doing.
A lot of parents complained about teacher 3 so he really wasn't very good. I would have complained if DS1 had been a model pupil.

I wouldn't be so quick to blame the teacher. ICT is a different subject from the academic ones. It requires a different type of work ethic/approach. It's not the same as reeling off answers to questions, so it is not a surprise that bright children (as measured by their ability to answer questions) take a while to grasp the new culture of the subject.

It's not the end of the world for Seeker's DD. She will be learning valuable lessons all the time (not about ICT, but about herself).

I agree with ICT being a different subject but my DS2 had a very poor teacher for it and the whole class got behind. She was a lovely lady but not very organised. A good teacher makes all the difference IMO.

If she's used to grasping the essence of what's needed and storming through the HW knowing she's on track for a good grade and probably more able that her peers then ICT may well be a challenge.

Many of the more "low achieving" kids in the class may well be street ahead of her- a mispent youth playing computer games etc until the early hours means that many are whizz kids at the keyboard. She may feel embarrassed that they already know how to do much of the stuff being presented while she has little clue.

Maybe it's her first experience of having to try hard and not succeed particularly well. And she's finding she'd rather not try than accept being second best in the class.

Can you speak to her mates? (in a sensitive way, of course)
They will have detailed, insider knowledge of what's going on in class and perhaps they can spot and explain the issues between DD / the teacher / the subject / the system (delete as applicable) and may be able to articualte it in a way that she can't.

She's not a "high achieving" child in her school - it's a selective grammar school, so she's round about the middle - a place she's very happy to be. And she's often had to work quite hard to stay there, so it's not a matter of things coming easily to her.

But she is certainly less interested in computer-y things than most of her friends - maybe they all do find it easier than she does simply because they do more.

Has anyone got any thoughts about the lying? For me that's the really big deal in this situation - I'm struggling to get it into proper perspective. She was so convincing - it's made me see a side to her that I didn't realize was there.

The lying part is saddening. It is also part of her secret, private life and she will be feeling, I imagine, very small.

We had a similar incident last term with our 13yo son. Much as I wanted to dwell on the lie, my ds needed to move forward on his own. I had to 'sit on my hands' metaphorically as my desire to get to the bottom of the problem would have been counter productive. Instead, my son took the opportunity to sort out his own problem. He really has grown up and knows, I think, that we all cock things up and cannot possibly be perfect all the time. It was hard not to badger him though.

Was it your daughter who was having issues on the bus? How are her group of friends getting on with ICT? Could she be trying to fit in?

I think the teacher is to blame, your dd does not sound like she is a pupil who often fails to hand in her homework, this teacher is a weak link that your dd is exploiting, ( and many teenagers would)

If it is a number of pieces of homework there shouls have been at least a series of notes in her planner, a phonecall or letter home. If your dd was in my class and had failed to hand in her homework she would have done it in a detention.

Does your dd have a homework planner and is there a school homework timetable. I would have a routine of checking your dd planner and looking for those subjects that do not appear and then contact the school with concerns. As a form tutor I do that with my tutees.

13 year old girls do tell lies, I come across it all the time. They can also be competitive and I would imagine that in a grammar this is even more the case. Perhaps she is falling behing and is embaressed and so the work is not being handed in.

Is she struggling with the workload, I know some girls in particular spend hours on their homework when there is no need. Maybe she is working so hard on other subjects that she found a way of coping was to not hand in her IT and then she found she was getting away with it.

Can you not find a way of making IT more appealing, I know when I taught IT some of the projects were deathly dull and I had to change them. Does she have a hobby that you can use IT to explore. I am speaking as a parent of a complete computer geek, dd loves nothing more than to come home and play on excel .

Does your school have a homework club she can use?

No teacher experience but I recognise this as me at that age/slightly older.

In a subject like ICT, one piece of work will often depend on the last. If you miss one (for whatever reason) you then have twice as big a problem with the next one. If you have somehow got lost and no longer 'get' what you are supposed to do, the whole thing spirals out of control and my instinct was always to (metaphorically and literally) hide under the duvet and hope it went away, including lying to parents and school if that was what it took to keep going - all the while getting more and more stressed about it.

If she seems open to help, perhaps you could go through with her what the backlog now consists of and find out if there is some fundamental thing she is stuck on - if not, then it just needs breaking into chunks so that it doesn't look like one huge insurmountable challenge?

I think BoffinMum is very wise. I wouldn't make too much of this.

Nor of the lying either. Tbh I am not sure that adults are all that honest all the time: have you never come up with a less than entirely truthful reason for not making it to a meeting/not getting the paperwork done on time/messing up with a client?

Now, I think a 13yo is actually going to be more upset by lying than an adult (one's moral fibres tend to get a bit dulled with age), so I would concentrate on helping her feel that she doesn't have to lie again, that noone is going to be dreadfully disappointed if the homework she submits is not good, that you just want her to feel confident enough to try.

IT is a subject in England?

Gosh, you learn something every day!

IT is a subject in England?

Gosh, you learn something every day!

Anna, as opposed to it being what else, exactly? It is of course an integral part of other subjects as well but yes, ICT is a subject in it's own right.

My DSSs are both at secondary school here in France but IT is not a subject on their curriculum. IT is a medium through which they sometimes learn other subjects and present their work.

Yes well, it is that in the UK as well - but in the same way as English is a medium through which other subjects are learned/presented but also a subject in it's own right, so the 'how' of ICT (as opposed to just the results) is a subject of it's own.

Does it possibly depend on the type of secondary school in France?

What boffinmum said.

DD1 got a B2 (B the grade, 2 the effort mark) for ICT, compared with As and 1s for all her other subject. She thinks (a) the ICT teacher is really dull (b) the work is really boring (c) she's not going to do it for GCSE, all of which adds up to: Why Bother?

I'm leaving her to it, tbh. She's obviously steered just the right side of detention territory wrt to handing in homework, which I think is a useful skill in its own right.

Check up how she feels about it. If she really is underconfident wrt the work, then do support her. Otherwise I'd let her get on with and face the consequences at school, if there are any. I wouldn't ground dd1 for schoolwork issues if she could give a reasonable account of herself and/or was genuinely upset by it. And I really wouldn't ground for ICT, Foodtech or any other non-core subject.

She's not grounded for the homework - I let school deal with school things. She's grounded for the lying, and for letting dp and me go into bat for her with the school based on her side of the story, which turned out to be a complete fabrication! Particularly as we particularly asked BEFORE we did whether there was anything else we needed to know.

She's brought home all the stuff she's missed and she'll have a go at sorting it out over the weekend. I am very surprised that no one at school noticed - she got a detention last term for forgetting to do one Geography homework!

All collèges (= junior high school, from 11-15) have the same curriculum, with barely any options, so I don't think so.

Selection only happens at 15 here - very late.

I am sure I posted on here but it has gone.

I agree seeker I would not ground over missing homework unless it was coursework, I do think though that if you ground for one subject you should ground for all.

I fully understand that some students prefer certain subjects to others, and certain teachers to others. Hence a 2 for effort would not overly concern me. I would however expect my dd to do her homework in all subjects.

I tend to do 1 forgotten homework - note in planner ( we are all human)
2nd lunchtime detention and note in planner
3rd which rarely happens after school and letter home.

Thank you twinset - you posted a very helpful couple of paras a while ago. Now go and listen to Mark Kermode reviewing films on Radio 5 - you're not supposed to be working today and even though my dd isn't a pupil of yours she is a teenage girl and you shouldn't be having anything to do with them!