Quick poll - how many of your 13/14/15 yo boys admit to liking their school? Any say they hate it?

[turquoise]

My ds doesn't seem unhappy but says he hates his school. Only been there half a term, from various anecdotes sounds like he's having a fair bit of fun, is popular and settling in according to teachers, his dad & my mum etc think I'm worrying over nothing.

I don't want to 'not hear' him though IYKWIM - is it just what boys say? I hated every minute of school at the time, but thought things had changed these days.

my son hates classes and loves everything else about it

maybe the definition of what he hates needs narrowing down

My DS aged 13 (Y9) seems to like school and just gets on with it. He enjoys the social side but moans about most lessons apart from PE, Art, IT, Woodwork and that kind of thing. Says he hates French, Maths, English, etc and also occasionally says he can't stand some of the teachers but admits to liking most of them. I think that's fairly normal isn't it?

Slightly odd situation as DS is currently learning with an internet school, but he was at a normal school till 13.

In both cases he wouldn't claim to "like" it, but wouldn't "hate" it either - more of a "grunt 'n' shrug" sort of acceptance really.

It's worth trying to get him to say which things he hates about it - there may be something which actually needs addressed, or it may just be that he can think of lots of things he'd rather do...

Thank you all for the responses.

Am having a think and will come back to this thread tonight after work.

DS (yr9) says he likes school. When I ask him why, however it's definitely the social side he likes, I suspect he does a leetle bit more socialising in class than he's supposed to.

Interestingly, also seems very proud of his school (high achieving grammar), and takes vicarious pride in things like slaughtering Eton at rowing (doesn't do rowing himself ).

Isn't exactly mad keen on lessons but likes and respects all but one teacher.

Ds1 loves school finally! It's taken until year 10 to get to this stage. He's previously had very disruptive classes and teachers who seemed unwilling to discipline the disruptive students. For a child that wanted to learn and achieve, it's been a real struggle.

Has he just gone up to secondary, or is this a new school because of a move? Either way it's bound to be quite a lot different from before, and it may just be that it's not what he had before and was happy with. But as weeble says, there can be a lot of disruption specially if they are still in mixed ability classes, and it can be quite a shock to the system if they've come from a rasonably well behaved class into a bear pit!

DS 13 yr8 hates French and German but obviously loves school although wouldn't admit it.

DS (13) also loves school. Maybe could do without the early start though!

DS1 - 14 - is quite happy at school. Has never said he hates it, although there are a couple of teachers that he dislikes intensely (one obnoxious bloke now retired, one no longer teaching DS1 thankfully).

A yr9 lad from a different school latched on to me and DS3 tonight as we walked home. He informed me that he hated school.