Ondine

Mine went to the Villa and then on to thrive in state school from age 7 and I was very happy with that as a pathway. It's been a while but I doubt the Villa is super competitive as that's not their ethos.

There's a good set of Horowitz' Alex Rider series on CD - he might like those.

I no longer read to mine but happily feed them a diet of audiobooks. We started with audiobooks as well as reading to when they were about 4 and it seemed to morph when they became very independent readers, but they have retained their liking for audiobooks and I think it has helped their listening skills a good deal, which is brilliant for school The 9 yr old obsessively reads and listens to Happy Potter and is at different places in the books and audiobooks and quite happy with that! 12 yr old uses a teen reading guide she got for christmas and follows the recommendations in there. So she has recently read and loved Catcher and Mockingbird but listens to younger stuff very happily at bedtime when she's tired. A big Just William CD collection from the Book People gets endless play, for example. She read a set of classics in year 6 - Hound of the Baskervilles, Treasure Island, Black Beauty - that sort of thing and that seemed to suit her at the time.

full list is on the council website

The other poster is labour candidate, not councillor, so the distinction makes sense of a sort

lol I was thinking that. Not exactly Supernanny!

I must admit I hesitated before I posted but glad to see people were interested. Very much agree with Pecanpie's comment about protecting their childhoods. Interesting thing I've seen with my older one is that she is less independent now halfway through year 7 than she was in year 6 and I've realised that that's fine - has been a hard transition and it's perfectly fine for her to step back and be babied a little bit.

well....heavy stuff for this board but I have 2 friends with teen boys who have in the past year got into depression and self harm - one attempted suicide a number of times. And both the mums say their boys wanted to be very independent from early age and they felt with hindsight they gave them a bit too much self determination too young. I'm not talking about naughty boys and no drugs/alcohol in either case - these are well behaved kids with it seems too much time to mooch about and get miserable and angsty. One is emo and doing the no caffeine, alcohol, drugs pledge. Mine are 12 and 9 and the 12 yr old is clever, edgy kid who I could imagine following the same path. She's quiet and deep and reads all sorts of deep stuff and it's very easy to treat her like an adult. She's been having a hard time emotionally for the last few months and gets very wobbly sometimes and following my friends' advice I've told her that I will take away her control sometimes and just task her. She fed back to me this week that she really likes it when I do that for her. So for example she is currently struggling with getting to school - she has superb organisational skills and so I was leaving her to it but it has slipped away recently so I did her a step by step routine and she says she likes it when she doesn't have to always decide for herself. We are just looking around for a sport for her to join - a friend of mine with older girls thoroughly recommends sport as a way of them getting their heads clear. She's keen on climbing and skateboarding and I'm exploring a place with an indoor climbing wall as they don't have one in her school. The friend with the suicidal kid obviously took loads of advice and she's the one with the structure/control notion. She said all the psychs said kids do best when they feel a good level of structure around them, even if they are pushing against it. So she has taken her boy right back to a younger kid's daily routine and he's much happier and thankfully now doing fine.

Mine are older and bringing interesting new challenges every day. But a friend gave me a good way of looking at it - she reckons you have to find the right balance between structure and control (ie them having control) for the stage/age they are at. She has a very bright teenager who has got into some difficulties and she was reflecting that because he was always clearly so bright, she hadn't structured his life enough when he was younger, and this led to him feeling like an adult long before he was ready.

Hmm yes the comment about the open day seems a bit harsh. My daughter is year 7 at Kingsdale and she fell over herself to get along to one of the open days (on her Saturday) as she was really keen to promote the school to friends coming up from her primary school. She conducted loads of tours and spoke to lots of people and was not scripted in any way. I think the school is aiming to target aspirational families, not middle class families. Almost suggests an assumption that all the education aspiration sits with the middle classes.....

Goodnight Moon Any Dr Seuss tiny bit older 101 dalmations - my 4 yr old could quote huge chunks of it from her tape In the night kitchen where the wild things are the gruffalo the bear hunt

Isn't there capacity on the ones that are already running? My daughter was using it but has branched out now and I got the impression they were worried about the sustainability of the service

but our kids need new stuff too. We don't want your leftovers :-S

Hilary Clifford v good too

I have a yr 7 daughter very happy there. She's in one of the express sets and seems suitably stimulated and stretched by the work. Struggled with homework the first few weeks but all sorted now. She says the classes are well controlled on the whole and teachers are very strict if anyone is disruptive. Haven't come across bullying but she has been upset about a personal matter and they have been extremely helpful and supportive. Great form tutor and head of year.

I was further down Rye Lane and there was a TfL staff member advising people of alternative routes. He said a bus had knocked down a pedestrian and the road was cleared to allow air ambulance to land.

Agree with above and add Eoin Colfer Michael Morpurgo Jeremy Strong Enid Blyton I have girls but these are/were all very popular and seem quite gender neutral

My kids are older now but I went through exactly the same thing - 3 days was really stressful and I was a lot happier once I moved to 4. Now they are both in school I work 4 days spread over 5, which means I leave the office in time for school pick up 4 days a week. It makes life a bit complicated as my afternoons at work feel really short but my employer is very supportive of work/life balance and we have good remote access so it's no problem to check back in later.

yeah I got my then 10 yr old a beaten up levi jacket from ebay - she loves it

Tiny little tempting bits like a small square of toast and a cherry tomato. Probably best to avoid dairy till he asks for it.

Have you come across the BRAT diet for kids and indeed adults getting over sickness? Bananas, rice, apples, toast. Works well for my kids. Tiny amounts as often as they want.

My daughter is loving the school bus - she was doing one way but now switched to return trip as well - I got the impression the school is worried about whether there's enough take up for the return journey. Hats off to the head though - he has been on her bus most days talking to the kids about how it's going and asking if the timing of the return journey works for them.

vinceayre Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Ondine > > What kind of person goes to a state school or more > interestingly, what kind of person goes private? > > > Vince Ah you'd have to look at the world from the perspective of an 11 yr old!

Mine are older now but I went with the lottery you describe and ultimately opted for private rather than Goose Green, rightly or wrongly. Then moved back to state (Lyndhurst) at 7 and all has gone swimmingly since. My older one just did secondary transfer and had a choice about state or private and she decided, having spent time in both, that she wants to be the kind of person who goes to state school.

yep nothing here either.