Friday 5 October 2018

A month at school already. #Blogtober18

Throughout October I will be joining in with Big Family Organised Chaos and her linky for Blogtober18. Today's prompt is: Education!

My two girls in their school uniforms

The kids have been back at school for a whole month. It is crazy how quickly the time has flown over. Ellie is in year 7 and Becky in year 11. I did blog about them starting the new school year.

I had my worries at the beginning of the school year about my youngest Ellie. She has never been the biggest fan of school and even though she was excited to start the big school I thought she would struggle. She is still being assessed for Autism and we are no further forward than we were in July. We are waiting for a new appointment. We had one sent which was inconvenient and after ringing every day for 2 weeks and not being able to get through to change it, it was cancelled by the woman on the switchboard who couldn't even get through to the people who needed to speak to. Ugh! 

After having a shaky start in the first week due to a blister on her foot, a mixed up timetable and not liking the bigger kids she has settled right in. She is coming home everyday telling me about each lesson which she never did in primary school. 

Ellie had trouble with bullies in Primary school and used to just ignore them but it did used to get to her. Now she is taking a no nonsense approach. If anyone is nasty to her she is going straight to a teacher. The girl who was the main bully in primary school has been put right in her place now. The bully was jealous that Ellie had made some new friends. It turns out the most popular kids in primary school are not always that popular in secondary school. Oops. A couple of weeks ago Ellie's friend was being bullied and they went off to find the head of year. They couldn't find her and the girl was going to just let things go. Ellie wouldn't take no for an answer and went straight to the top guy who runs the school! It was soon dealt with. I was so proud of her for standing up against the bullies. 

One of my biggest worries was Ellie getting up out of bed and out of the door on time but so far so good. She is up and ready with time to spare most mornings. I still have to nag but now where near as much as I used to. It sure makes a difference now that she has an interest in school

A few weeks ago the secondary school had an open evening for year sixes and Ellie volunteered to help. Showing people where things where and selling drinks and sweets. I was so pleased that she feels confident enough to do things like this. 

I am starting to think that the primary school was to blame for the problems which Ellie had and maybe it isn't autism that she has. I am not knocking the school, the teachers were fantastic but I am thinking she had some sort of anxiety about that particular school or the people in her class. Ellie is concentrating more in her lessons, she has more friends, isn't socially awkward and is so much more confident. She is a totally different child now. I think it was just a new start she needed away from the bullies and a school with new challenges and lessons which interest her more...

Becky has settled back into school well. She is on the countdown to her exams starting and leaving school. There isn't much to write about when it comes to Becky and school. She is working hard revising and has been doing about an hour each evening which she is actually enjoying. She has been using a website called Seneca which is free and has the GCSE subjects she needs help with as well as the textbooks and the notes that she has.....She has also started after school revision classes at school which she wasn't too happy about but she's getting on with them.

Have your children settled into school OK?

3 comments :

  1. Glad they are settling in well especially Ellie x

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  2. The waiting times for autism assessment seem to be getting worse and worse? Hope you get some answers soon. Great to hear that ‘big school’ seems to be a really positive experience for Ellie so far! And brilliant to hear how she’s dealing with bullies, she seems like tough cookie xx #MMBC

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  3. I was worried about Ella getting up and out on time in the mornings as well. At junior school it was a struggle to get her out of the house on time but she's been brilliant since starting secondary school :)

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