High School Update - Week 3

The third official week of High School has gone a lot better.
 

 

The worst bit for TF is getting up at 6am or even 5.30 if she wants a shower in the morning! She still gets herself up and doesn't display any bad temper but, she says she is tired and could happily creep back into bed each morning.
 
Science that had gone so badly for her the previous week, went exceptionally well. She got a score (1 point less than the top score) that her tutor teacher (who is also a science teacher) told her was a really high score to get on that particular test.  She told her the first one actually didn't matter, so that has returned her to her previous good feelings about science. A huge relief to me!

She was made the Junior Council Leader (Year 9's and 10's) of her tutorial group which she was thrilled about. In full disclosure she admitted to us, with a big giggle, that she was the only one who had put her name forward for it in her tutor group. Apparently in her merry group of 7 friends all them had put their names forward to represent their respective tutor groups but sadly they didn't get elected. I am not sure exactly what's involved in the position but they attend meetings. She thinks it will be good experience for when she applies for more senior leadership roles down the track ... seriously I never looked that far ahead as a kid ... who is she???

She just loves her drama class so much. They are split into groups and have to put on a little performance to be shown to the rest of the group in a few weeks, based on (not the same as) the movie, The Little Princess (with Shirley Temple).

She did her first Beep Test (running test) ... ever ... and got a pretty good score showing she is quite fast. So bam, in response to "how do home schoolers do PE?" ... like a boss I say!

She had her first real homework this weekend which freaked her out and like all good students spent the first part of the weekend putting off. She spent a lot of Sunday doing it. All she wanted to do was rest but it had to be done, so I had to give her a gentle nudge in getting it complete. Some of it wasn't due until later in the week but seeing she has so much dancing it doesn't leave much time during the week to do it, not to mention she's exhausted of an evening too. Got to say, the homework is crazy and I can't see why they can't do it in class. Write an essay on a biography they have read (English), write about a scientist (Science), write about the appendix (Health/PE and all kids got different body parts) and lastly Social Studies which really annoyed me as it was stuff like, what Iwi do you belong to (it's your Maori tribe), what is your spirit mountain, what beach are you connected to, where do you meet friends and a personal favourite 'how do you get to these places?'. Seriously important stuff there!

I have to say she is really enjoying the social side of things and is having fun with her new friends. She has the group she hangs around with ... I call them the seven dwarves as there are seven of them, and also some other lasses that she has met in other classes. A couple even attend her new dance academy, so she is slowly building up a nice group of girls to associate with again. They text each quite a bit even outside school and are quite a diverse but nice young girls. She has tried a lot of new things too that we probably wouldn't necessarily do in a home school environment. The school had a different sport on each lunchtime for the new girls to go out and try and see if they'd like to join. She is keen to join the dance or drama groups so as much as she'd like to join some sports groups she simply can't fit it all in.

In full disclosure it's not all a bed of roses, besides the travel and homework, she doesn't like the time when they are not doing anything and she doesn't feel that they learn enough or are especially challenged and whilst she thinks all her teachers are actually really nice and helpful, she finds it amazing that they can take a subject and teach it so boringly. She said mum, you aren't even a 'proper' (ahem, I think she means qualified) teacher and you always made learning stuff really fun and interesting. She doesn't have much time for emailing, talking to her 'old' home school friends or even visiting them which saddens her.