Can anyone tell me if a 'Year 8' lull is a thing? My daughter enjoyed year 7 very much and worked hard to get to adapt to new subjects, friends, school pattern etc. Four weeks into year 8 and she is finding the content of some lessons boring and hard, and is very down about it. Homework has increased; she says timetabling is an issue in that all the 'harder' subjects are clumped together so only 2 of the 5 days have any relief within them. She does so much homework that she has no time to restore or see friends. She is bright and hardworking. I don't know if this is just commonplace and adaption will naturally happen, or a true cause for concern.

Generally both my boys found Year 8 to be easier workwise - in Year 7 there was still an element of trying to get all the boys up to the same level in the different subjects as they had come from different backgrounds, whereas Year 8 appeared to be a bit more in stride (Y9 ramped up again). My younger boy will be sitting completly new spec GCSEs though (current Y10) to my odler boy (Y12) who only had to contend with Maths and English new spec. Without a shadow of a doubt the new spec is much much harder. Far more volume of content to learn in minutae detail - so a much bigger hill for DS2 to climb to get anywhere near the grades of his brother.

I suspect that, as our school does 3 year GCSEs and, so, the teachers have been looking at the curriculums for a bit longer and starting to ramp up, other schools are just picking up on this and have realised that they are going to have to start evewrything much sooner. I blame Gove.

1. Are you sure she needs to do all the work she is doing? I don't recall any of mine putting themselves out much in Y8.

2. Boring - yes, probably. The novelty of being at secondary has probably worn off and it is 2 years before anything much changes so if she is bright and has other fish to fry she might very well be bored.

3. Timetabling can be rough, yes. I think we have all been victims of this at some point - indeed my second year undergrad daughter has packed Fridays and almost empty Mondays. It happens.

I imagine once she is used to it, and the change of teachers, times etc, she will be OK. I would advise you to get her to relax a little on the heavy homework and only do what the school recommends time wise. Bottom line is that Y8 curriculum content isn't very important in the wider scheme of things and if she doesn't always give 100% the sky won't fall in.

There is indeed a danger in year 8 that boredom can set in but sadly it's a case of getting on with it.

The over working at this stage is more concerning as it's very much a marathon and you don't want her burning out in year 8.

The school should have provided a homework schedule with guidance on the time any one piece should take and how much should be set each day.
Get her to keep a diary of what's actually happening and compare it to what should be happening.

It's worth making sure she understands the homework before she starts - assuming it's not for the next day she could get staff to clarify if necessary.
Equally it's worth checking she's not being excessively perfectionist.

If things haven't calmed down by half term I would get in touch with form tutor ( usually initially by email) to raise your concerns. Ideally your DC could just talk to them herself - depends on how confident she is in dealing with them.

I have one child currently in year 8 and one in year 10.
I would say that year 8 was generally a rather light year for my older one, in terms of homework and also any "stress" of work.
At their school from September to November the homework burden is the heaviest and then it lightens off as the year goes on, so my current year 8 dc is certainly feeling there is more homework than last summer, but is aware that is it likely to improve again. However he is still only doing around 45 minutes a night on average.
I would check that she is not overdoing it and being too perfectionist about it. The school should be able to inform you what their expectations are in terms of time spent on each subject.
I definitely think boredom can set in with some subjects that they just know they dislike - but that's just one of those things. It's bad luck if all those subjects happen to be on one day but there's nothing she can do about that. Ds has one day he loathes but another day that is fabulously lightweight in terms of subjects so I have to remind him of that when he moans about the bad day!

Thank you everyone, I appreciate your responses. Yes, it may be that things are no longer 'new' and some boredom has set in. I will observe to see if the homework reduces after November.