New Year 7s

[Okanagan]

It's only 5 minutes - so just a brief who it is, key events and their significance in a historical context really - and they only have to hand in the outline (slides/notes) at this stage, and then a selection of them will be asked to actually present it at each lesson over the next few weeks. Perhaps he could put it in, but attach a postit asking if this part is suitable for the audience and doubts about their possible reaction to it? Then at least it will be seen he's been brave enough to include it and has thought about it, but he may be able to dodge the bullet of actually presenting that part.

I can't decide whether to be pleased he's gone for a less than obvious choice, or to tell him to play safe and do someone more mainstream.

[KS10]

Tricky one, Okanagan. Feel a bit out of my depth here. Unfortunately, whether they can carry it off sometimes comes down to their own personality or how they get on with their peers. Ideally, the teacher would have a look at them before asking the children to do their presentation. But that probably won't happen because of work overload. It would be a shame for your DS to have to focus on someone he didn't find as interesting though.

[KS10]

Crossed posts, but what you say above sounds reasonable.

[Amber]

Let him do it - of course. It's his own idea and divergent thinking is to be encouraged. The sexuality of the subject is not likely to figure hugely in the minds of Y7 I shouldn't have thought; and the teacher will be bored stupid by endless appreciations of Florence Nightingale, Winston Churchill and Mother Teresa. Plus if you wade in and steer him, what message does that give him for his future confidence?

[scary mum]

The sexuality of the subject is not likely to figure hugely in the minds of Y7 I shouldn't have thought

I visited Bletchley Park with DS2 recently & was suprised to find no mention of this anywhere - not that it is of any relevance to the work he did, but nevertheless part of his story in that he accepted chemical castration instead of prison and tragically committed suicide at the age of 42. I think the year 7s will be completely uninterested in the fact that he was homosexual - it is a sign of how much attitudes have changed for the better since the 1950s.

[Amber]

The sexuality of the subject is not likely to figure hugely in the minds of Y7 I shouldn't have thought

I visited Bletchley Park with DS2 recently & was suprised to find no mention of this anywhere - not that it is of any relevance to the work he did, but nevertheless part of his story in that he accepted chemical castration instead of prison and tragically committed suicide at the age of 42. I think the year 7s will be completely uninterested in the fact that he was homosexual - it is a sign of how much attitudes have changed for the better since the 1950s.

Indeed. I worked closely with 2 openly gay boys, one in Y9 and one in Y11, last year, in school. There was no perceptible issue for them with that in terms of other children - I almost think it was considered to be a bit 'cool' tbh.

[scarlett]

My ds2 has had a few wobbles, which took me off guard as ds1 settled in straight away ( although he now maintains he was bullied every day and I just ignored it ). The first day he burst into tears and said something awful had happened at the bus station. It was just some older boys acting friendly but really laughing at him as mentioned earlier by someone else. I was pretty annoyed with ds 1 for not looking after him. He had also just had a bottle of water the whole day because when he got to the canteen, he wasn't sure what to do and then noticed there was no where to sit and didn't like to just plonk himself down. I can understand that, but I felt sad he really seemed to be on his own and it all seemed a bit much for him. He kept asking dd what was going on at the primary and I think he wished he was still there.

That has all improved but a major thing for him is thinking he is going to get into trouble..the school is quite disciplined. His English teacher in particular seems quite harsh and shouted at him during a lesson for stuttering whilst reading. He says he was caught on the hop as the teacher suddenly called his name out and ds had lost his place, so he knew he was stumbling over the words. The teacher stopped him abruptly and said you're very weak, you need to read a chapter every day and write in a book what you've read. Ds was distraught and kept asking if he should ask the teacher if he could read again, properly. I said he'll have to leave it for now. I was annoyed though. Second lesson...Ds might have been dyslexic or have some kind of problem ( he's no news reader ) and he basically humiliated him infront of the whole class .

[scary mum]

Poor DS2, scarlett, I hope things improve quickly (I'm sure they will). I used to hope that DS1 would look out for DS2, but to be honest their paths rarely cross. I think the canteen is one of the boggest challenges for them, particulalry if they are on their own. And you do wonder what some teachers are thinking of.

[Okanagan]

I visited Bletchley Park with DS2 recently & was surprised to find no mention of this anywhere - not that it is of any relevance to the work he did, but nevertheless part of his story in that he accepted chemical castration instead of prison and tragically committed suicide at the age of 42.

We did that too this year, and the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (highly recommended, and free, by the way) which also had a section devoted to Alan Turing and the development of early computing (in Manchester, hence the relevance) so ds1 has recently come across him from two different angles. The Manchester exhibit did mention the tragic postscript to the story too though.

Well apparently ds1 talked to his teacher about his choice of subject today, and no concerns were raised. I'm assuming of course that his teacher, who I've not yet met, knew enough about Alan Turing to realise the implications, given that he probably isn't the most high profile character in the historical who's who. But ds1 did say he'd given him a synopsis of what he was going to say (including the homosexual/suicide angles) so he had the opportunity to respond if he wanted to. Anyway ds1 is sure about his choice, and it is IMHO a great one for the number of different potential angles of discussion it opens up - using one character from history as a gateway to consider lots of other issues, and showing how things can look different when viewed retrospectively rather than contemporaneously. So he's definitely going to go ahead with it.

One thing I've noticed already is that the school do seem very strong on getting them to stand up and talk, present opinions and debate, rather than just follow a preset pattern of learning. And they clearly collaborate across subjects (at least at this early stage) - so this history task is dovetailing nicely with the ICT topic on creating presentations. I'm liking this joined up thinking