Grade Manager

Nicky has had some difficulty adjusting from elementary to Jr. High. There are a lot of reasons for this. She moved, so she had to make new friends. She has difficulty focusing in class and having multiple classes and teachers has been challenging. She also forgets things now. A former teacher told dash that Jr. High boys and girls lose their minds! After what we've experienced the past few months, I would have to agree with him!

She has a tough time because she is getting more freedoms but not as many as some kids and she wants to do well in school, but she has to work hard at that too. This school has 6 week grading periods. So, she has gotten 3 midterm grades so far. Every 6 weeks we are shocked that she isn't doing well, and amazed that she is shocked too! She always seems to end up on the honor roll, but she works extremely hard the last 3 weeks to get there.

This last time was a final breaking point for us all. As I sat and talked with her again, I really tried to hear what she was saying. She was upset. She thought she had been doing well. She said she does her homework and thinks she's done it right and then she gets bad grades on it. I guess when she would do well on something she automatically assumed that meant she was doing well in the class, forgetting that she had messed up before.

What we concluded, she needed to be managed more. We were trying to give her some liberty. We were trying to let her adjust and figure it out on her own. In the past, this has worked really well for Nicky. It's not for lack of trying, it's usually lack of understanding. So usually once we've explained what she needs to do, she's been able to fix it herself. I am not sure why it's so much more difficult this year, unless it is the attention issue, or just she's in jr. high now?

So, we have established an excel sheet for her. We entered all papers she had graded so far in it. Now when she gets home we go over "do you have any graded papers?" We put them into the excel sheet and then we go over "do you have any homework?" We enter it without the grade so we can ask her about it later...do you have x back? What is the grade? The manager also shows her instantly, what her grade is and how the paper effects it. For example, the science notes worth 50 points turned in late brought her down a letter grade because she only got 25 points on them. So, don't turn in your work late.

We only started this last week, but it's already helped in communicating better between her and us. We told her we want to start checking her homework. She had me check her math tonight and she understood the concept but had a few errors. So she was able to correct them and know that she will get a good grade on the assignment. I know she understands what she is doing and I'm able to show her what she needs to pay closer attention too.

It's a lot of work, but I know she is capable and she really wants to do well in school. If she didn't she wouldn't work so hard at it on her own. Now that we are staying more involved I believe we'll be able to help her achieve her goals and I'm sure that in the future, once she's more comfortable with school and understands how to study better she will improve on her own. I look forward to that, but I'm glad in the mean time that we're able to help her out to get to that point.