Earlier this year, I saw posts in various threads which recommended DIY.org and I got the impression that several forum members had their kids sign up around that time. I'm interested in hearing what people think about it after having their kids use the site for a while. Are they still enjoying it? How much do they use it? If you're willing to share, roughly how many projects have they done and/or how many skills have they earned? Do you need to push your kids to spend time on it, do they maintain a good balance by themselves or do you have to limit their time spent on the website or on activities related to it? Do you think they're learning much from using it? Would you still recommend it to new users? Do you have any concerns about the impact it has on your kids' attitudes? For those who enrolled their kids on the basis of the comparisons made to Scouts in some of the earlier posts, how do you think it compares to Scouting and similar programs? Many thanks, Alex.

Try the ABRSM exam requirements - they include scales for each grade. You can find the requirements on their website and they also publish a book with all the scales written out in full in staff notation. http://gb.abrsm.org/...scant-recorder/ http://gb.abrsm.org/...reble-recorder/ http://shop.abrsm.or...ades-1-8/637817

The current offering for corners is a pair of special brackets, designed so that you can fix a 40cm Billy on the diagonal such that it lines up correctly with the Billies either side of the corner. That's probably OK for the tall ones but no use for the low ones as you'd see the gaps and the fixing brackets. Even for the tall ones it wastes space. They used to sell a proper corner unit. That takes up 60cm of each of the two walls and has an opening across the diagonal just a little wider than you'd get with a 40cm Billy. The space in the corners is a bit awkward, but useable (depending on how you arrange things on the shelves). The corner unit also accommodates deeper books than the standard Billies. They are available secondhand - we've seen plenty listed on eBay. Start with a corner unit and work outwards from there, combining Billies and Bennos as needed to fit the space. That will let you work in multiples of 20cm. If you need something else, you can cut down a Billy or Benno to fill the gap. Hope that helps.

Anyone interested in the details can download the current syllabuses here: http://www.abrsm.org/en/exams/gradedMusicExams/latestSyllabuses.html AB offers graded music exams in theory and various practical subjects. It's not a curriculum as such, though some music teachers may design their curricula around the relevant exam requirements. There is no fixed preparation time for the exams. Some kids might spend a year or more learning their exam pieces and technical work, but others will need only a few weeks to do it all. Similar exams are offered by Trinity Guildhall and LCM: http://www.trinitycollege.co.uk/site/?id=1045 http://www.uwl.ac.uk/lcmexams/Subjects.jsp

The UCAS tariff for AP music theory is: 5 - 50 points 4 - 35 points 3 - 20 points The only ABRSM theory exams which attract 20 or more UCAS points are: Grade 7 distinction - 20 points Grade 8 pass - 20 points Grade 8 merit - 25 points Grade 8 distinction - 30 points ABRSM exams below grade 6 carry no UCAS points. (UCAS isn't relevant for US/NZ college admissions, but it's a useful reference when trying compare exams from different systems.)

It's not quite that straightforward. Many, but not all, private schools still offer Latin and some offer Greek. Some state schools offer Latin. In general, Latin starts anywhere from about 3rd to 7th grade, depending on the school. Where a language is taught from first grade, it's usually French or another modern foreign language. The year/grade numbering system is different here. The outline from the original post covers years 5 to 8 - that's equivalent to 4th-7th grade.

These (and others like them): http://www.amazon.co.uk/Basher-Science-Physics-Dan-Green/dp/0753432900/ http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Periodic-Table-Duplicate-Elements/dp/0753415119/ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Biology-Life-We-Know-It/dp/0753417316/ (clean links - no affiliate kickbacks)

One caveat for anyone thinking about doing this with their kids - teach them about capacitors before they start taking things apart.

You can download A-level specimen/past papers from the exam boards' websites. OCR: http://www.ocr.org.uk/qualifications/type/gce/index.aspx Edexcel: http://www.edexcel.com/quals/gce/gce08/Pages/default.aspx AQA: http://www.aqa.org.uk/qualifications/a-level.php WJEC: http://www.wjec.co.uk/index.php?subject=30&level=21

There's also a little quiz available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9701000/9701303.stm Would be teachers are required to have maths and English GCSEs at grade C or above. That's not setting the bar very high. Channel 4 made a 2-part documentary about maths teaching in primary schools. http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/episode-guide/series-53/episode-1 Here's a shortened version of the test they gave to the teachers: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/articles/maths-quiz I'd need to watch it again to check, but I think they tested about 150 teachers, of whom only one scored full marks. If I recall correctly, the average score was 45%. On the other hand, our standards for maths are high in some respects. Calculus is part of the regular maths curriculum for 11th and 12th grades here. But, because maths is optional after 10th grade, there's a sharper division between the maths people and the non-maths people. Those who take maths for A-level get a pretty decent grounding in the subject.

I agree with Peter about the exercises. They might not help much in your case though. The problem being that the available exercises don't cover much 11th grade material. There are a few for differentiation and a couple for standard deviation, but that's about it so far. They do keep adding new exercises though, so they might add more at that level over the coming months. The videos already go much further, so the exercises for integration, diff eqs, statistics, etc. are likely to appear at some point. You might want to have an alternative planned in case they're not there when your daughter need them.

You might be interested in the book "The Physics of Hockey" by Alain Haché.

UCAS tariff for AP exams: http://www.ucas.com/students/ucas_tariff/factsheet/app

We're a Mac family whenever we have a choice. We've had very few problems and the ones that do crop up tend to be the sort that can happen on any system. It's basically BSD UNIX underneath the graphical interface, so you can pull up a terminal window (command line interface) and use UNIX commands, vi and shell scripts. Macs are great for people who understand computers! When people spend all day fixing computer problems, they don't want to spend their evenings and weekends doing the same - they want something that just works. Of course, Macs are great for people who don't know much about computers too - there's no need to interact with the underlying OS if you don't want to and there are relatively few ways for a novice user to stumble into something out of their depth. I've come across cases of Windows users messing with the registry without having the slightest idea what it was.

If you add up all the bookshelf space in your house, how many linear feet (or yards or metres) are there? How much of it is used for books?