dd in year 10 and fast losing confidence. WWYD? long sorry!

[ThatVikRinA22]

My dd is 14, and chose her options last year to begin this year. Some of the choices were a bit difficult due to there not really being much choice iyswim...some subjects she chose because they were the best of a bad lot. (like design and technology for instance - it was that or PE...)

The school is a little faith school. its got about 400 pupils and is a lovely school. DS who has aspergers did very well there in his exams (though he had his own problems, having AS) but he could coast and still do well, as he took in information very easily. He hated school and found it a very difficult experience. He was bullied throughout.

DD on the other hand seemed to love it. She used to be in the top sets, but has gradually moved down and down until now she seems scared to even try. She told me today that she is "useless at everything" and burst into tears.
Last year her science teacher really had it in for her, and she ended up doing really badly.
This year they have put her in a lower set and put her in for the foundation exam, but her teacher says she is one of the brightest in the class. She didnt tell me anything about this teacher until she had left her class, but her friends have also said that the teacher had it in for her for whatever reason. Her science teacher this year seems baffled that she did so badly, yet she wants to stay in this set saying she is there now and its ok.

She also chose History and is really struggling with the volume of work. Instead of trying, she seems to have just given up. The fact that she is doing badly in tests etc is really destroying her confidence and she now just keeps saying she cant do it, is useless, is thick, etc etc and its really upsetting me to hear her like this. She really is far from thick, she has common sense in spades, she is bright, but she just isnt trying anymore.

I cant really gauge how much of this is teen angst, how much is just her peception and how much is valid. She wont really discuss it with me.

I want to contact the school but she got even more upset when i suggested this. She just wants to be left alone. She wants to go to college but now says she wont get the results.

its as if she has just given up and she doesnt want me to do anything about it. She has said to wait until parents evening, which is in Feb, so not long.

I really dont know what the problem is though, and id like to speak to her teachers to try and work out if she is really struggling or if she is being angsty. She has always been really popular with her teachers (bar the science one last year) which was a refreshing change from DS who hated school with a passion but did really well....she seems the opposite - she likes school, has plenty of friends, is popular with teachers usually waxing lyrical about her at parents evenings....one of them said she missed having her in the class because she loved her....

so im struggling to work out whats changed and why she seems to be failing, why she is losing confidence in her abilities.

any one been through similar, or worked out how to play this?

[ATruthFestivelyAcknowledged]

Contact the school. Say you're worried about her & ask to see her form tutor or head of year & ask for an update on how she's doing in all subjects and how you can best support her.

[mumstoast]

DD1 also struggled with history, she was getting bad grades (2/10) this was getting her really down, she was saying she was rubbish and in the end wouldnt ask any questions in class because the teacher said she asked stupid question, in the end we went to the head of history and she gaves us books and sheets to help DD. she didnt want us to go to the head of history but in the end this did help her, i would suggest you go to the head of subjects or subject teachers, it might just be you need to help her at home keep up with the work, stick in there DD1 did history a year early and got a B which was amazing after everything she went through!

[MigratingCoconutsInTheNewYear]

I agree, contact the school. definately!

I can understand that your DD will hate this idea but if you and the school are aware of the issues then you can all find ways of finding out whats going on together.

its a very stressful time and I completely understand why she feels so stressed and upset.

[mycatunderstandsme]

Just wrote a really long post and lost it somehow!

Anyway to summarise my DD is in year 11 and very prone to giving up when she doesn't 'get' something instantly.

She hates science especially and constantly says she doesn't understand it yet when i go through a revision book with her she will admit she hadn't tried and that it is in fact very simple. I therefore do a lot of her science revision with her. She has no plans to do science at A level but should get BB in double science. She would certainly not get this grade if left to her own devices. Science is definitely one of the easiest to help with at home IMO.

My DD also hates maths and I have got her a tutor in the past [in year 6] to try to give her some confidence.She hasn't had a tutor since. She has a ridiculously high A* target and got a B last year in 2 modules which we were happy with to be honest. Recently she has lost confidence again and now she is trying to do just 20 mins maths a day to try to build it back up. She is resitting [made to by school] unfortunately. I feel she'd be better to concentrate on getting a solid B in the last module but it seems we have no choice!

In your DDs case I would strongly suggest getting the revision books to go with the exam boards. It may be that your DD is not including the things she needs to in her history answers to get the marks. I have done this with my DD a lot. it seems that my DD's teachers don't seem to spell it out to them exactly what info they need to include [or my DD doesn't listen]. I would try to persuade your DD to do a little work with you every day ,if you can manage it, to build her confidence. If she managed to do well in just one thing it might give her the boost she needs. Then you can ask her subject teachers for further advice at parents evening.

Hope this helps

[ThatVikRinA22]

i had completely forgotten about the revision guides....i will do that tomorrow.

she is just acting like some dizzy blonde at the mo - i hardly recognise her tbh. Her favourite word is "cant" and im trying very hard not to get frustrated with her.

also just thought of the BBC bitesize.

[ATruthUniversallyAcknowledged]

If she's being this negative at school too they may be even more pleased to hear from you. Teachers like parents who care!

It's worth asking school what they offer in terms of revision too. Ours has a 'parent zone' on the website that teachers update with information about exams, revision materials etc so that parents can help their children revise. As well as BBC Bitesize, it might also be worth registering on the TES site (it's free) as there's lots of teaching resources on there. Some wouldn't make sense on their own, but many are simply a series of slides that may explain various elements of history (or whatever other subject) simply and easily. some of it is crap though, so check through it before showing DD Exam boards also sometimes have helpful resources on their websites (e.g. example exam answers)

[weetabixforeva]

My DS is 15 and has had a similar experience to your DD. Despite him saying he didn't want me to contact school, I told him that I was going to for me, not him; that I didn't know how to cope with the situation and was going to get some support from school for me as his parent. Strangely enough he accepted this.

Email is used a lot at my DSs school so I started by emailing his form teacher, stating my concerns and wish to be supportive. She responded very helpfully and said she would keep a special eye on my DS. She would conseqently email me when she had any concerns about my DS or when he had done something particularly good. I also sent an email to all my DSs subject teachers - just a few lines (the same content to all) saying I was concerned that my DS seemed unhappy, not giving his best etc and really wanted to work with them to help him acheive. Most of them replied; some sent information about his studies and how I might help.

Essentially all I did was show the teachers that my DSs parent cared and was willing to be supportive. However, the result was that I raised my DSs profile and consequently teachers started to notice him more and praise him more and his school experience has improved greatly. He is now far more positive about his future and is doing his best in most subjects. Good luck.

[ThatVikRinA22]

i think i will email or phone the head of year when she goes back. i will do it without her knowing to start with, just to see how she seems there and to ask what i can do to boost her confidence and to explain how down she seems.

also going to get DH to sort out some revision guides.

the pressure on them is too much i think - for some reason they have GCSE exams starting in year 9 now. she has already sat some, at the age of 13. seems too early to me.

[ThatVikRinA22]

thanks

ive ordered the revision guides, had a chat to her and told her im going to contact the school.

[IdontknowwhyIcare]

I would also suggest you find the exam board for each subject and download past papers and marking schemes. a lot of GCSE work appears (to me) to be a certain technique and knowing how to answer the questions certainly makes it easier.
There are a number of websites that offer help if you look through this forum. DS (yr 11) uses a number of them. He also has a spreadsheet with each subject on a seperate tab, and ever heading and sub heading from the coursework books. He then colours and dates them as he revises, when everything is green its time to start again.
And tell your DD anything is possible for 15 mins. Try a bit of carrot and stick with good solid 15 min sessions.

[Tigerstripes]

Someone said that contacting the school raised their DC's profile with their teachers and meant they got more attention. I agree with this. I'm a teacher and the quieter ones in my class do tend to get overlooked when there's 24 with conflicting needs. There was one girl whose mother contacted the school saying that her daughter was very unhappy and had lost confidence. We had a meeting with the parent, I know now that her daughter needs slightly more looking after, daughter and mum happier.

[ThatVikRinA22]

thanks for that tiger and idontknow - she goes back tomorrow so i will be getting in touch.

DH sat today and looked through her revision guides and i am going to to ask the school for more information on what she should be studying.

ive got a few questions, so ive written them down and i will hopefully be directed to someone who can help me help her.

[ThatVikRinA22]

well ive phoned the school - head of yr 10 is the teacher that put her down and had it in for her last year, so have asked to by pass her altogether and speak to head of key stage 4.

they are supposed to be phoning back.

[ThatVikRinA22]

well, not terribly enthused by the response but i will reserve judgement - the head of ks 4 seemed to want to just "have words" with her about her negativity - i asked her not to do this - last thing she needs is a bollocking! and she did rather make it sound like that was what she was going to do by speaking to her about "her negative attitude"

so instead she said she will talk to her subject teachers and post me a report. Then i can get back in touch.

not sure what to feel about that conversation....

[ATruthUniversallyAcknowledged]

Hmmmm.... I'm not sure either!

At our school, if a parent called to discuss their child and the person taking the call (i.e. head of KS4) didn't know them that well then the first thing they'd do is email all staff and ask for feedback so the 'talk to her subject teachers' makes sense. Posting a report seems odd though - you called her, why isn't she calling you back? Saying she'd 'have words' is just weird. You didn't ask for parenting help, you wanted to know what was going on at school.

If I was you, I'd give it a week and then call back and request a meeting (with or without the report) If possible, I'd ask your daughter to go to the meeting too though. You can word it very much as 'I want to know what's expected of you so I can support you best' and make it clear to DD that you didn't talk to the head of year because you'd listened to her concerns.

I have to be honest though and say that if a parent called our school and said that a member of staff 'had it in' for their daughter then it would probably get our backs up. Be extremely careful how you word that!

[ThatVikRinA22]

i didnt use that sort of emotive language - i just said that my DD had not had a good experience in her class and had ended up doing very badly, and that that particular teacher had been the only one at parents evening who was negative about her...

that she had slid in all her subjects and has gone from the top sets to the bottom sets in some subjects. I did however tell them that had completely missed DS dyslexia which was diagnosed as moderate to severe within 6 weeks of starting college and wondered if there was anything underlying to her dramatic slide....

so we'll see. ill give it a week and call again, but they didnt really seem as interested as i had hoped they would.

[ATruthUniversallyAcknowledged]

Yes, sorry, I didn't think you'd have said that to the staff, just wanted to check!

[mycatunderstandsme]

Vicar I have also tried contacting school about various issues over the years and have rarely had a helpful response!

Mostly I have tried to contact the subject teacher concerned in the first instance by email but often don't even get a reply.

Recently I needed to contact my DDs science teacher about a query we had over her ISA grade. I didn't get a reply to my email so I wrote a letter which my DD took in. I still didn't get a reply, the teacher spoke to DD about it but I think it would have been polite to at least email me a line to clarify things.

This is why we have had to take matters into our own hands with revision aids and tutors when needed, fortunately we can afford to do so but it seems unfair on those with less supportive parents or who cannot afford the extra books etc.

My DD wants to stay on in the 6th form at school as she is happy there. We have already resigned ourselves to the fact that she will most likely need extra support from home!

[Tigerstripes]

Am at these subject teachers who don't reply to parent emails. Whenever I get one, I aim to reply that day if simple and within a couple of days if need to speak to e.g. HOD or need data etc. I count on parents to support me when needed and it works both ways. Surely everyone wants the best grades and this helps achieve that.

[ThatVikRinA22]

well

i got a report today from the head of KS4. every single teacher without fail has said she is an able pupil who lacks confidence.

meeting scheduled for next week.

[ThatVikRinA22]

oh dear


just told DD and she has stormed off, slamming the doors behind her and demanding we do not go into school....