GCSE revision- sigh

[Bunbaker]

DD is supposed to be revising for some mocks next week and for some after half term.

Unfortunately she seems to be totally unable to revise without watching YouTube/Putlocker and messaging her friends so I have had to resort to switching the router off or removing devices from her.

Aargh!

and breathe

[YeOldeTrout]

lol. Teen 1: gets panic attacks from revising too much; Teen2: sails thru obliviously. Can't win!

[MadisonAvenue]

I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to hide my son's X Box controller before May.

[Curiousflannel]

I went through all this will dd last year. She did no revision for mocks and in the run up to GCSEs I nearly went bonkers trying to get her to revise, nagging, pleading, arguing, bribing - nothing worked. The thing that got her through was that they did loads of revision in school so hopefully yours will be the same.

Dd did surprisingly well in GCSEs . I think from now until exams most schools concentrate on revision in lessons so hopefully yours will be the same.

I totally sympathise as my dd was just the same and probably worse. I am going through it all again now with AS levels and she's even worse than she was last year

[EricNorthmanSucks]

If it all possible you need to crack this now OP or you will have months of pain in front of you.

Plus sixth form requires students to work independently almost immediately.

First, she needs to find her motivation. Easier if you've been seeding this for years, but a crash course can still be effective.

What does she wavy to do next? Assuming it is reliant upon certain GCSE grades ( and most things are) keep talking and talking about it. Every positive you can think of.

Also, boldly ask about her plan B. Show huge interest on it. Chances are she doesn't have one. Don't solve it for her.

Then sit down with her to discuss how much revision she thinks she'll need to do to get to where she needs to. Discuss how that will happen. Hopefully, she will come up with suggestions. If not look on the internet; there are loads of articles about what Y11s need to do. ( most overstate so you can play the good guy 'gosh that seems a lot! Shall we settle for X?' ).

Commiserate.
Seriously. Revision is shit. Don't try to deny that.

[AtiaoftheJulii]

My dd1 pre GCSE mocks: "I'm not doing any revision, because I want to find out what I know naturally. It would be pointless to revise things I already know!"

Me: /finds nice robust wall and starts beating head against it/

She ended up working quite hard by y13 and got good A level results.

I think turning off the router/removing devices is fair enough - agree a set length of time with her, and let her have breaks! I've seen advice recommending work for 25 minutes, have a five minute break. Repeat for a couple of hours. My girls preferred to do more like 45 on/15 off, so perhaps experiment a bit to see what suits.

[Badbadbunny]

When our son first started getting homework and then having to revise for end of year tests in year one, we really struggled to get him motivated, and we'd often find him "studying" youtube instead of his school work.

Rather than whinge at him and threaten the modem being turned off, we instead decided to be interactive and studied "with him", i.e. got him in the lounge with us, TV off, ipad off, and sat together working through stuff. I'd have his exercise book and ask him questions, once we'd found his weaknesses, we found online resources to bring him back up to speed. Worked really well and got him into the habit of homework and revision. More importantly, without the destractions, he realised how quickly he could do what he needed to, whereas when he used to be left to his own devices, in his mind, he'd spent a full evening and achieved little, when in reality, the actual "learning" time was probably less than half an hour!

We've now got in the habit of a homework hour evening evening, and homework mornings on Saturday and Sunday. The rest of the time is his own to do what he wants, but those specific times of day are ringfenced for nothing but school work. He goes into year 10 in September, and we've already agreed that his homework times will increase for year 10 and then increase again for year 11. He no longer needs us in the same room as him as he's in the habit of working during the allotted times and doesn't try to cheat by using his ipad or watching TV during his homework time. Hopefully, that habit will continue through his GCSEs and A levels.

[Bunbaker]

I have done all of your suggestions Eric, Atia and BadBad, and had all of those conversations, but they still don't motivate her.

What works the best for DD is going through work with her. She does say that she isn't revising as hard for her mocks as she will for the real thing and she will knuckle down. I have also told her that I will be far more hands off for A levels, unless she asks me for help. She knows that if she doesn't pull her weight in 6th she will be asked to leave.

[TeenAndTween]

You could try asking her to set a target for each revision session, e.g. not 'revise chemistry' but 'learn details of exothermic and endothermic reactions' or 'do practice paper for Engl lang q1-4'

DD1 found the stuff she had had to learn for mocks was way easier to learn for the real thing than other topics not covered for mocks. So time spent revising for mocks is not wasted time.

[YeOldeTrout]

How is OP "cracking this now" supposed to mean her DD working independently?

[Bunbaker]

Not cracking at at all. I give her chance after chance to revise independently and she looks for other distractions. So I have to reign her in and she has to do supervised revision, which, to be fair, she does.

Unfortunately she isn't learning the lessons from this. A couple of weeks ago she did a geography test which she didn't revise for and got a C. She had to take the test again, and revised for it this time. She got an A*.

She knows that revising pays dividends, She knows the consequences of not getting the grades she wants. She knows she doesn't want to go anywhere else other than the school she is at for 6th form, but she is still extremely unmotivated.

Bangs head against a brick wall.

[TeenAndTween]

Supervise revision.
These GCSEs affect her choices at the next stage.
She'll hopefully thank you for it in the long run.

[Bunbaker]

It's the only thing that works Teen.

I wonder if the fact that she is a very young 15 (not 16 until July) might make a difference.

[TeenAndTween]

My DD can't organise herself out of a paper bag (dyspraxia).
I micro managed her revision, not ideal, but needs must.
She was happy for me to do this though which was good.

Help her to achieve now. Worry about independent working later once she has the grades under her belt.

We used mocks to sort out what kind of schedule and techniques worked well for her so we knew what we were doing for the real thing.

[EricNorthmanSucks]

yeolde When I said 'crack this now' I meant crack the cycle of OP's DD distracting herself and not getting anything done without someone sitting on her shoulder.

Better for the student and certainly better for the OP who is probably worried/pissed off in equal measures.

Sometimes you have to really help a child become independent. A long process that involves (counter intuitively) a lot of input from parents.

But OP, if you've tried all this, then I'm not sure what to suggest. Some DC just don't seem to be able to take the leap for themselves in time for GCSEs. And that must be an utter PITA.

I can't speak from experience, because I had cracked mine before GCSEs, but if I hadn't, I think, like teenandtween I would have carried on intervening no matter how annoying it was (and I accept that it must be).