how do I help my DS who is fighting himself over revision?

[exasperatedemma]

My DS who is in year 10 has mocks next week and the exams a month later - he is unable to revise he says because: its boring, it won't help; there's too much to learn, I can't do it; reading doesn't work; writing it down doesn't work, etc etc.
We have spent a small fortune on all the revision guides, papers etc from CGP, have been on hand to help etc but essentially he is preventing himself from learning by just sitting saying "I don't know what to do" and then doing nothing.
Would be really grateful if anyone has any advise to help him break out of the mental block!

[webwiz]

It sounds as if your DS has got completely overwhelmed by it all. In your situation I would take over, get all his stuff and work out a sensible revision plan with him (ignoring any complaining).

Small chunks of work with screen time (or whatever) as reward when he completes a set amount of work. Show him how to read through something and make brief reminder notes. DS likes to draw pictures rather than do lots of writing and he likes mind maps as well. Your DS needs to find what works for him but he'll only find that out from trying.

Good luck!

[eatyourveg]

Have you tried the online revision websites? bbc bitesize and s-cool.co.uk are pretty good for quick summaries and some subjects have really good games to reinforce learning. They used to have mp3 downloads too. There are also tons of revision games on the tes website under teacher resources. It makes a change from having to sit down with a paper and pen not knowing where to start.

Another suggestion might be to get one of his friends involved and do some topic quick fire testing from the cgp books.

I bought a ton of coloured post it notes and put science definitions or geographical statistics on them and planted than all over the house. You couldn't go to the loo without reading about incomplete combustion. They were anywhere and everywhere that I thought would catch his eye. On the wall opposite his seat at the dining table, on the mirror, the window, the bedroom door handle just in the hope that some of it would go in subliminally. For all the case studies in Geography we got dfil to record them onto a tape and ds played it back like a bedtime story every night.

You have to try lots of different things, variety makes it seem a bit less daunting

Wishing you all the best