DD A Level coursework

[doorwaytoparadise]

Hi all,
My DD is 17 and in Year 13. Taking 3 A Levels this summer and has offers from 3 universities ranging from ABB (with A in her EPQ, which she is predicted to achieve) to AAA. She’s one of those students who does very well under exam conditions, has a quick memory and prefers short bursts of extreme effort, so I’m not worried about her performance in the exams this summer.
On the other hand, this preference for short term effort is a double edged sword! She has coursework in her A Level history and has not been keeping up with it at all. Most of the students in her class have completed a full first draft of about 4,000 words with lots of sources and examples...she is on around 1,000 words which aren’t even in coherent sentences. So she’s stressed and I’m stressed. She says she can’t motivate herself to do it and now feels too overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task to sit down and complete it, so she’s procrastinating. The teacher is evidently not impressed with this attitude yet DD now seems too scared to do the coursework. She did about 4 hours of homework last night just to avoid her coursework!
However she cannot put it off forever as the final deadline is in February and before that time she is going to need to submit drafts and get feedback to improve. She’s saying she can’t face it until the Christmas holidays but then she needs to revise for her mock exams so I’m scared she won’t touch it then either, and it’ll turn into a situation where she writes it all the night before and doesn’t do herself justice, which could impact her overall history grade significantly as the coursework is 20% of her grade.
Am I worrying/getting involved too much? Or is there a way I can help her to tackle this stress and get a full draft done soon?

[MaisyPops]

She needs to go and speak to her teacher.

In my experience when students get to this point it is usually because they've not followed guidance from staff and have missed smaller deadlines. Then it mounts up, they avoid it more, stick their head in the sand and hit stress point where it all feels overwhelming. (This is especially true with students who have either been given endless intervention at gcse or are bright and able to pull off exams with last minute revision. Neither group seem to be good at organisation terribly well).

The first question I always ask on A Level queries is has the student spoken to tbeir teacher? / form tutor? Without that I do think parental involvement is a bit much.

The teacher will have an overview of the coursework and what is required (which students will already have probably) and they can help DC prioritise and tick off areas.

After that then I'd call as a parent to get a picture of what s going on.

[titchy]

If she works well in bursts can she devote this weekend to it? 4000 words in a weekend, even with referencing is achievable as long as she knows the basics of the topic.

And hour thinking about the structure (intro - here's what I'm going to write about, here is an outline of the facts, here is an argument for the point, here is an argument against the point, critical analysis of both points of view, here is what appears the more likely point of view and here are some people who agree, summarise the whole lot, conclude against the point), maybe with you sitting next to her, should mean she knows what to write which should alleviate that overwhelmed feeling.

[malmontar]

Gosh this reminds me of myself at gcse and a levels. I’m so jealous of the current kids who have no gcse coursework.
I would advise you to drag her to her teacher and make her do it. I did the exact same thing and didn’t send off my a level English coursework till May when the school was sending it off. Everyone else had it done and finished in Feb. I had A’s in all the exams but was flunking the coursework. This will haunt her at uni if she doesn’t nip it in the bud now. I’m so so grateful to my English teacher, she literally locked me in the English staff room after school and wouldn’t let me leave till I’d done it.
I was petrified of the idea that if I fail coursework I’d worked on for months it would mean I’m stupid. If I fail an exam i can just say I wasn’t feeling it that day. For some reason coursework was so much bigger, it showed your full potential. That was in my head anyway. My English teacher at the time went to Cambridge and said she had a friend at uni with the exact same problem. It’s common especially in bright kids but you need to nip it in the bud.

[doorwaytoparadise]

Thanks for all the help and advice. She’s on her Christmas holidays now and has a strict deadline to hand it in (email) by Monday. You’d better believe I am forcing her to do it!