Deteriorating Effort Levels

[lottysmum]

Firstly I cant praise the amount of reporting coming out from DD's very average comp... she;s Yr 7

Second report out today and I'm a little dismayed that DD has 5 effort levels graded 3 (1-5 system). The first report was all 1's and 2's. In terms of achievement she's on target for most subjects and in some she has performed really well in (Maths 7B already against target of 6B). Test results are always high end ...

I know she is distracted in class and can be lazy with putting in the effort within her work books so assume this is one of the problems (she knows that she has this trait)

So should I speak to school ...next Mentor session not until end of May...its difficult for me because I was just like my DD ...when it came to tests could perform but so much is now expected in terms of getting theory down on paper ... she did get a few 1's too so its not all bad news ...

[cory]

If she is distracted in class, that would account for the effort grades. Is it possible that she is also distracting others?

My ds went through a period like this in Yr 7 and 8. Mainly day-dreaming. Also never having his pen, never bothering to keep track of his planner, never remembering about his homework. He has improved greatly in Yr 9, partly because his friends are all getting serious about studying, partly because his teachers made a concerted effort to get him to concentrate, including putting him on report so that each individual teacher would write down on his report card after each lesson what his behaviour had been like. It helped him to see what was really going on and understand that the RE teacher was not actually being unfair when he gave him an overall C for attitude.

[pickledsiblings]

My DD's worst effort grade is in French - unsurprisingly she sits next to her best friend for this subject and not for the others. Is there a similar 'pattern' to your DD's effort grades?

[lottysmum]

I think Science maybe down to where she is sitting ...but I find this quite difficult because her form tutor teaches Science and we discussed seating /friendships in view of the chatting last term so she was moved and chatting decreased (or so I was informed at parents evening)....but seating seems to have changed again and effort levels in Science went from 2 down to 3.

I wish they would comment on why they have given the effort levels ...then it would be helpful ....

[adoptmama]

first report in year 7 when everyone is getting to know each other and you are in the honeymoon period, it is not uncommon to see very high effort grades, and it is not uncommon to then see them dip later on once the honeymoon is over.

I would email the form tutor and tell them you are concerned by this. ask if they can please get some short feedback - 3-4 sentences - from each of the teachers who are concerned about the effort and make an appointment for next week to go in and discuss it. I have parents do this all the time because they don't want to waste a couple of months waiting for the report to find out if things are going badly wrong. it may be that you go in and find there is no big problem, but just explain in your email you are concerned by what seems to be a big fall-off in her effort and that you'd like the chance to get more information.