To not be remotely involved in teen's gcse revision

No, I didn't get involved in my ds1's GCSE work. At his request. He did well. He's really flying doing his four A-Levels now, tackling subjects I couldn't help with for all the good will I could summon.

I provided encouragement and general support but didn't get directly involved at all.
The school provided lots of revision sessions which were almost certainly better than anything I could have done.
My son did very well in his GCSEs. I suspect if I'd tried to help more, I'd have made it worse...

I think you should absolutely get involved but not take over.

Sometimes it’s just about showing your child that you care and that you are there if they need help.

Even as adults we remember whether our parents were involved in our GCSEs or not and so it shows that it’s a big event in our lives.

My DD doesn’t like me getting too involved so I just buy resources like revision guides and flash cards, send her links to videos or websites that she might find useful and take her a snack and drink whilst she’s revising.

Totally depends, obviously I hope you're not ignoring them asking for help. My parents never helped but I never would have wanted them to.

I think it's really easy for a parent to be laid back and non-pushy if they have kids who are bright, motivated and independent. My dd was like this, and I didn't need to be involved in her revision because I knew that she knew what she was doing and that she would ask for help if needed.

Some kids need a lot more structure and support. I hope that, if I had had a child like that, I would have stepped up and provided whatever input was needed.

I think the key to good parenting is responding to the individual needs of your child(ren). It would be overbearing and disempowering to get overly involved in revision and homework for a child who is perfectly capable of managing this effectively independently, but it would be unsupportive and sometimes neglectful not to get involved for a child who needed adult support in order to fulfil their potential.

DD's ex BF spent all his time in his room "revising" for his A levels. Parents were very hands off for GCSEs and A levels.

Except that he wasn't revising. He had turned 18 early in the school year and spent every evening drinking his secret stash of alcohol. He flunked his A levels and ended up in clearing.

Disclaimer I only tested DD on A level stuff when she asked for help. By then she was pretty self motivated.

My parents did not get involved in mine; I did not get involved with my DDs'. I helped if they asked, but otherwise left them to it. They did fine.

I'm with you OP. Personally, I checked how Yr7 and Yr 8 went as I think that's the time to learn how to manage school before it gets more serious.

I've seen friends who've almost micromanaged their DCs for GCSEs and A-levels, with the end result that when their DCs started uni (and not livingat home), they couldn't manage their studies as they hadn't had to take responsibility before.

I got involved, because I just don't believe mine concentrated enough in school time, and I also know they were underestimating the amount of study that was required to get good grades. So yes I intervened. At times it was a bit of a battle, and a complete pain in the arse, but it paid off and they thanked me for it afterwards, both admitting they wouldn't have got the same results otherwise. Everyone's kids are completely different. I just know mine needed that extra help to get off to the best start. Now it is up to them. Grades aren't everything but it can help.

I couldn't disagree with you more. I'm amazed that as an examination officer that you don't know that all 15/16 year olds are different with different abilities, or is it a very academic school?

You are lucky that you have a self motivated child who enjoys learning. Many young people still need guidance on how to revise at this age. It doesn't mean that they can't learn at this stage, and then be self sufficient for A level and beyond.

Having zero interest in your child's education when they are struggling is setting your kids up for a huge fail.

@SlipperyLizard if they are taking a language in year 9 won't they forget a lot of basics if they decide to take it at A level? I agree that it is odd to do this subject in year 9. Besides, universities are keener than ever that pupils sit all their GCSEs at the same time rather than piecemeal.

You should have plan B transport to school worked out.

Goodness, yes. We needed a plan B because the school bus was often cancelled or delayed. Being rural there were no other viable transport options.

The issue I would worry about for DC2 is that if you help them a lot through GCSEs they won't really be set up for self study at A Level

I disagree. Learning how to revise is very important, and if it is at GCSE level they should have learned enough then to see them through A level and beyond.

If they can't organise revision they have no hope of getting on in life

They need guidance on how to revise though. It doesn't come magically for many pupils of that age. DD's school was excellent with revision lessons, but not all schools are able to do this. So you would just let a child sink or swim then @RuthW?

Gosh there are some smug parents on here

What? Write off a child at 15/16 for life? Have they been taught how to revise? Or do you just expect that to come naturally? It depends on how good the school is, my children's school was really good, parents invited in for revision evenings, advising the parents on how to do things, sending us home with massive A 3 sheets of things for English lit and Lang, specific matrix red/amber/green for each maths question on their mock paper with an actual link to a maths site on how to solve this type of question and some test questions to check you understood it.

The school down the road? Pretty much fuck all according to the parents. That was the difference between the outstanding, oversubscribed school and the one that was verging on requires improvement.

What bloody nonsense. I failed all my O levels (as they were called back then), a lack of support from my parents was definitely part of that failure. I didn’t understand how to organise revision, the school didn’t help either. I went on to have a perfectly successful career, but I had to teach myself those organisational skills that adults (including my parents)could have taught me when I was at school.

I think that's rather harsh. The average GCSE student has probably at least 20 exams. Being able to ensure they know each topic covered on each paper to a sufficient level (or make pragmatic decisions that they won't revise topics), and working out how to spread their time to make sure that it's possible to do this whilst factoring in time for hobbies, other commitments and rest periods, and also finding (and possibly printing) their own revision materials and also making sure that they have the correct stationary, and being aware of how exact exam dates affect your schedule ... is really not easy, and a high level of multi tasking and priority balancing that an awful lot of adults don't have to manage at any other point of their lives.

If they can't organise revision they have no hope of getting on in life

My son sits his GCSEs this year. IMO he’s not doing nearly enough revision for his aspirations. He’ll get the college place he wants but I think he might be disappointed with his grades. I’ve expressed my views and offered support but they need to learn self motivation and self discipline. They need to know how much work they need to put in.

So making sure they allocate time to revise
Getting the revision supplies and snacks
Offering to test them with flash cards that they have written out will all help and ensure that they are revising.
Also encouraging them to take breaks for their well-being.

Something like a walk is good but if that's not some think they would do, take them for a costa/ Starbucks. Or for a quick fast food lunch.

They will always thank you for being interested and present.

I didn't do well in my gcses, so don't have much to offer my child other then numerous study materials. They are predicted good grades and go to a good school so hoping that's enough.

My eldest didn't need any extra help from me doing the actual revision or planning her revision timetable, but I knew exactly what exams she was sitting, had read the syllabus and ensured that she had all the revision guides and equipment she required. I had also spent time in the years leading up to her GCSEs teaching her how to build a revision timetable and helping her learn how she learns best to get the most out of her revision. She is also dyslexic and I did have a lot of input directly with the school to ensure she had all the Senco support she needed and making sure she had all the extra time she was entitled to with her exams. She needs almost no extra support from me at 6th form now, but I do still check in with her frequently to let her know I'm here if she needs me.

With my second he will be a different story. He's not as emotionally intelligent, despite being more academically gifted. He will probably need more input with helping build a revision schedule, maybe need me to physically be there in the room so that he can study and keep focused. He will probably need more structure around his revision than DD1 required. Again we've started having these conversations for about a year now, he is coming to the end of Year 8 at present.

DD2 is only in reception, so will have a good picture of what she will need when she gets to GCSE stage.

In my opinion you have to be aware of what they're studying and why. Aware of what is required for the exams and be mindful of who your child is and support them in the way the need and want. I have friends who couldn't tell you what their children had picked as options, let alone what they actually needed to do to get the results they wanted. Some of those kids were ok, some didn't get anywhere near the grades they wanted. It was a very big wake up call for those families and I do feel sorry for the children who are now having to do extra to catch up in 6th form.

Bless you, this is really hard.
I assume your child is secondary age, is she doing GCSEs this year?

If you start your own thread in secondary education there are loads of kind posters who will help you.

Exactly this.
I always said to my DC that if help was needed then the teacher was the first port of call, however if there was anything I could help with at home then it was good to ask - as it is I helped with the odd thing (eg helping reinforcing some concepts in a subject I have a degree in). We did have chats about study techniques, making sure that DC was using what worked for them (in our case, more active learning as opposed to just 'reading over').
Too much parental involvement or too little parental involvement can both have detrimental effects.

My DC wouldn't even let me get involved

My DD did ask for a maths tutor though so I found one for her and she passed so all good there

I guess as you say yourself they are bright and motivated. So I can see it would be ok to leave them to it.

My daughter is an incredibly hard worker but struggles with a fair few subjects and always has. Being a hard worker with exemplary behaviour means she's fallen through the cracks and has had no additional help from school.

So yes, I'm working hard to help her revise and keep her motivated as her head has been dropping a lot since November mocks. Because even if you start out motivated, if it's all an uphill struggle for ts very easy to become "what's the point?".

It's a bit of an emotional roller coaster tbh. I have moments when I'm very jealous of parents with clever and motivated kids. Can't wait for results day

From the age of 8 I was responsible for my own homework and later revision. Possibly earlier but this was when my parents were accused of doing my homework for me by my teacher and they told her they never see my homework.
I doubt they would have known what subject exam I had on what day. It wasn't so much that they were interested more that because it was something I just got on with they didn't need to exert energy on it. They were the same with my sisters too. We are all very independent and self motivated people. It would have been different if we hadn't....or maybe if we had different parents we would have needed to be independent and self motivated!

How do you even draw up a revision timetable?

Never done one for me or got kids to do them just know when exams are and what needs to be covered before then and cracked on with an eye on time left.

Each to their own, I suppose. My dyslexic DD gets very anxious and looks like a rabbit in the headlights if left on her own with a book to revise. On the other hand she’s fully engaged and happy if we go on a walk and discuss Newton’s 3rd Law, or coastal erosion, or the theme of loneliness in Of Mice And Men. So we do what works for us, as I am sure is the same in every family, and don’t much care what others are doing.

@JustGotToKeepOnKeepingOn there’s an excellent, mutually supportive Y11 thread in the Secondary Education topic which you might want to join.