To not be remotely involved in teen's gcse revision

@JustGotToKeepOnKeepingOn - make sure they attend any revision session school puts on.

Get revision guides and try and ensure they use them especially questions and exam question at end of chapters - point them towards BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize and https://senecalearning.com/en-GB/ and ask them what they've done and are they on track.

She may be a self starter - and not need much input.

DD2 has welsh oral exam this week 25% of final mark- I've strongly encourage her to attend revision session put on - she was wavering about whether her friends would be there - and ask about revision and strongly encourage her not to leave it to last minute as she originally planned. I do think she could have done more - but more worried about some other subjects so saving any arguments for those.

@JustGotToKeepOnKeepingOn find out from school which exam boards she's on, there are lots of very good resources on YouTube Sean from free science lessons has a bit of a cult following and his videos cover everything they need to know for AQA science, put them on the family TV and watch together, if that's her exam board, if not similar things will be available.

Use her revisions books and quiz her.
Look on the exam board website and find the relevant subject, past papers and the mark scheme will be on there along with the examiners report showing how the examined cohort answered questions and common misconceptions. - Going through past papers at this stage and focusing on what the question is actually asking is probably the most important thing to do right now, particularly with ND students who often answer the questions slightly wrong as they misunderstood what it asked even though they know the content.

Other than that focus on practical support, lower demands, favourite foods, ensuring some fresh air and physical activity happens

There’s definitely a difference between helping and supporting. Encouragement can be part of what’s needed. My DC has always been motivated but will sometimes ask for validation - ‘is 5 hours a day enough at this point?’ - or a cuppa.

Reading odd flash card or rehearsing an IRP speech is not a lot of input as such

My DD will ask for help if she feels she needs it but otherwise gets quite annoyed if we try to get involved. She had a bit of a shock with her mocks they took at Christmas and didn't do well at all but this prompted really knuckle down and she's done really well this time.

I think they're all very different - DS will need all the help he can get as he seems incapable of concentrating on anything.

I'm feeling like the worst parent in the world. My ND DD shares nothing with me about her studies. She does little to nothing at home. I have no idea how to help.

There's lots of talk about revision timetables, testing, helping... I haven't got a clue where to start. How do you even draw up a revision timetable? School have been useless. The 'parent support' session was held during working hours so I couldn't go. I asked for the notes from the meeting 'there weren't any'.

For parents like me who didn't do well in school and had no one to guide me, how on earth do I support my child?

Different children need different levels of help. I helped my two who are both academic but naturally disorganised - one has ADHD. I helped them plan specific topics to revise, booted them out of the house for daily exercise, cooked nutritious food and asked loads of questions about subjects I didn't understand, as explaining to others is the best way to differentiate between familiarity (recognising revision topics when you see them) and recall (being able to access and use the material from memory with no prompts).

There are loads of midways between mollycoddling and neglect.

I would have laughed at my mum for trying to 'help' with my studies at 16. If you fuck it up it's your own fault. You can't force someone to study etc. plus why would the parent know the first thing about conversational Bulgarian or economics or whatever they are studying?
My mum was a teacher, she was too busy with her own students and rightly so.
Once you do higher level you have to be fully responsible for your learning. The teacher won't punish you, you just fail.

Wow…I didn’t know any schools did this (until recently, I was a foreign languages teacher). This surprises me. None of the 4 schools I taught in ever had pupils starting a new language in Y10–all GCSE pupils were required to have taken that particular language in Y7-9 before they were allowed on the course. One school I taught at had pupils choose their options in Y8, to start in Y9, but we were still teaching them the KS3 curriculum in Y9 and moved on to the GCSE curriculum at the start of Y10. There is a BIG jump in what’s required of the GCSE curriculum vs the KS3 curriculum. Are your daughter’s listening, reading and writing exams in Y9 too? Do they do any other non-language GCSE exams in Y9 at her school?

You're not a rubbish parent, they need to learn to be independent at this stage with their studies, as it'll put them in good sted for work, A levels, uni. DD's teacher at primary once said to us, she knew we were supportive but appreciated us not being too involved as it helped her with the full picture of what DD could/couldn't do - she said it was obvious some parents had got too involved in research/craft projects and very hard to mark fairly.

I did volunteer to helps with testing when DD was studying, but she totally wanted to do if off her own back. She's applied for scholarship herself (admittedly we filled in financial forms), did her Personal Statement for uni which we only saw after submission, happily went off abroad at uni and sorts things out herself like lost passport abroad.

I ask DD what revision she's planning on doing...I try not to nag!

She seems organised....write down a schedule in her whiteboard, uses a study app.

Her mock results were mixed but generally good, mainly 6s and 7s.

She's conscious of what she needs to achieve to get into her desired 6th form.

My eldest was a study machine, always super-motivated and achieved extremely highly in GCSEs, A levels and masters degree.

Middle child is the complete opposite when it comes to applying himself but did well in GCSEs...predicted BCC for A levels.
He experienced post-lockdown anxiety so I'm mindful of not being hard on him.

Above/mentioned DD is doing GCSEs this year and will be fine.

With each child I've stressed less 😂

I barely under my kids’ homework. I do a bit of gentle nagging so they take ownership of the task themselves but leave them to do it generally.

I think you've got it spot on for your child. Just because other parents are involved (rightly or wrongly) your child is self motivated and you can remain interested but uninvolved.
It is however different for other children.

I have a friend who is totally on the "it's their exams, if they fail, then it's their lesson to learn". Said child was self motivated, top set everything and ended up with mainly 8s. Easy to leave that kind of child to it.

My DC was predicted 4s and 5s and I did everything I could to ensure this happened. He wouldn't accept help from me as such, but I bought focused revision guides, suggested podcasts and generally kept an eye on how he was doing. Very glad of the 4s and 5s in the end.

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. (My DC1 was clearly not going to be doing A Levels).

There are many ways of showing support.
While we were always involved on the periphery of our children’s education, and it was unthinkable for us not to carry that through to exam prep, there are various ways of supporting them.
Spoil them a little with revision & exam food treat incentives.
May sure the house is calm, and that the tv/music/video game noise isn’t blaring out from anyone in the home not taking exams.
But I personally think knowing what exams your children are taking, on what dates, at what time, is the barest minimum. You should have plan B transport to school worked out. Thousands of pupils miss exams every year, and have no chance of knowing what would have been the result had they been there.

My son is in year 10 and has suspected ADHD (strong signs, waiting forever to be assessed) and he is like this. So, yeah, we do have to help him stay focused through revision.

I had disinterested parents who didn’t think they should care how I was doing at school, or think to help me with revision. It didn’t work out well for me, and did do damage to my relationship with them.

I support and guide my year 10 ds, he’s got year 10 mocks coming up soon. I’ve helped him draw up a revision schedule and remind him to go and revise. I give him the support I was never given. Couldn’t give a shit who judges me for that.

My ExH had parents who weren't involved.

He had to drop one gcse because it turned out the teacher had not done enough coursework (nea) with them and he wasn't able to get the qualification without it. The whole class dropped that gcse.

For another gcse he had to do a load of work at very short notice after it turned out the teacher had taught the wrong option and it wasn't being examined that year.

Yes, it was a shit school,

I didn’t do a thing other than drive dc2 to an extra maths booster group she was invited to for 6 Saturdays in a row. We asked her to go to one to try it and she did but didn’t want to go again.
We offered a tutor for maths but she didn’t want one. She did pass maths in the end but it wasn’t a given however she had all but closed off to anything besides actually turning up to school and her exams and was mentally very unwell so we didn’t push it.
Dd1 had hers cancelled in 2020 so she didn’t even sit them, dd2 was the first year after Covid to sit them.
No idea about their college work just trusted they did it. They face the repurcussions from school if they didn’t do it therefore the onus was on them to do it.
I’d ask them if they had homework etc but I never knew if they did it or not.
DS is in year 7, I plan to have the same approach with him - let them get on with it but we’re here if they have questions.

No, her actual gcse (mocks were earlier this year).

To be fair to the school (if I must, as I’m still not sure if I think it is a good policy or not!) they do more language lessons each week in yrs 7-9 than other subjects, and I guess it is no different to a pupil who chooses a new language as an option in year 10, and then has only two years to learn.

Im not sure many 13/14 year olds grasp the importance of study/revision etc (certainly some of DDs’ friends seem to have been very relaxed about revision!).

It's your use of the word 'seemingly' that I'd say was pretty crap parenting. Do you not know for certain your kid has good mock results and knows what they're doing revision wise? You should be taking an interest, seeing their reports, congratulating them on good results, and good effort.

Involved doesn't mean sitting next to them at the kitchen table, writing revision cards for them then testing them having worked your way through the syllabus.

My child needs nagging / help. They are only doing one gcse this summer as in year 10 but I want them to realise that a bit of work and good revision pays off. I want them to pass this exam even if they only get a 4 I want them to know that they can pass and how good it feels. Hopefully then year 11 will be a bit better and they will choose to revise rather than be forced to.

This does sum it up.

TBH I don't think it disadvantaged DS - he now knows how to revise and is applying that on his own to A-levels. He also bucked trend at his school where exam result from eldest joining school to DS year taking exams had collapsed.

He got enough high marks to get on extension programs at college which have really benefited him as well.

I think MN has view it's easy to re-take GCSE and these days it's often not and not having English and Maths at C/Level 4 closes many doors.

I do think there's balance though - and where that is very child dependent.

My parents had no involvement whatsoever: neither of them did well at school and had no interest.

Not that they werent supportive : They did buy me a computer (which was very expensive compared to these days and they had probably went into debt to afford it)

I was top of my year for exam results

my husbands parents were very involved. He didn’t do very well in exams despite that

Nagged my eldest for revision. She did do some. DD2 did no revision at all except read a few notes the night before exams. Still got much higher marks than DD1. ( 5A* 3A and a B) DS didn't do GCSEs as he was covid year 2020

Mine is autistic and in an online school as couldn't cope with school environment. I also pay for her to have maths tuition.

So it's not that I'm not involved or invested in her education, I just don't involve myself in her revision because she doesn't need me to.

I think people are way overreacting towards the op. As the parent on two ND kids I think it was a perfectly reasonable question.

Some people need to calm down and stop being so defensive.

My mother refused to let my sister & I revise at all! There was to be no extra revision and no emphasis placed on GCSEs at all except a 'do your best' and that worked for us!