To want 9s not 7s for my child in their GCSEs?

They are quite rare though. 1 in 20 if school reflects wider population. That is rare?

What I wanted for my DC was for them to achieve the best results they could whilst maintaining a healthy balance in life. That will look different for everyone. We are all multi faceted beings with different abilities and different personalities.
A pupil who has the potential to achieve the very highest grades whilst maintaining a reasonable social life and interests outside school should obviously be encouraged to do so, but the pursuit of top grades at the expense of all else is potentially very damaging.

It's wrong to expect 9s as they are rare, but good to encourage to aim high. Lots of secondary schools near me want children getting 7 or above in the subjects they wish to study at A-Level and expect at least 6 sixes from them. You don't want to overwork your DC or make them over anxious about the GCSEs, so I would just encourage turning the 6s into 7s and the 7s into 8s. Any 9s are an extra well done.

Don’t teach your DC to measure his or her worth in exam results. It’s absurd and cruel.

9's are not rare at state, although it does depend on which school. DD3 got all 9's bar one 8 (she was deeply pissed off about that!). But......she is G&T and has a really good work ethic. She was "that" kid.

The DD who has the best career was bang on average and got C's in her GCSE's, she worked just as hard.

The point is that you can want all you like but ultimately its down to the child, their abilities and their work ethic. The one thing you absolutely shouldnt do is confuse supoorting their education with putting pressure on. Thats what my parents did and it had exactly the opposite effect, I underachieved because I couldnt take the pressure from them and backed away from it all.

You can put that sort of high pressure on yourself if you get pleasure from it but you can’t put that on other people. Parents who do that tends to create anxious children who distance themselves from you. Just because you birthed them doesn’t mean you own them.

Be grateful he is able to get 7’s, my daughter is going to get 3’s and 4’s because of her learning needs, hell I was happy when they told me she was in line for 4’s. I get you want the best for your son but always remember that GCSE’s aren’t as important as people make out. Many have become successful without GCSE’s and you stressing out will make it harder for him. Let the kid be a kid for a little bit longer.

Why do parents make comparisons like this?? A subject that comes easy for one child might present challenges for another. How will undue pressure and expectations achieve anything?

Maybe your child would like you to strive to be a billionaire or fly to the moon. You need to sit down and discuss how reasonable your expectations are.

Whatever some parents here might say it is not the norm to get a straight run of 9's

Your child does their best. You can’t do the exams for them and it’d be unfair to put undue pressure on just because you dream of the highest grades.
Encourage them to do their best then you’ve done your best as a parent.

Wow. What if your ds is disappointed in you not earning 200 k per year despite working hard?

You DC probably wants 9s too. I’d not pressure them because that doesn’t really work (in our case). I found mocks results lower than the actual results. My DC got 8s and 9s in the actual exams. The mocks and predicted grades ranged from 6-8 in most of them. There will be more revision and past papers to come and I think mocks are marked hard to stop them resting on their laurels.
plenty of kids in state schools get 8/9 at GCSE so I don’t know why your DH thinks state schools don’t expect their brightest pupils to get the top grades.
i would seriously hide your extreme disappointment and say you are proud. Your DC will do what needs to be done.

I think your DH is right. Certainly in English the marking is so appalling that a 9 is luck of the draw

Aha! I wrote the first post quickly. That was not what I meant. The OP needs to look at her child's target grades. The school would have told them by now if they feel their child is underachieving.

It all depends how hard your children work and how clever they are. Some kids could work 24 hours a day and not achieve 9s. Others do it fairly easily.

Be realistic about your children and what is possible.

Praise effort, not attainment

Ok so I've read a bit more

So a 9 is equivalent of a double A*

What next...a triple A*

Ds2 is doing his soon, just done mocks. He knows he needs 7's in those he wants to do at A'level.

Yabu and ridiculous.

You're setting your child up for a future of feeling like a failure. Oh and hating you fir naking her feel like one too.

I sat my GCSEs back in the mid 90s so definitely the old days

The highest mark was an A* and even that was newly introduced

So long as they're working hard & put in their best effort, surely that's all you can ask for?

I suspect a misunderstanding / misreading of 'anyone can get a 9'.

9s are available to anyone who takes higher tier papers or standard papers that aren't tiered. However obviously only the brightest have 9s within their reach.

Only on mumsnet would you get a responses about DCs got all 9s…

My DS is year 10 and got 7/8 on his report, when we went to parents evening they nearly all said he was capable of a 9, but they don't put that on the report card as they want them to keep working and putting in the effort. I'm not to bothered what he gets, he is working hard and I will be proud whatever he gets.
My other son got 5s/6s in his GCSE, he has dyslexia so I was so pleased that he passed everything, every child is different.

Honestly, it really truly doesn't matter whether they get 7s or 9s. The only point of any stage of education is to get enough to get in to the next stage. 9s rather than 7s will add very little to their life. But what will matter is how you make your child feel.

I work with uni students, and trust me, you really don't want your child, in 5 years time, burnt out and demotivated and wanting to quit uni, sitting with someone like me in floods of tears because they got a merit on an essay rather than a distinction, saying 'I worked so hard, I tried really hard, I got better marks than most of the class, I got 7s in everything, but it was never enough and my mum wanted more.'