To feel that the reasons some children don't do well at school, isn't because they don't try hard enough?

Ditto!

My brother was extremely clever ( our father was an Ed psych so did aptitude tests on us for fun) but never , ever applied himself to anything. At junior school there was a baby bulge in his year( 1970s. He's 59 this year) so they moved the older ones up a year regardless of ability. He was an August birthday so didn't get to go. Instead of working hard and showing them that he should go too, he stopped and sulked and proved to them that he was too emotionally immature to go up a year and they were right to leave him where he was.
At secondary school the teacher would set homework and suggest that half a page per answer would be the least that was required. My brother would count the lines on a page ( 22 as it happens). He would write his answer until he got to line 11 and then stop, even if he had more to say. Bare minimum answer, bare minimum score. He has worked on the production line in a factory all his life.

I agree with this.

Also the parents who encourage the kids to blame others rather than taking some responsibility themselves. Its always somebody else's fault.

Didn't do well at school, blame the teachers not the fact you didn't do the work.

Got into trouble for behaviour, someone else's fault for leading them astray.

I've seen parents stand in the playground and spout this rubbish when you absolutely know their child is an absolute nightmare.

Then they wonder why their child didn't get on in life 🙄

Some children don’t work hard enough and could achieve more if they tried. However some children do everything they can but their best will still not get them too GCSE results.

I certainly didn’t put enough effort into subjects I wasn’t interested in, which was quite a few, despite having very pro/education parents. OTOH I did well in the very few I liked.
I was just lazy!
People in general often used to say, ‘Well, as long as you tried your best…’ - but too often I knew I hadn’t tried my best at all.

Everyone has a level of cognitive ability.

It's not as simple as work hard.

There’s nothing wrong with either of those jobs.

Wow! That’s a really shitty attitude to people who go to work every day. I hope you don’t let them know how much you look down on them.

I didn't do well at school. I got 3 GCSEs. My mum was very violent and abusive and my dad was an abusive drunk. My home life was absolutely chaotic and I was very badly bullied.

Unsurprisingly neither parent was interested in schoolwork and I didn't do any.

You do realise that for some children that is in fact, doing well , and they worked hard to get there?

Nevermind all the uni graduates working in menial jobs .

I always drilled down to my kids that if they didn't work hard at school they'd end up as a person doing menial work. As in, working the tills at Tescos or flipping burgers at McDonald's.

Depends on your definition of 'doing well'? In my mind 'doing well' is not necessarily about everyone getting the top grades, but it is them fulfilling their potential, acheiving the best they possibly can, setting goals for themself and doing everything they can to acheive them.

My oldest at 9 definitely isn't reaching her potential, and definitely isn't trying her hardest, which is frustrating for both us and her teachers. But in a way it's also frustrating for her 'X can talk and walk around the classroom during lessons but if I do it I get in trouble' 'my grades went up 10% but my teacher still isn't happy'. No they aren't, as you are capable of 30% higher. She hasn't found that intrinsic motivation yet and it's a struggle to get her to see that it's fully in her control to do better, but we can give all the help possible, but if she doesn't want it for herself then nothing is going to change. She is naturally smart but not very engaged. Her sister is similar ability i think, but constantly has her head in a book, writing, asks for extra maths because she genuinely enjoys it, and despite being 2 years younger, she is working at same level as her older sister in some areas. As someone who went to a failing school and taught myself the whole gcse and A level curriculum as the teacher was too busy with crowd control, and got all top grades, its frustrating, but my DH keeps reminding me that I cannot expect her to be me, she is her and that's ok.

I was always told on report cards 'could try harder' back in the 80s. No I couldn't, I tried hard I just couldn't learn the way they were teaching, I was not a bums on seats kind of kid. I am much better with working practically.

I used to get into trouble for not showing my working in maths - I knew the answer just couldn't tell you how I came up with it, so i was bad at maths, I got less marks for not showing working out but had the question right.

I would get asked a question in English and answer it in one line. Elaborate, elaborate what, that's the answer, you asked I answered, and why is that the answer, because it is the answer.

I was always good at art, design, etc, stuff like that but that wasn't important back then it was maths & english & science.

There is a big element of this imo. Many schools are hostile environments that are stressful and demeaning for children.

Everyone can do better if they put a greater effort into learning, but there are outside influences that can prevent them from being able to put that effort into.
Doing better doesn’t equate to doing well though. Improving a test score by 10% is doing better, but if the first test result was 1% and the second 11% is the student doing well?

“Ffs had an idiot tell me this is why some kids don't do well, and that they cou,d of they tried hard enough”

If they had said ALL kids then you would be right to be annoyed. But the fact is some kids could do better if they tried harder. I wss am a lazy cow, and could’ve done much better if I had put in more effort.

Some kids yes, all kids no.

I have two that are never going to do well. As a PP put it, we are aiming for "well for them" or "well under the circumstances"

DS has autism and attention difficulties. He sent primary school dissociated because the school environment was so confusing and overwhelming. Then we home educated for a while. During that time he attended a tutoring club in a classroom like environment for 1 and a half hours per week. Even this was too much for him. He's now in a SEN unit and much happier but they really aren't set up to support him with academics.
I think he will most likely get NAT 4's at age 16 and NAT 5's (equivalent to GCSEs) at age 18. So around 2 years behind his mainstream peers.

DD has severe dyslexia and, my God, she works hard. She's at Gaelic school so we're currently doing dyslexia interventions in two languages. Which is a lot of work by anyone's standards. I don't know what her likely outcome is. I think if she keeps working on her keyboard skills she may do well in exams, with reasonable adjustments.

The people I know who've been most successful in life aren't the cleverest or hardest workers but those whose parents from the very start made them feel that they deserved to succeed and supported them to do so (gave them self-confidence - eg getting their teeth straightened! - and self-worth, allowed them to focus on school and didn't make them get jobs as well, gave them a calm and stable home with no big house moves/multiple school changes, supported them when they failed/through resits, supported them to get professional qualifications through all the exam failures and didn't push them into unskilled work).

I think the concept of a school, in anything like its modern form, is an environment that is naturally inclined towards stress, bullying and sexual assault. This is simply a natural consequence of putting large numbers of children in one place with relatively little adults supervision. Kids generally flourish best in smaller groups with lots of adult oversight, but schooling doesn't allow this.

The best schools perhaps manage to mitigate this - though this is probably largely due to the intake. Even then a lot probably goes under the teachers' radar. But in a sense any problems are still not so much the fault of individual staff as the fault of the entire system. I don't pretend to know a better system but let's not pretend we've got this aspect of society sorted.

My 11 year old had struggled all through primary school. With lack of teacher input. Things agreed then later removed from her. School refused to make any referrals despite a family history of ASD, ADHD, dyspraxia and Dyslexia.

i removed her from the system. Self referred her myself. We have an autism and dyspraxia diagnosis now. She’s home educated but she’s a completely different child. She’s progressing much more now than previously.

My 8 year old is also autistic with a learning disability. He is at a reception level if that. He’s also home educated because the LA can’t find a suitable special school for him and he found himself without a school placement for year 3. Since he’s been out he’s learnt to read, learning to write all things he left unable to do.

That being said our 17 year old was predicted much higher grades then what she got. Reality somewhat is that she believes “she’s learnt it all” so doesn’t have to concentrate or redo what she’s already “learnt”. No amount of telling her makes her see differently

Your OP says some kids could do better if they tried harder. That’s almost certainly true. There might be cultural, emotional or socioeconomic reasons why they don’t try harder, but that doesn’t take away their agency that they are choosing to not try.

Other kids are trying their hardest and not succeeding though. So I think both statements are true, but you shouldn’t dismiss “just trying harder” as a route that could work for some kids.

While this is true, we get students in lower sets who manage to achieve 4 and 5 because they work hard and put in the effort. Those that just can't be bothered or don't even try to answer any questions on the exam papers are lazy not necessarily lower intelligence.

Of course it’s because “some” kids don’t try hard enough.

People have different personalities. Some are happy to coast.

There will do course be other reasons why many don’t reach their full potential (send and home life for example) and these should be addressed.

We the 2 don’t conflate and counter each other out.

@PrancerandDancer just cutting to the end to say we used two writing workbooks recommended on here called Write from the Start, all about motor control rather than plain lines of repeated writing, in case you haven’t come across them yet!