To think my Grammar School DD 2 with an IQ of 119 should be aiming for at least Grade 7's in all her GCSE subjects.

Grammar school parent here. Also Y9.

While we’re not talking about GCSE grades 2 years before she sits them, I’m expecting that she’ll do much better than 7s in the majority of subjects. (Based on that she’s bright in her year group and generally the school has something like 90% GCSEs an 8-9)

@Surgeons13

Yes thank you.

Finally diagnosed with Autism when he was 20 and still on an ADHD waiting list and has some mental health issues.

Has been working for about 2 years for the same employer. Has had a couple of small promotions and there is talk of him becoming a team leader. He is very good at what he is good at. He is useless at what he isn't.

Academia was not what he was good at. Sometimes you just know you are flogging a dead horse, as the saying goes. So you find another way through and regain everyone's sanity.

Learning is lifelong and qualifications can be accomplished at a later date if required, it doesn't all stop at 16.

My suggestion would be that you stop comparing your children with each other and treat them as individuals with their own unique strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, and different aptitudes.

You will destroy your DD2's self-esteem if you keep comparing her unfavourably with her sister.

Praise her for what she does achieve, and never let her feel that you are disappointed in her.

I smell weirdness. Stop being weird. Just be happy she’s surviving school at all. Not a given these days. IQ is a weird stat to be throwing around re your child.

So why did you have them both tested?

Hope he's doing okay now

Nope. Never sat them.

Did ok-ish in primary with dedicated 1-2-1, but couldn't cope in secondary. I removed him in Y8 and he did a 14-16 course at a local college for Y10 and Y11. He has a couple of random Level 1 qualifications and I think a Functional Skills grade 2 in maths.

When I read your post my initial reaction was "please, just chill the fuck out". You are coming across as having very intense feelings over this and I'm sure your DD will be picking up on the pressure.

I hope you can realise it is a huge privilege to be worried your dd might get 5s instead of 7s, when there are so many DC who would bust a gut working so hard, have just as high an IQ, and still struggle to pass at all. Or perhaps all the DC who cannot attend school at all. I find it quite interesting that you must have learned that grades are not everything already with your DS. I wonder why you treat your DD differently.

No GCSEs at all?

This forum is not necessarily a true cross-section of society and people sometimes exaggerate or change facts to suit a narrative or maintain anonymity, so basing your expectations on a lot of possibly made up posts is the road to madness.

For your info my son got Zilch.

🏆

@redange - I was genuinely always more focussed on teachers’ reports as to my DC’s engagement in lessons, during the school day. Homework ist just consolidation. I think if they focus and participate in class well, they learn well. It is a long day for them even without homework. Hours of homework is not required. Once they get to GCSE Year 11, yes they need to revise the exam style questions and consolidate and prepare for mocks. However, before then they are learning the content and if your DD is engaging in class, that is more important. So I would speak to her about that primarily.

That's all very well and to the benefit of your son, but is fairly irrelevant where your daughter is concerned.

It's not a failure on your part to reassure her and trust her to do the work necessary - the absence of pressure to go higher than a 5 can make it more likely that she will do far better than that, as she isn't put in a mindset that identifies anything less than 12 x 9 as abject failure.

She could also be saying this not necessarily out of a belief she isn't capable, but as a way of taking pressure off from you (and herself, internal perfectionism is the enemy of good mental health). It could therefore be an extremely intelligent thing she is doing in trying to manage your expectations in advance and recognising what happens to others when a single grade 8 is seen as a complete disaster.

If she picks courses that interest her and she enjoys, it is highly likely that after a term or two, she realises that actually, she's more than capable of higher grades and will automatically work harder - not longer, more effectively - because she has developed confidence in herself and her subjects, particularly if she doesn't have the spectre of her mother saying she's failing/getting less than her sister/isn't as good as her sister/isn't good enough.

Take a position that she's not good enough, that she has to be perfect or you think she is a failure compared to you/her sister/what her brother would have been had he not also needed an EHCP and she's likely to buckle under the pressure. You don't want her to be able to say 'My mother? No, I was never good enough for her, everything was always ''why can't you be more like your sister?'' '.

Keep a narrative that you have confidence in her, trust her, love her, want her to be happy and all will be well.

Excellent post.

@redange
I think you are getting the wrong end of the stick re. People saying the IQ is irrelevant.
People can have a very high IQ but go to pieces in every day life / school.

Your DC has obviously done very well already to get into grammar school - so in this scenario has already proven that they can 'test well'
It seems that this low grade prediction is coming from the child - not the school.
Why do they feel like that?
Do they feel overwhelmed?
Are they fearing that they will disappoint you so are grade 'framing' in advance?

You need to look deeper into why your DC is telling you this.

They are more often than not assessed by CATS tests in the prep school system. So most of those parents will know them, the nightmares and the non-nightmares.

Thank you and sorry if it sounded braggy about my dc. I just think it's a shame when kids when don't pursue a subject they love because they got below 7 in GCSE. I don't think it's always a marker of whether they will cope at A level.

I think A levels are very different to being spread thinly across 8+ subjects at GCSE. Plus different teachers etc.

Do you think she could be trying to tell you she doesn't want to go to the 6th form in question? That she might not feel a very academic path is for her?

@Goingncforthisone ah I see what you mean – I think the OP was talking about her DD’s specific grammar school sixth form; I have heard of grammars asking for 8 grade 7s for A level, which I agree seems a bit unnecessary (though I suppose they do it bc they can). A grade 6 in Eng lit is not going to be an issue for a scientist at A level. Well done to your DC.

Thanks, I agree but the OP said "52-53 combined points over 8 GCSE subjects which is required for 6th form entrance. " Which is 8 subjects with an average grade of 6.5

Agree though that some colleges prefer 7 or above to take that A level subject. My child got a 6 in gcse in their A level subject and went on to do well in it though.

I agree with you about the dangers of comparison – it’s totally unhelpful and definitely to be avoided.

I wanted to flag though that while 4 or 5 x grade 4 GCSEs will certainly get you on to a valuable and worthwhile college course (and tbf no one has said it won’t), those grades will not be high enough for A levels, which may be what the OP’s DD would want to be targeting. We don’t know, and she may prefer a more practical or trade-directed course for sure.

I sympathise with you re the maths. The 'new' method of teaching was pointless and useless, based on the idea that if you used methods which made you 'see' the concept you would understand better. It didn't and doesn't. Explicit instruction in traditional methods with explanation of what is going on, works much better.

I think the books chosen for GCSE are boring - I don't think Jekyll and Hyde would have appealed much to me at 15 either. I think the classics must be taught but the choice seems so dull.

Glad your DD is succeeding now.

Yes, Essay writing is a taught skill, but for some people, you can teach the method and they will still not understand the concepts involved, especially with English literature (she did ok-ish on the language side and got a 4).

We think some of the issue was coming up against her ASD/ADHD.. she struggled with understanding the emotional context of what the E.Lit questions were asking her to read from the texts, and a total dislike of/disinterest in the chosen text (jekyll & hyde) and her ADHD just completely turning off her ability to do it at all due to lack of dopamine.. essays for her are just a huge pile of 'doesn't understand'.

The functional skills English exams don't rely on essay writing, it's multiple choice/straight answers in a question/answer format, which she finds SO much easier to comprehend.

I loved English Lit, that was one of my B grades, my issue was on the maths side.. at 16 i didn't see the point in putting all the 'working out' down as long as the answer was correct. My brain often finds the answers in seconds but rarely in the way the school was teaching it, lol. so my 'working out' was not what the exam board wanted, but i couldn't do it the way the exam board demanded and the school was teaching it.. quite simply, my brain didn't 'get' that method, but my own worked just as well. If i recall that was down to a change in how it was taught, my brain refused to accept the 'new method'.

That's what i mean by kids need to have the 'right brain' to do some of these exams.