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.

Don’t veer into unreasonable pushy parent territory OP. Red flags 🚩 galore in your post. It is I am sure entirely well intended but being so transactional and strategic about results is not helpful.

1. IQ measures are unreliable and who wants to be labelled!?
2. Despite what anyone is told at school exam results are not what determines how clever you are or how successful you’ll be in life.

Young people already feel huge pressure. It’s great you take an interest but maybe channel it more proportionally.

The point of learning should be to develop the skills needed to learn and demonstrate understanding. For life.

Like building up muscles, it’s that skillset, time management, being organised with competing demands, study and motivation techniques, determination, resilience when it gets tough, acceptance can’t always be perfect, that sometimes will fail and the lesson there is to try again… studying should though hard, build confidence and general aptitude and not a mortal fear of failure, pressure or letting your coach (!!) i.e. parent down.

I sailed through my own exams at that age. School had promised all the doors it would open… if only the grades were right.

It didn’t!

Turned out at that time more doors opened for the kids with £ parental support who got less impressive grades than for the bright working class kids… learned experience and working way up much more important in the end.

Plus employers are looking for right can do attitude, reliability, conscientiousness, and whatever role needs etc so if they have two candidates and one got an A* in English and the other a B, it will matter not a jot if the second one is the better worker and fit for the organisation 9/10.

Exams matter, can in some cases give a foot in door… but it is not the be all and end all, and approaching it like you are could be counterproductive. Huge amount of pressure to put on your DD.

Why are you putting an unbelievable amount of pressure on her now.

Let her choose her options, the subjects she likes and enjoys, encourage homework (two hours every night is excessive after a full day at school) and encourage activities away from school. Does she go any clubs or do any sports? They would build confidence and resilience.

Pressure on grades now for exams she's not sitting for over two years is too much. Stop.

An hour and a half homework every day in Y9 sounds excessive. My Y9 who is at a good comprehensive and on track for getting 7s+ at GCSE probably does about 2-3 hours a week max. Also this cohort definitely did take Sats.

I think at this stage when they're picking options you need to be focusing at what she likes, what subjects she's good at, what are her teachers saying. Surely they'll be telling you if there are any concerns? What subjects does she actually want to do?

I'd also check the 6th form entry requirements. It would be quite odd to say a 7 in English is essential when it's one of the subjects that even the brightest kids often do badly in.

My eldest daughter who is at one of the top grammars in the country (based on league tables) needs to get six 7s to stay there but just needs 7s in her A level subjects.

I've always thought it an odd thing to have your child IQ tested. It's the kind of thing footballers who left school age 14 have tested to prove a point in interviews (I think I remember Frank Lampard doing this), but that almost nobody of genuinely meaningful high intellect or achievement ever does, and would consider the equivalent of adding 5m swimming badge to their CV.

She, has also said the idea of doing 2 hours homework Monday- Friday is not something she wishes to do. I currently have to make sure constantly that she is doing around 1 hour 20 minutes a night homework, because if I did not watch her she would lie to me how long she had spent on it

I don't blame her, poor bugger. 2 hours of homework every night? And you standing over her, forcing it - do you think that's encouraging a love of learning? Do you think she's taking it all in in any meaningful way?

You're raising a human, not a set of numbers you can boast about to anyone who will listen
This poster had it bang on. You're going to ruin that girls life and your relationship with it.

Also.stop timing her homework every night!! That's unhinged! There will be consequences at school if she doesn't do it/doesn't do a high enough standard.

This is meant kindly - I think you need a more consuming job or a project or something to invest in and let your daughters be....

She is probably capable of getting mainly 7s with effort. Not based on iq which means little to me but that she got into grammar.

It sounds like a very pressured and skewed environment where people getting 7s are made to feel like they have only just scraped through to sixth form This might be impacting her attitude and how she feels. Even an element of self sabotage or trying to manage your reactions in advance?

The comparisons with her sister and quoting where she is in the class and relative IQ and how many points did each grade is worrying me. All you need to do is encourage her to do her best and provide her a supportive environment to do her best.

DD did not do sats (COVID). She scored well above average throughout primary and utterly resented the best estimates of her y6 teacher which resulted in high school estimating 7s-9s for all subjects. 3 years of not working exceeding then not achieving those expectations left her with no desire to study anything ever again.
She's now at college (schools here don't offer 6th forms) and living learning again and doing very well.

Don't push your daughter. Encourage her, build her confidence but don't judge her.

My son is year 9 - he hasn’t chosen subjects yet for GCSE. We haven’t discussed what grades he will get at GCSE. He’s bright hardworking and we encourage him to do his best. That’s all is needed for a year 9 child .

Stop focusing on numbers. Start working on her confidence. Praise, reward, asking her daily something that went well or she is proud of. In affects you need to retrain her brain to look for the positives. Being a teenage girl is hard, comparison is cruel- whether that be her sister, her classmates, her friends. Look at her strengths and direct her focus to those. What does she want to do in the future? When you find a teen a goal they are more likely to see the work ethic needed as understandable and have meaning.
Talking about IQ, predicted grades, expectations, required grades for A Level- all abstract, overwhelming, scary and can make anyone shut down if you're giving her a target for 2 years time when she is losing confidence in her ability.

What a weird stealth boast thing to start a thread about!

Firstly there were SAT tests in 2023 so it's not obvious she didn't take them. Secondly teachers assess pupils anyway so have a sense of a child's capabilities. Thirdly measures like test results and IQ are only rough indicators of performance and many other factors come into play: motivation, self belief, interest in the subject matter, personality, ability to focus, plan, retain information, work habits. A child is not a machine where information about them (IQ) will produce a predictable result.

Year 9 is also notorious for children being more rebellious, less inclined to take learning seriously etc. To you GCSEs are around the corner, to her they are years away.

You need to support and encourage her and be prepared to accept the results she gets, not insist on your imagined results you feel meet her IQ. Life won't end if not all her results are 7+

just backdown on the pressure, give her a chance to breathe. She’s 14 or maybe even still 13, a child. She’s in a good school she knows she’s bright. Give her a chance. What else does she like doing? Music , instruments? Nurture her.

You're expecting 1.5 to 2 hours homework a night in year 9! Goodness that seems like a lot. Don't think my son did that much in year 11 - in fact he is not doing that much now in year 13.

How was the IQ measured? Was it by the school via MidYIS or CAT4?

You have said here that you have autism and dyslexia. Neurodivergence has a huge genetic and hereditary component, so why have you not considered that your daughter might be struggling, and therefore acting out/breaking down from masking while trying to achieve your high ambitions for her? My first move would be to take all the pressure off her now you can see cracks appearing, seek an assessment, and then decide how best to support her learning.

You need to be very careful that you don’t push her harder than she can cope with. GCSEs are not more important than a child’s wellbeing - they can be gained in a number of settings at the right time for any given child, as can A levels and degrees. Comparing her with her sister is abhorrent, as is your ‘cookie cutter’ analysis of her presumed abilities. This is a child with a personality, not a set of numbers and a pile of expectations. Regardless of whether or not she is neurodivergent, you should not be trying to force her into a box you’ve created for her. She is an individual, please treat her as such. Be proud of what she achieves, and of the person she is. Bring up a girl who is mentally well, knows her own mind, and is kind and caring, and you won’t go far wrong in life.

Why are you even discussing predicted grades now? My daughter is also choosing her GCSE subjects now and we're focusing on what subjects she likes, she is good at and what areas she might potentially want to pursue beyond GCSE (the latter in very vague/loose terms). Not a mention if she might get a 5,6,7,8,9 in my house yet. That is way too early. The only mark we talk about is making sure she gets a 5 in maths (she absolutely hates maths) and why it's important to keep up with maths now even if she dislikes it.

My son is doing his GCSE this year. Year 10 was all about keeping up, making sure he didn't build up any gaps and then did a revision plan for the summer mocks in May making sure he revised and studied for the exams. These mocks results were then a baseline to focus on which areas to put more effort in and which areas to keep up with and some we deprioritised a bit (the latter based on good marks, fairly easy, not taking forward for A-level and not core subject like maths or English). That's when the discussion started for us which grade to aim for, what he needs to do to have a chance of achieving this etc

I think by focusing too much on the grades now not on best effort being enough as long as it's genuinely best effort you might put your daughter off. I would not even go near mentioning her sisters results let alone a suggestion that she should achieve similar grades- so unhealthy. She needs to focus on herself and what she can achieve. IQ doesn't come into it much: hard work, good prep and exam technique and good nerves under pressure is what will matter most.

FFS why is Mumsnet like this 🙄

Oh my goodness - you need to calm down. She absolutely should be capable of those grades and if she got in to a selective grammar school, she'll probably get them. But you can't stand over her every step of the way - it's got to come primarily from her, especially in Sixth Form and beyond. If she has to scrape and struggle to get in to the Sixth Form at her school, she probably won't do very well once she's there!

Schools have got bogged down in statistics, predictions, analysis, flight paths etc etc. They have some use but often the tail is wagging the dog.

Looks like you have too.

If I'd set IQ tests for my children my middle one would have got the best score - that one bombed out of uni - twice.

In my teaching career we spent time discussing and aiming teaching at different types of learner; auditory, visual, kinesthetic etc. A bit of a trend 20 years ago. All true but most people are a mixture, not just of one type as we were told.

Sitting, somewhat bored, at the back of a meeting I came up with the 5 Ps. Factors that alter predictions and expectations made in Y7 to actual results at the end of Y11.

So in no particular order....

Parents
Pot
Peers
Puberty
Promiscuity

She doesn’t have a high IQ, and I’m not sure what difference that makes in a lot of subjects anyway.

You are going to burn her out. She will either plough her GCSEs on purpose to get her own back, or she will have a nervous breakdown and her mental health will be fucked.

She is a child. She is not an extension of you, or just there for you to brag about. She is not her sister, she’s her own person and is allowed to be different.

Putting this much pressure on her when she is already telling you she can’t handle it is ridiculous. Two hours homework a night after a full day at school? Why on earth would anyone want to do that?

Hard for lots on here to grasp, but GCSEs aren’t that important. How many times in day to day life does anyone give a shit what your GCSE results were? They only matter to get you onto the next stage, once you’ve done your A-Levels/BTEC/apprenticeship, they are totally unimportant. Placing this much emphasis on them is crazy.

Why don't you stop putting her under ridiculous pressure about something that is two years away and let her enjoy learning? Your attitude is likely to drive her away from school work (and you).

Talk to her about her school work, support her by offering to visit places relevant to her geography and history and science topics, and forget about grades for another 18 months.

She's a child, who should be allowed to enjoy her childhood.

It sounds like she’s either having a bit of a crisis of confidence, or knows how to push your buttons and is pushing back at the pressure put on her. It’s 2 years til GCSEs, and in all likelihood she will be absolutely fine.
For now I’d avoid talking to her her about grades and numbers and sixth form and tell her it’s fine if she gets 5s, that will still get her into further study (even if not at her current school) and when choosing options she should think about what she’ll most enjoy spending time learning over the next couple of years.
I’m not sure if this is helpful or not, but I got the highest possible grade for all my GCSEs but have not had a dazzling career - quite the opposite (I am also autistic which I’m sure doesn’t help). One of my kids is academic and hard-working, the other a happy coaster, but I suspect the coaster is going to do just fine in the future as his social skills are amazing, so I’m trying to let him be and let him find his own way (obviously while making sure he actually does his homework, as you’re doing). Out of the people I went to school with, most of the really rich and successful ones now were actually the popular rebels who didn’t do much work back then.