DD's mocks results are a disaster - what can I do now?

"It's a more complicated world, and we can't cling to our old certainties."

We can about Oxbridge admission!

"It seems terribly fearful to assume that a life of meaningless dependence will automatically ensue because one or two mock GCSEs are not quite as good as expected."

Nobody is. However, what people are saying is that a life without achieving one of her current stated goals is inevitable if she doesn't do better than she has done so far.

Which is rather different. The straw armies are mustering!

I think the phrase was ""A good set of academics are becoming imperative if one is to have a life of meaningful independence."

Presumably a good set of academic qualifications, is what's meant?

The mock GCSE results, though uneven/and below predicted levels in some cases, are much better than many students would achieve. Many parents would be very proud.

They are also of a standard where - if the student goes on to take A-level results in subjects in which she is particularly strong - make it likely that she'd go on to get offers from good universities.

It seems terribly fearful to assume that a life of meaningless dependence will automatically ensue because one or two mock GCSEs are not quite as good as expected.

There's also the uncomfortable truth that although 20 or 30 years ago a degree might well be the passport to stable, well-paid employment, now there are many more graduates and fewer jobs. Plus student loans that need to be paid off.

It's a more complicated world, and we can't cling to our old certainties..

frau I did not say people without a degree have no meaningful life experience. I said people on low wages have little meaningful independence.

I don't believe the OP's dd wants to go to Oxbridge. I don't believe she has any specific ambition. People with ambition do not behave like people without ambition. I believe the OP's dd has been told she has the potential to go to Oxford or Cambridge and that she would be letting herself down not to fulfil that potential. That is not the same thing at all as having that ambition for yourself or believing that your "potential" is pulling you in that direction.

Yes, it's difficult to know if the OP's dd is supremely arrogant or masking her disappoinment or panic with a show of bravado.

If it's the second then everything's to play for, if the former, well... then the OP is probably going to get a full head of grey hair before the end of the summer.

Earningsthread Thu 19-Dec-13 23:25:13

"I'm not just worried that she is closing off doors in general. I'm worried that she is closing off doors that she professes to want to go through."

Just seen this. And take back my previous posts. If she professes she wants to go through these doors (for her own sake (rather than just agreeing with you), then that is where you have to start the discussion and that is a reasonable thing for you to do.

It might be worth pointing out to her that those of us who have children in Sixth Form report that there is a steep step up from GCSE to AS levels.

If she has something she wants to do, then that changes the whole situation and gives you a lever.

I was kind of wondering the same as curlew in an earlier post if the breeziness is perhaps an attempt to cover up for panic. Had a friend who used to do that: under-revise so that underperformance would not be put down to lack of brains. Not a good idea, obviously.

I haven't read all the thread so apologies if I'm repeating anything.

If your dd wants to improve her grades, get her the Letts revision and practice guides and start working your way through them.

This statement
I have asked DD what she thought about her mock results. She laughed. She told me that mocks were ridiculous, she hadn't revised for any of them because she thought they were a waste of time.

gives interesting insight into logic of your DD
Is she perhaps thinking that the all teachers teaching GCSE's and also other students in y11 are idiots and she knows best?

She thinks she can swot it and get all marks as high as predicted.
Unfortunately exams mean practice.
I can only guess those are first exams she is (apart from music) taking in her entire life.
I can understand she isn't people pleaser but surely saying what she does shows she will have problem at Uni where consistency is important.

What does she want to do after school?

Does she realise that to get from D to A is not a piece of cake? As someone mentioned it is possible to improve by 2 marks which would take her to B.
She has to improve in 6 subjects which is just going to take many , many hours.
If she wasn't able to concentrate now how would she find motivation from January?

She just has to realise some opportunities don't come twice in life.

Cory- I was giving her the benefit of the doubt that when she said her dd was considered "an Oxbridge banker" that that was what her dd wanted too. I have asked several times whether that's the case, but no response- so can still only assume that to be true.

"Until she tells us otherwise, the OP's dd has an ambition which needs the 8 A*s."

Why? Surely, until she tells us otherwise we don't know a thing about the dd's ambition?

Or are we supposed to deduce this from the fact that her mother is a MNer?

I have not been saying "oh, don't worry about it". I have been saying "talk to your dd and find out what she wants". And "find out what happened and what she thinks she should do about it".

""A good set of academics are becoming imperative if one is to have a life of meaningful independence."

Does this mean nobody will get a job as a plumber or an electrician or a carpenter in the next generation? Or merely that this isn't seen as meaningful? "

You have to have a decent set of GCSEs to get onto practically any sort of training course nowadays, frankly. "A good set of academics" might be 5 Cs for one person with one ambition, and 8As for another person with a differen ambition. Until she tells us otherwise, the OP's dd has an ambition which needs the 8 As. Telling her- oh, don't worry about it, you can always do something else is as bonkers as telling the kid whose ambition it so be an electrician that he needn't bother with trying to get a C for GCSE English because he can always do something else.

People on here go all weird when A*s are mentioned......

It seems incredibly snobby to say that those who are not university graduates doing traditional professional jobs do not have 'meaningful life experience.'

There also people who have done the good degrees and - even in these straitened times - gained access to professional jobs and incomes. But who are pretty miserable and drinking themselves stupid in such little spare time they have.

Agree cory 100%. MN is verging on obsessed with certain lifestyle and incomes which for many are not even on their radar yet they seem to have good lives.I think we are going to see a huge shift in our lifetime as degrees are 2 a penny and there is just very little work in the UK and a deadly shortage of housing. We need to start focussing on the bigger picture. University guarantees nothing apart from debt. I looked at my ds and his mates last night 10 of them and wonder if the 3 who aren't at university actaully made such a bad choice!

Could it be that she actually does not like science and so is putting more effort into the other subjects. With the projected grades she was being put under a lot of pressure, possibly for the first time in her young life.
Now is the time to provide support and discuss options to go forward with. There are, however, many ways of earning your living that do not involve going to a 'top university'

yes lainiekazan - prizing should be for effort and not for posessing talents

I don't think the OP has told us yet whether her daughter wants to apply to Oxbridge.

I agree that the OP's dd needs to change her mindset. But not because a top university is the only way to earn an income. More because the other jobs, the non-Oxbridge jobs, involve hard work, too.

My very bright nephew left school and set up his own carpentering business: he is still doing very well despite recessions. But I don't imagine it's less hard work than writing a PhD. He has done well outside of academe precisely because he was prepared to work hard.

wordfactory Thu 19-Dec-13 20:49:52

"A good set of academics are becoming imperative if one is to have a life of meaningful independence."

Does this mean nobody will get a job as a plumber or an electrician or a carpenter in the next generation? Or merely that this isn't seen as meaningful?

In the MN world it is impossible to live on the income of a skilled craftsman or find meaning in a life that is not lived among high flyers.

In RL I know quite a few young people who seem to manage this rather well.

But then I know quite a few people who are graduating from universities other than Oxbridge and walking straight into employment too.

Big mistake is teachers telling her/you how clever she is. From my own experience it breeds complacency (that would be me and ds).

Ds is Grade 8 music but still finds some of the GCSE tricky - the ABRSM stuff is traditional and for the GCSE there is quite a bit of analysing of modern music and knowing terms that would have the powers that be at ABRSM reaching for the smelling salts.

The French listening is difficult. The average native English speaker is innately crap at this task. Have to pick up marks elsewhere unless you are going to move a native French speaker into the house for a few months.

But the good news is that these results are a fantastic wake-up call. They're not the real thing!

"she may just possibly be crap at science, even GCSE science, and busily not working so that she can shrug this off." Yes, I agree. I put that in an earlier post. Children who have been praised for being clever can feel really exposed when they start to find the work difficult, and it's easier to pretend they do badly because they haven't revised than because they can't do the work.

The OP really needs to sit down and ask her daughter pertinent questions, rather than nag her DD to revise. Ask her DD what she wants to achieve, and that it's up to her, and not her mum, to achieve those goals. Better to work hard and get a B, than to not work and get an A* - something along those lines.

You know your daughter, OP. Is she as good an all-rounder as her teachers think, or is she brilliant at English and therefore somehow expected to be an ace at everything?

Agreed, actually, Stroke.

All the same, she may just possibly be crap at science, even GCSE science, and busily not working so that she can shrug this off.

Similarly or more so for music, where DS2, who is bright, keen and working at it, is still struggling to get above a B despite having had two grade 5s and a 6 under his belt for some time now. Analysing and composing music is a different skillset from playing it.

I don't think you need to be this involved.