Any advice re screen time fir year 11s and how to keep the noses of lazy but bright kids to the grindstone without making them stressed about GCSEs? [Edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

Teen brains mature at different rates.
Teens have different personalities.

These two things merge so that in GCSE year you may have a mature, self regulating, hardworking teen who can be lest to get on with it, or you have a teen who needs more support and rules because they won't have 'caught up' for another year or 2.

There is no point talking about how someone will get on at university if you hand hold them age 15, if by not hand holding the screw up their GCSEs and lose the opportunity for A levels and university.

Whereas if you support (if needed) through GCSEs and then let go in the first year of 6th form, they have a year 'spare' where they can retake and restart, so the risk is imo much less.

Being a pain again but can someone link to the other support thread, I keep losing it, and I will "watch" it in future.

Not smug at all. Surprised by the fact that 15 year olds are not expected to take some responsibility for what they hope to achieve.

How do you think he will get on at University when there isn't someone pushing him to do study?

Let him find out the hard way. It's a very valuable lesson.

The PDA makes it a bit more complicated. If I ask ds to do something he goes into a state of anxiety. If I tell him to do a particular question in a work book, he just sits staring at it, getting angrier and more anxious.

Comefrom that must have been distressing for all of you.

Forgot to explain, this is my 3rd time now, all needed directing because of outside influences. If it isn't screen time it will be something else.
Good luck.

If you haven't got a good common space you can still monitor what they are doing but it takes a lot of effort until you trust they will do it.

What helps me is to send them away to do a certain thing on their timetable, so if it's homework you see the actual questions. if revision you see the actual revision aids or apps, ask them to show you when they have finished that task.
If there are several tasks repeat the above.

In other words the more you become involved the more they have to and it sets a precedence of what you/teachers find acceptable.
Ditto to only allowing laptop when they need it, so if they do a Maths app they need to show you the results they achieve.

When they know they'll only get screen time/ any other leisure activity when they have done enough work, they soon knuckle down.

often he isn;t actually on social media etc in the evenings before bed, he is usually playing the piano or composing (though he does use a mac for that) But he won't go to bed without his phone.

The last time I tried to tell him he couldn't have any screeens on we caught him trying to run away.

Conefrom Could you try something like we have ie some evenings no screen? It stops the argument about turning off as DS knows that night screen is just not going on in first place.

Ds is capable of 6's and 7's with the odd 8. His school predicted 6's at the start of Year 9. We are now concerned that he won't even get 4/5's.

I'm at my wits end. Ds is autistic and has PDA which doesn't help and goes into full blown meltdown when the screen time shuts his phone and ipad off. The other night he was screaming switch f**ing screen time off at us at 11pm at night, he smashed up his Lego Death Star and swept everything off the coffee table. He was crying

He has problems sleeping and is on melatonin for it but is addicted to screens. We thought it had got better but he was refusing to get his bag ready for school so I brought screen off time forward by 15 mins and it all kicked off.

Here DS does not self-regulate so we're going into yr11 with the same screen rule as the last 3 years- no recreational screen time Mon-Wed evenings. He can do all his phone chatting on school bus & walking home. Laptop available for homework.

Homework won't fill those evenings but he has a sport practice, can read something not related to school, watch something with us etc. Any way of reducing stress & social media pressures.

Does he really "need" 8s and 9s?

I think I'd be wary of overpushing a child who is going to do well anyway.

I'm in a similar position in that my bright lazy child is unachieving, but in his case he's currently on track to fail some GCSEs and barely scrape a pass in ones he potentially wants to study for A level, so, yes, he does "need" to do better.

I'm not convinced that getting an 8 rather than a 7 or 6 is worth huge stress and a fight.

If he's bright and capable, a fair amount of this year's learning needs to be exam technique, rather than stuff-I-need-to-know. That can potentially be a big de-motivator.

Consider discussing jointly "what can I do to get the best chance at high marks", would he respond to a "can I beat the system" approach? There is not always that much difference between 7, 8 and 9 in some subjects, I increasingly get the impression it is whether you can make it easy for an examiner to give you the marks.

I say this having a bright daughter who has just done extremely well in her GCSEs but was quite demoralised at times over the last couple of terms.

My DS would self regulate at Y11. Because we had prevented him binging on screens when he was younger and he had got in the habit.
If he hadn’t then he would only be using the laptop under supervision and as required.
Sit him at the dining table or at the breakfast bar or in the living room on the sofa. It’s not impossible.
Or resign yourself to the fact that he will coast through the year, not get the grades you want him to get and not learn good study habits.

oh wow doesn't @Wolfiefan have all the answers... yikes

A 15 year old boy should be self-regulating screen time?!?!?!?

Quality MN smugness.....

If you don’t change something then his habits won’t change. Your choice.

I'm always about getting dc to choose to do things for themselves so talking about how he can stay motivated and avoid procrastination temptations. My dd likes to write her to do lists and make up a revision timetable etc all really good, but sometimes get a bit sidetracked when it comes to actually following them, so I would talk about how she can get herself to stick to that.

So change things around? If he won’t change hinges himself then you need to change something.