Can anyone give me any hope - Low mock grades

Africa2go is spot on. Teenage boys will find You Tube, texts, phones etc just too distracting. They wont give up their phones lightly though. It takes a very mature child to accept that they are distracting.

Clearly he hasnt been doing exactly what he said he was. They arent as grown up and able to handle this sort of responsibility as they think they are. Phones are a cult now. Miss a message and dont reply immediately and its the end of the world (for them!).

In the nicest possible way he and you really needs to step up here. Tutors are a great idea but he needs to want to do this too. Exam technique is very important too and not just writing down everything you know about something when the question asked for something else.

Just as an aside. My DS is now at university. He did well in his mocks just before the pandemic hit. Some of his friends said they would bother when the real exams took place - EXCEPT THEY DIDNT IN THE END!

Whilst schools said it wasnt only mocks that would be taken into account when giving out the pandemic grades of course it made a difference. It was a hard lesson for my son's friends to learn. Some didnt get into their first choice university.

Other people have already suggested the right questions to be asking.

I'd also say that in my experience some able students wrongly think GCSEs will be a walk in the park because they have got used to doing ok with average to low effort. Mock exams can come as a shock to them when they realise that not only to they have to revise the material, but also learn how to apply it to the exam questions in exam conditions.

I've worked with some hard working, able students who have got 3/4s in mock exams because they fell apart. They needed support with exam technique to get 7s and 8s at the end but they wanted to do well and worked hard.
I have also known some coasting able students who needed the shock of doing badly to start putting in the appropriate effort.

A tutor can help in some areas, but it is no substitute for the student putting in the appropriate effort in class, with their homework and with their revision.

OP just to say that I don't think parents evening will give you the chance to go into detail with the teachers. You usually get 5 mins, 10 mins max to talk about your child and its generally high level stuff. You need to ask for a separate appointment / call with the teachers - maths and history. I'd be asking if there was some sort of mentoring programme on offer - my DS was also getting poor results in Biology in the run up to GCSEs. He met with the teacher one lunchtime every week who gave him extra work/revision to do, they went through it the next week etc - 1 on 1 time.

I think 3s and 4s are really out of step with expectations at grammar school so there is something fundamentally wrong here. I know it sounds drastic, but I would be removing all gaming stuff / phone from his room when he's supposed to be working / revising. I'd also want to see completed homework, revision notes / flashcards etc, I'd be getting him to do past papers and then marking them together, go through essay plans tgogether for history test questions. I think you need to be hands-on and involved in his work.

I think tutors are great (my DS went from a 5 in English Language to a 9) in 2 years but it needs to be a team effort - your DS needs to understand the consequences of such poor results so that he's motivated to work, you need to have the school involved for some intervention and you as parents need to be involved / supervising & checking work.

Get him tutors to help him. When I did my mocks many moons ago I realised I needed serious help. Parents helped me by paying for a tutor. I was miles off. Turning point. Got grades.
Went to Russell group uni and got 2:1.

Was he heavily tutored to get into grammar? GCSEs shouldn’t be a huge challenge if you’re academically able, which he must be unless it’s a very non selective area? I’d be watching him like a hawk at the moment, he really should be capable enough to do so much better.

My child didn't do as well as we hoped in year 10 mocks. So we got a tutor for 4 failing subjects which has done wonders for self esteem as she now understands concepts/calculations she was struggling with previously, definitely money well spent! No results yet re Year 11 mocks but she really put in work doing past papers and on line learning. There's a wealth of YouTube lessons and exam paper walkthroughs to learn techniques.

Were the Y10 exams just on stuff they had done so far, or full papers?
Were the mocks this time full papers, or the full suite of exams ie probably containing material not yet covered?
ie are you sure you are comparing like with like on the grades?

My kids did better in the real things than their mocks.

First things first : why did he do badly? Did he revise the wrong things? Does he have the knowledge but need to focus on exam technique? Did he really revise? Phones are a massive distraction and if he used online apps then did his concentration wander? What resources did he use? According to my kids different ones are good for different things. Did he practice with past papers or use apps like Tassomai?

He doesn't need to be in peak performance now but he should aim to improve with each mock/test. Can he work out which topics he's weakest at? How did he feel he did straight after the test?

Tutor for the maths; they can work wonders one on one. You could ask the maths dept if they know of anyone, maybe a recently retired member of the dept, who might help.

BTECs aren't an easy option unless he's very diligent. You have to hit the ground running - getting Distinctions in every piece of coursework right from the first term to have any chance of a Distinction overall. And there is still an exam element.

Phonemail? Phone call!

How was he doing in school in year 8/ year 9 before lockdowns?

Given that he found things out now, if he has his heart set on A levels and was previously doing well, there is still hope. Plenty of time until his real exams.

I might ask for a meeting (or phonemail) with his his teachers and get their insight. Speak to the head of year quite soon - flag it as a problem you want to be involved in, it might take a while to arrange a meeting etc. See if you can get copies of his mock papers and go through them. See where he is losing marks - does he not know the material at all? Has he missed exam tricks - there is a specific technique to taking exams. Did he run out of time?

Maths in particular is a difficult subject - once someone is behind in maths this needs to be acknowledged and a catch up plan made. You cannot skip a few units in maths, they build on each other.

If you can afford it, tutoring may be a big help, but if that's not possible you can do a lot of it yourself if you are willing. First get in touch with the school, then get some workbooks/revision guides.

This is all assuming he does want to continue to A levels and will be motivated to work independently, with a tutor, or with you. But if he is, it is definitely possible to gain 3 (or even more!) grades between November and summer exams.

As an aside, Ds wants to do A levels but I'm really not sure they'll be great for him even if he does get the grades (will be tight). He's not a natural academically or with exams and I think he'd be better off getting excellent Btec grade than bad A level grades, not to mention just enjoy it a lot more.

Yes class level is relevant. Dd doing mocks atm was disappointed with 59% in physics but apparently that's a 7 and she was top of the class (middle set)

That should be DS. Not sure why it changed it to d's

I would also ask how the class did generally. My Y11 D's did terribly in Maths end of Y10. We asked teacher how he did in relation to class and he was in the top half of the class. They had that teacher for 2 years and D's always moaned. This year they have a new teacher and he's doing a lot better. I would be worried about History but then again, ds1 has only covered a third of his history course as one of the topics they had already done got dumped by exam board. 😡

I'd get a maths tutor and then make sure he is revising properly. Ask him to explain things to you. Dd2 got 5s and 4s in most subjects in her mocks and then got all 7s and 8s in the actual exams (pre Covid so actual exams) apart from Spanish which she got a 6 (so 2 grades). It seemed to be 2 grades improvement apart from the two subjects that she got 7s in in the mocks which she got 8s in.

I'm absolutely shocked that a kid who got into grammar school is only getting 3s and 4s in his mocks.

Trouble is that the pace can be fast in a grammar school and they might not go over things again. In a comp he could go down to a middle set or lower and get additional support. In a grammar most others will be on top of things either because they are naturally able or because the same parents who got a tutor for the 11 plus have found a maths tutor, probably started during yr9 in the first lockdown.

He will need to work hard and hopefully the mocks are graded harshly to get him working harder for the summer.

When I say "if you can answer some of the questions" I mean the questions I posed about what went wrong - don't mean you should sit his exam for him haha

Echoing what @RedskyThisNight says, these are the questions I would consider:
Where and why did he drop marks?
Does he fully understand how to answer the questions?
Is he pacing himself? - so on a one-hour paper worth 60 marks, he should be spending 6 mins on a six-mark question.
Did he finish the papers?
Are his answers targeted? I have seen students moan "but I wrote loads" when what they wrote was not relevant - this is especially notable in English for example
Is it about his understanding of concepts?
Is the issue that he has missed work (during lockdown, when not focused) that he needs to catch up on?

If he is in a selective school he must be able; so a 3 in maths, even if it is not his subject, is surprising and surely can be improved. If you can answer some of the questions, and maybe work with him on past papers (for exam technique) or revision guides (to cover missing work) - or hire a tutor to do that - then I am sure he can improve on these marks.

I would focus on that for the moment and worry about post-16 later (though of course apply, to sixth form and to FE college, for A levels and Btecs) and have some thoughts about it - but don't focus on "you must get a 6 in history to do A level" as that IME may just be extra burden.

You have my sympathy - in a similar boat. DS is doing OK in most subjects but struggling in English and Maths. We have just hired an English tutor to do an hour a week 1 to 1 with him. I don't know if it's possible but we are waiting for parents' evening to ask if it's possible to drop his weakest subject (a MFL) so he can use that time to work on the essentials. It's really tough, and stressful when we're also trying to decide on 6th form options. All the ones round here want passes in English and maths but I am told they do allow resits, they just don't like to advertise the fact.

I'm absolutely shocked that a kid who got into grammar school is only getting 3s and 4s in his mocks. It seems like the school has really let him down. You must be screwing.

If you can afford it, then definitely a tutor in maths at least. A proper teacher tutor, rather than a sixth former /uni student (teaching a separate skill to maths!)

To answer the question : it's not so unusual for students to go up 2 grades from January mocks to summer exams. I guess 3 grades from now to June might be feasible, especially considering he's basically a very bright kid.

I think the key word in your OP is 'appeared to be revising more'. What homework is he actually doing? Many kids tell their parents they are revising while they actually text their friends, play games and watch you tube.