Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

If your child is not academic/self motivated

30 replies

Cajoling55555 · 30/06/2026 19:52

How do you support a non academic child?

Currently in year 10. Needs 4 passes including English and Maths for college. English last mock was a 4, Science a 5,5 and Maths is under 4.

She has a tutor for maths but doesn’t do much at home. I just want her to finish year 11 and get the passes needed.Thinking of paying a tutor an extra hour/ 2 days so she sits down there to do the homework. Whatever it takes.

OP posts:
Octavia64 · 30/06/2026 21:37

So science is fine, English is ok and it’s really just maths.

what I would do slightly depends on how far under a 4 she is but good ideas are:

make sure she has the school calculator and hassle her to make sure it‘s at every lesson
tutors can make a massive difference but they need to focus’s on specific topics. So every class test or exam paper get dc to take photos or ask teacher to scan it and send it straight to the tutor.

JustAnOrdinaryHuman · 30/06/2026 21:37

What's the tutor like? Our younger son struggled with maths & we used a university student who offered online tutoring, very professional but younger seemed to work to engage our son, certainly he engaged with all of the sessions & did some of the past paper Questions set by the tutor- his results in August will tell us if it worked or not!

BravasPatatas · 30/06/2026 21:33

I would get additional tuition for maths.

Original poster
Cajoling55555 · 30/06/2026 21:11

jammiepodger · 30/06/2026 20:44

If she just needs four 4’s she not that far off and has plenty of time. additional tuition for maths should do the trick. Is she not on track to pass any of her others?

She is on track, scraping passes; except for maths; getting her to do the tutor homework requires constant reminders; she doesn’t want to do it or maybe she is tired from
school; just want to chill, only does the school stuff.

Any additional work that we tried to put outside school in the past never worked.

OP posts:
jammiepodger · 30/06/2026 20:44

If she just needs four 4’s she not that far off and has plenty of time. additional tuition for maths should do the trick. Is she not on track to pass any of her others?