How did your ADHD child cope with GCSE?

Yes - start that early because you’ll find you’re using them every day and it’s quite a shock how fast they run out when you’re used to only Mon-Fri

I'm getting ahead of the med ordering in case of shortages at exam time. He only takes them on weekdays term time so a 'month's supply' lasts longer than that, though I may suggest he takes during the holidays this year. But I get a reminder to order every month, so I am re-ordering every month to ensure we've got supply for the exam period.

It wouldn't be a disaster without them -he maintains he doesn't feel much difference on them and his ability to get through work seems to just naturally fluctuate.

My expectation is that the realistic worst case scenario is 5 subjects at 4-5 (Psychology, Maths, History, Foundation Science), not including an English subject. Honestly, if he utterly flunks out somehow, I think doing a Foundation L2 at for his BTech and retaking English might be the best thing to get him starting L3 BTech good and ready.

Best case would be 4s in English/English lit, 6 Maths, 6 Drama, 6 Psychology, 5 History, 55 Foundation Science, scrapes a pass in Travel/Tourism BTech. Which is not bad.

I don't think A-levels will be right for him unless he could somehow put them off another year - MIL is already voicing disappointment we're not aiming for A-levels. 🙄

She got 4 GCSEs - we already knew from predictions A levels were out, but she got onto her level 3 course. It’s worth saying that she was initially predicted to do very well in some of the subjects, before teachers realised that although she was engaging in lessons and understanding concepts in the moment, she wasn’t able to retain the information and recall it at exam.

Since several posters have asked the question of others, yes she’s been on medication for years. It helps a bit.

ADHD meds have really helped my YP, just a shame they had to burnout first at 12, to get any help at 15.
In terms of how many exams they take v what they actually need id look at what is really needed for the next step. My YP had to leave mainstream education and really only maths & English are needed to keep options open and at the next step we’ve found is ideally 5-6 GCSEs to do a L3 course. My eldest did 10 GCSEs! at a crappy secondary comp, they did not need 10, my youngest was never going to cope with that. Doing Home Ed we’ve been able to space out exams more and take less but still end up at the final destination just taking a different path.

I’ve seen kids on adhd meds, in some cases I see the absolute best of them! Focused ready to engage. Others, they are so spaced out it genuinely upsetting to watch. Just be sure you’re giving the best start…. Not telling them …. If we could fight your ‘insert diagnosis’ you’ll be fine.

Some kids are not the same as others, that’s ok, they’ll still achieve.

Only y10
Audhd pda.
On meds which have helped mainly with resistance and maybe a little with motivation.
Last weekend me and her dad went out and i told her to do homework and she actually did some! Almost 100℅ of the time its a struggle even with me sitting with her due to resistance.
Im not sure its made huge difference to targets or predictions but dear god its still hard enough to get muvh homework done as its ramped up but without meds would be no chance.
I would say we are at a pretty severe end of the range of adhd. And it had a big affect on her grades. Some targets are only 4 which is pretty craxy for a kid who got all exceeding on SATs.
But her other big is due is processing speed. Which affects tests and hugely homework. Its easily taking twice as long as an average person to do anyrhing which is a problem with gcses as you need time to revise and do homework

Mine didn’t do anywhere near of what she should. On meds but when we went stronger she got side effects so her dose is prob a bit low. She couldn’t revise earlier enough in the year to get past grade 6s and didn’t get 7/8/9 she capable of.
26 exams

Is she picking up on your reluctance? Why doesn't she want to at least try them?

Loss of appetite is DD's only side effect. She particularly struggles with breakfast. She was diagnosed a few weeks before A-Levels and I can't believe we hadn't realised much sooner that that was the root of her challenges.

DS finds maths and science easy to revise because it's facts - he does OK in those and I've suggested perhaps he does little and often in each (like 30 mins every day). Only problem is he's not good at recognising where he had weaknesses and needs to do more work.

He has phases of being quite self motivated, but other times can't get himself together to revise at all.

It's tricky. My somewhat underperformed (still did well compared to many but their grades don't reflect their academic ability). One I had to sit with to revise very last minute. The other has a better memory for fact regurgitation. Both did vocational courses at college as A-levels a huuuuuuuge jump up. The eldest (who I had to revise with) coasted and passed. The other is a little more commited BUT it's early days. The first is dx inattentive. The younger dx combined.

Marking to return to later!

DS in Y11 has inattentive ADHD, also August born so he won't even be 16 when he finishes. He's bright but struggles with interpreting English questions and extended writing, and really, maturity wise he's more like a 12-13yo having to sit them because ADHD kids do tend to be a few years behind developmentally.

I'd be interested how others have experienced this maturity gap

DS is in his GCSE year and doesn't want to take medication and we've decided its his choice.

He has a tutor who has ADHD herself and they help him with study strategies and how to break it down into chunks.

I let him find his own rhythm but check in regularly with him and he quite often studies downstairs where there is less distractions.

Why not? Definitely worth trying.

Dd2 had goals and ambitions so knuckled down and studied, apart from paying for revision guides and extra sessions at school in the Easter holidays (which I’m not sure is even legal but she wanted to do them) I left her to it. She wasn’t diagnosed until later as having ADHD but did have a dyslexia diagnosis which got her extra time in exams. She knows her own weaknesses as an adult and compensates, including running 10km a day

DD flew through them pre-diagnosis with straight 9s but she is very bright and found the work relatively easy. The thing that she found most difficult were the constant messages about steady, consistent effort and not trying to cram etc - she constantly felt that she was doing it all wrong and that she couldn't live up to the school's expectations of what a "good student" might look like.

What helped was effectively giving her permission to work in ways that worked for her. Sometimes that involved staying up all night to get the work done. Often it involved a lot of last minute cramming.

I honestly think that the stress for her was primarily generated by the difficulty that she experienced in living up to other people's expectations of how she should be working, rather than the work itself, and the constant beating herself up for not doing things in the "right" way.

All kids with adhd are different, but I do believe strongly that it's our role as parents to help them find the strategies that work for them rather than trying to push square pegs into round holes that will never be comfortable for them.

The meds affect my DS's appetite. He still eats enough but appetite is definitely suppressed. Took a while to get the dosage right too. Sooner you get the ball rolling the better if you're thinking about getting meds as it can take time.

Mine is doing GCSEs this year and I'm not relishing it. He's got tutors after school for the key subjects as needs to go over things a lot. He's dyslexic too and procrastinates without having that other person there to oversee things. I'm no help really so have to get the tutors in, which seems to be working, but will see how the mocks go. It's tough because he's very bright and capable IRL and it's just these exam hoops that don't suit his brain. Think he'll be better in a job.