Can we give a little virtual hug to all those 16 year olds who HAVEN’T done so well in their GCSE’s this year?

[JustlookingNotbuying]

Today, social media and MSM is chock full of proud students and parents showing their fantastic grades, and rightly so as they have obviously worked very hard to gain them.
However, there is another side to these results, the few who didn’t do so well and sadly that includes ds who has spent all day on his bed feeling a bit deflated and melancholy.
Although he tried really hard we knew his results may not be so great as he has struggled very much during secondary with school refusal and anxiety/depression . Turned out (only found out 6 months ago) that he has dyslexia.
He is extremely practical and can literally build anything he puts his hands to but struggles so much academically and with exams. The only teacher who had solid faith in him was his lovely DT teacher, she said he was one of the best pupils she has taught and if his results were based on practicality alone he would get a 9.
He is lucky enough to have secured a place at our local college learning construction and has work a few days a week with his cousin who also struggled at school but now earns a very, very good living as a brick layer.
I’ve told ds today that his future has just started. Tomorrow is another fresh day, his life and potential is not just about his GCSE results, he is more than that. He is a lovely, kind hearted and a hard working, practical young lad and I am very proud of him and just as his DT teachers has said, we are sure he will do well in life.
If any parents out there who’s dc have been a bit down regarding their results, if they haven’t done too great this year, know that I’m thinking of you all. They will do well in life.

One of my old students was severely dyslexic, he struggled to read the most basic of texts let alone a GCSE paper, he had low self esteem and often talked about being rubbish and useless, every single day was a struggle for him. We supported as best we could but he just could not get on with classwork no matter what supports we tried to put in place but he was fantastic at anything mechanical.

I took my car to be fixed at a local garage recently and he was the head mechanic and doing brilliantly, married, just bought a house and they had a baby on the way. I was so pleased he had found something he was good at and he was enjoying life so much. I wish I could have shown the 15 year old him the man he would become.

I really feel for the kids whose talents aren't on the academic side. The UK system is so incredibly poor at providing for them. Sometimes I think it would be worth looking at the Dutch and German systems and then doing what they do, only better - valuing technical and vocational options properly. It's such a waste of young talent.

T-levels improve nothing, given that they are only accessible for people who are already high academic achievers with grades 6 - 9.

OP's DS will do well in a profession where good people are badly needed.

I didn’t know that about T levels 🙄

Tell your dd that if he learns everything he can in the building trade now he will never struggle for work. My dyslexic dad left school with no qualifications at 15, he has had his own building business from 21 until retirement!

He has a bright future

Having a good heart 💗 and doing his best is the important thing. I am sure he will do well at college. My foster son did not get the grades he deserved in Science due to school refusing to allow any catch up classes despite getting government money for them, Science teacher Changing from double science to just single biology after Year 10 as she was so far behind on specification. Parents not notified for a further 6 - 8 weeks. My foster son got a 4 and a 3 for science and he had to do most of the Chemistry and Physics himself with no support or teaching at his school, then with a tutor towards the end of the course as school did no Chemistry or Physics in Year 11at all. Also his Food Tech teacher was absent for 6 months in Year 11 and no cover teacher employed. I had to try to do lots of cooking with him at home. He suffers from anxiety and really struggled during both lockdowns but his school made life 100 times worse for him. So glad he is leaving to go to college.

@JustlookingNotbuying

i think that's a very unkind comment

We are not all pre-programmed robots

people have been nice about your DS not getting high grades, I told you about my similar nephew, no one called them names, why do you think it's ok the others way??

Dc got 2x 8's & 8x9's. - she's lovely, she's not a pre programmed robot.

Thank you everyone. I hope all of those who have not got the results they wished for go on to do really well, it’s very disheartening today but like many have said, nothing is set in stone and I have tried to explain that to ds this evening.
TooMuchToDoTooLittleInclination I am very sorry my wording appeared derogatory, that was not my intention at all, of course academically gifted students are certainly not pre-programmed robots! I simply meant that we have had years of struggles with ds and his education. Many of his teachers have pushed and pushed at him to do well academically, they have (except his DT teacher) overlooking or ignored the fact that it is a huge struggle for him being dyslexic and not understanding his practical skills or allowing them to flourish. They basically gave up on him because he was harder to teach than those for whom learning comes easier.

Your DS will find his way in college with a course that sounds like it will suit him. His day to succeed will come, just wait and see.

Not everyone is gold at sitting exams. Not everyone is academic. It doesn't mean they cannot be a success.

My DD bombed her GCSE's in 2020, she would have done so much better if she was able to sit the exam.

She dropped out of 6th form in year 12 and got herself an apprenticeship in the funeral industry where her dad works. Its the last thing that I thought that my sensitive, quiet, gentle child would do.

She's coming up to the end of her first year and she's thriving. She has grown and leaned so much about life, society and herself and has shown people so much compassion and care at the worst time of their lives. She's a natural (and likes to shock people by telling them her job).

I swear she's so much better off for not getting the great grades. She has real life work experience on her CV and many life skills that grades don't give you.

She's also well on the way for saving for a deposit for her first property.

I could not be more proud of her. She has suspected ASD, ADHD and dyspraxia and suffers from anxiety. If she can find her way in the world, I promise that anyone else can.

Sending my best wishes out to all the parents of disappointed kids today. There is hope.

In some ways my ds did far better than expected, he has asd, has suffered hugely from ill health and school refusal and as a result, attended virtually no school for the first three years of secondary and less than 50% for the last two years.

With all of that in mind and the fact he had several panic attacks and shut downs during the actual exams we are incredibly proud of him and the fact that he passed. However his grades are lower than what he can academically achieve, if you could remove the anxiety, his grades would be much higher.

As a result of this he is now stuck in a tricky place, just scraped in to 6th form but not to do all the options he picked, but definitely prefers academic courses to vocational ones, so won't consider a different route.

I'm hoping the 6th form college will relent and see that he is capable of doing his A levels. He passed all subjects, even those he massively struggled with, with significantly less studying than most pupils. Give him a chance to shine, in an environment he wants to be in, with his pick of subjects and just see how much better he can do.

Society needs a wide range of people to function. If Covid has taught us anything it should be that. Yes, we needed the highly academic scientists to develop vaccines and treatments etc, and the skilled clinicians to deliver the necessary care, but a lot of genuinely key workers were also from jobs that might not need high grades to join, or be considered particularly skilled, but goodness, we realised how much we relied on those people when the chips were down.
I'm from a family where more or less everyone has been to University or will do for a couple of generations now but one of my nephews struggled at school even though he's really talented in some areas and left with only a few GCSEs at fairly low grades. He went to college and learned a trade. Not only does he enjoy his job, he's earning more than most of his cousins with degrees and professional qualifications, has a lovely home and time for his hobbies. I'd call that a success.
Academic prowess is great, practical skills and people skills are great too. We need people of all kinds around us. Exam results don't determine your worth as a human being.
If anyone who is celebrating high grades today dares to look down on your son OP, ask them if they live in a house...
We'd miss builders/plasterers/plumbers/electricians/mechanics etc pretty quickly if they all decided to quit and go study something academic, that's for sure. There is nothing shameful about earning an honest living in any kind of practical job. Your son should be proud of the talents that he has. I've got a string of letters after my name but I can't even cut a slice of bread straight and I hugely admire people who can make things and/or fix stuff.

Most of my close friends haven't posted anything about their DC results on social media.

My DS has done well but not as well as he expected because he thought he'd walk the exams with minimal revision. I did try to gently coax him into it but he wasn't having any of it.

Lesson learnt.

Most European countries have a much better system with loads of vocational options that are seen as a normal way to further educate yourself for the future.

We have a very annoying perception in the UK re GCSES, A Levels and Uni being the be all and end all.

It just not.

If you are not academic or doing a job that requires academic qualifications it really shouldn’t matter. As my grandad said you do your best and that’s that no more you can do.

Its just a very small snapshot in time and doesn't define them but it seems like that when so much pressure is put on them