Year 9, school engagement and the future?… Experiences?

[HappyCamperTent]

My 14yr old has just had the worst report so far from school. It’s not terrible, but a lot of…

‘lacks focus’, ‘easily distracted’, ‘needs to take more pride/care with work’ ‘can do better if he revised/applied himself’, ‘poor attempts at homework’

His GCSE targets range from 5-6 across subject, so he’s an average student. But I’m worried that if he doesn’t start taking his education seriously then he’ll struggle to stay on target.

His many of his subjects have been marked as below expected. Whereas last year all were on target.

Has any anyone had a pre GCSE kid like this who has managed to pull their finger
out?!

I have limited his screen use until after I have checked all homework is complete. And restricted him going out to weekend only.

I think year 9 is the first year he has become a bit more independent, going out with friends so I wanted to encourage this as much as possible, but it may have gone too far the other way and he now prioritise socialising in school over education

I have one just like that at home who is doing his GCSE exams in 2024. Intelligent but attention span of a goldfish, and I am worried about his future life chances with him being as he does. I believe he has ADHD, as there are other behavioural issues apart from exam performance. I am in the process of doing a private assessment to get him tested for it. I understand your frustrations and can only suggest that having some kind of structured homework system in place. We have just introduced a no-mobile or x-box 2 hour per night system where he has to do GCSE-related work of some kind...either teacher set homework or tutorials/ online lessons. Then he gets an hour or two free time before bed to do as he likes.

Thank you!

Structure is a good idea! I’ve spoken to him about his routine when he gets in from school. He’s going to have to be a bit independent as he’s on his own for a couple of hours.

Hopefully if we get a routine in place we can crack his lack of engagement!

My son was exactly the same except target grades were lower - 4&5’s and he often was reported as below. He had the basic potential but just couldn’t seem to be bothered or apply himself. In mocks he underperformed 2’s,3’s & 4’s and we weren’t hopeful of him doing particularly well. However in the last 3 months before GSCE’s there were lots of revision sessions at school and although he didn’t do lots at home we made him attend anything available (lunchtime/ after school / holidays etc) - these were all very focused and geared up for exam techniques and success. He also finally started watching revision stuff on tictoc and YouTube a few weeks before exams but didn’t write any notes. This all seemed to somehow sink in and we were absolutely astonished and delighted when he got an 8, a couple of 7’s and the rest mostly 6’s and a few 5’s. I don’t know who was more shocked…him, us or the school! He’s now doing A levels which we didn’t predict he’d do and he’s just had his first assessment report where he appears to be doing well. So don’t give up hope. The school do much more revision in class than I realised so it doesn’t just depend on what they do on their own.