How would you cope and support kids who failed Uni exams?

[Wren21]

I have two kids at Uni, one in first year, one in second. They have both recently failed their exams. They get a chance to resit in the summer but I am so worried that they will fail again and get kicked out of Uni. It would absolutely break them both and they would be absolutely devastated. I fear for their mental health and for their futures. Has anyone got any experience of this and how did you support your kids? My heart is absolutely breaking for them both.

One of my DC was withdrawn from her uni course after failing her 2nd year for the second time. I started a thread on her about it actually. She didn't tell us she'd been kicked out until the December, having gone back for year 3, or so we thought in September. My main concern was how I could support her and let her know that we were here for her no matter what. Since then, she's got a job, which she's doing really well in, and has been accepted back on her course, which she's doing from home.

and you OP. It needs to be both of you

Absolutely.

Pleased to hear that she's doing well now.

Oh I know how you feel, my eldest is in 3rd year of his degree and is doing OK, just OK though and it's always 50/50 whether he's passed or not. He does have various special needs though and is getting help with study through the disability and wellbeing service.

I would encourage both of them to seek out what sort of support there is at their university. Most will have some sort of study support - general stuff like revision techniques, time management, exam preparation along with sessions which are more tailored to each course. If they have a personal tutor, then email and ask for help/support/advice NOW before it gets to the summer exams.

The most important thing for them to remember is that the Uni is there to help and wants them to pass and do well. They do not want students to fail and drop out.

Yes, exactly this. They need to make sure they engage from the start of semester 2 and pass those modules, and get in touch with the support services for things like study skills sessions.

Plenty of students fail a module and go on to do just fine but they do need to see it as a boot up the bum!

I'd be hiring a maths tutor. Whatever they have been doing so far to learn the maths stuff hasn't worked. My son was awful at maths - lowest 10% at 11 years old. (I don't think he was at the top of the lowest 10% either.) He was heavily tutored and by the end of it got an A- in a first year university maths paper. One of the things that helped a lot was not using a computer program to learn the material. We were jogging through a computer module in the 7th form and I suddenly asked what the figure that he'd just calculated meant. He couldn't answer. I felt like Luke Skywalker switching off the computer and relying on the force though in our case it was paper, pencil and calculator. He learnt much better in paper based mode and I gather outperformed most of his classmates who had used the computer based learning.

My other son made a mess of his first year of medicine. Not because of wild partying but because he had slacked round in the 7th form and struggled with the chemistry. (We have a different system for entry to medicine - open entry but very very few chosen after the first year.) We should have got tutors earlier for him. He got into medical school later as a post-graduate and is in his 5th years now - he thinks his study techniques were deficient in his first year.

Your husband is right. At University you are expected to be sufficiently self motivated to work hard and pass. If you fail an exam you find out how far you were from the pass mark, where you went wrong and do something about it. The University are giving the opportunity to resit. If either YP doesn't pass in the summer then time for a rethink.