This is great. Thank you everyone for your time.
Basingstoke (we may live quite close!), you have given me some good ideas for questions to ask. Yes, it has been noted throughout that he does not focus/concentrate. His motivation for working is poor (understatement).We have done our best to overcome this e.g. he was due a huge treat if this report (effort not attainment) was better than last.
I think what is really troubling me is that he has no confidence and I suspect this is affecting his achievement. Staff have been reminded frequently NOT to compare him in class to his academic brothers, to recognise his messing around as sometimes (not always, he can be a little git as well!) due to him not recalling instructions and not wanting to ask again.There is understandably given class sizes etc a tendency for teachers to become impatient as being asked by him to repeat instructions and this leads to him quite literary not knowing and therefore having nothing to do. I have asked that when possible he is given brief written instructions for his desk.
The technique of choice when he is disruptive is to send him out of the room. Again I can understand why this is sometimes necessary when you have a lad distracting other students from learning but it only compounds the difficulties he has. One thing we have noted is that, if for example, someone helps him get started he can then sustain effort over a couple of paragraphs before drifting off. It is the getting started that is the biggest hurdle.
He is bright, doing long division in his head at age 10 for example. Now the sums are too large for mental manipulation he struggles because he hates (can't?) write the figures down. If you sit with him and talk him through an argument or piece of scientific writing he does very well applying and using concepts and a broad appropriate vocabulary. If you then walk away to leave him to write it up he loses interest. The school have had difficulty getting him into the right sets. he needs short tasks but some of the lower sets simply do not provide interest for him. The work is too easy even if he fails to do it properly if that makes sense. Personally I think this was one reason he did better at primary, I think he is one of those who works well within mixed ability groups.
I really think that his grades are accurate in that they reflect the lack of progress, in almost all subjects not just science that was just one example. Last term I sat with him and looked through his primary school work and he recognised that he did better then. What I want to know is how we (school, home and DS) are going to address it. It does not help, in my opinion, that the school has an increasing, above national average gap, between girls' and boys' attainment. If you talk to him he has ambition at present but much longer and I fear he will be totally disaffected. We have agreed that he can do a vocational option over the next two years, and I think he will not only be a fab mechanic but this will hopefully give him a much needed break from the discipline at school! I want him to get those GCSEs though!
tur - the school themselves have suggested that getting 5s at the end of KS3 bodes badly for GSCE results.
cat - good suggestions; his does have interests and skills and did his last writing assessment in the form of a report about Boxing!
Thank you for reading