to fee ever so sad about this?

[shockedandupset]

We had parents eve/mock results day today, and my DS did astoundingly badly. He is a clever boy, has a tutor for several subjects (who considers him A/A* standard, which is where DS thought he was). His results were Cs and Ds.

To hear his teachers speak was like discussing another child. Their attitude was he might get a B if he works hard - but that won't be enough to get him onto A level courses.

DS is now doing extra work in his room, I am in tears and have been since I got back from the school. I just can't believe it. It felt like a horrible dream as I sat there with them all telling me what a failure my DS is. I feel heartbroken :(

[PavlovtheCat]

You did some 'mindmapping' about his future? How about just a chat about what he wants?

[FootieOnTheTelly]

OP. This really isn't your fault, your son admits he didn't do any revision!!!
It's irrelevent if he is clever or not if he doesn't revise he will fail.
Hopefully, this will be the shock he needs and he will revise for his next exams. I would feel a bit sorry for him but I don't think you should be looking to blame anyone else. Don't give your DS any reason to see himself as a victim of poor schooling or as a victim of your failure to push him.

If he wants he can knuckle down, work his socks off and should be able to do well. It's totally up to him. I would offer him whatever support you wish to give him but I would not threaten, bribe him, punish or nag him. I would. I'd leave it up to him to decide what he wants to do.

There is no reason he can't turn this around.

Good luck.

[Financeprincess]

Aaaargh! I just read your post about making the poor kid do mind mapping with you about reaching his future goals! This thread is a wind up, isn't it? If not, I suspect that he's on strike, as would I be in his position.

[stillenacht]

Financeprincess- I take your sympathy, thank you

[shockedandupset]

I hugged him and told him I loved him and was proud of him as soon as we left the school. Much as you might think I'm some horrible tiger mother I'm really not at all.

He's in the bath now but I will tell him again before he goes to bed.

[FootieOnTheTelly]

Sorry for all the typos.. . Hope it makes enough sense.

[stillenacht]

I don't think you are some horrible tiger mother just please get on side with the teachers, you sound very negative about his school and the teachers. Email them, ask for a meeting, look up the exam syllabi on the internet. Work with the school, use positive language (the amount of blinking "praise sandwiches" I have to do to parents!).

[magnumicelolly]

He didn't work hard for the mocks, if he's as clever as you think and if he pulls his finger out he may well still get As. Leave him to it!

[shockedandupset]

The mindmapping was a friend's idea who as I said, is a teacher. It has worked very well on some of friend's pupils who have lacked focus - in DS's case it did help him think about his future, careers, etc. Ideally he would have appreciated revision would be part of that, but hopefully he still has time to make it up (which he says he wants to).

[shockedandupset]

I'm happy to work with the teachers and school, based on this evening I didn't feel - barring one - they were that bothered about improving his performance beyond a B. But I'll focus my thoughts tomorrow, email the school and see where we go from there.

[Olivegirl]

Both my dds are in sixth form doing A levels.
Both seem to do really well in actual exams ..
But with mocks, neither of them put much effort in and get very average results.

They both always manage to pull it together for the real exams
Seems to be a general attitude and a lot of their friends are much the same.

[Purplepoodle]

Would it be worth changing tutors or even bringing in a different tutor once a week who has teaching qualifications so they can set and mark mock exams for him. Might be a good way to remotivate him, that he can get the grades.

[FootieOnTheTelly]

'Shocked'. I know you want to do something to fix this but it's up to your son. You can't do the revision for him. You can lead a horse to water and all that...

[Amaxapax]

It sounds to me like there are some serious issues with your son's school. My school sends home fine graded predictions on a termly basis. Do you know what his target grades are? If his targets are As, his school should have intervention systems in place to help him reach his targets, especially if he is a C/D borderline risk. Is none of this happening?

I'm not excusing your son's lack of effort, but many students fail to adequately prepare for mocks. But I don't understand how these grades are coming as such a surprise. All of my Y11s (who actually have C and D targets) can tell you what their targets are and whether or not they are, at the moment, predicted to achieve them.

I would be very keen to meet with his head of year/achievement co-ordinater to ask what measures they, as a school, intend to put in place to help him achieve his targets, and what he can do at home.

[cjel]

I know you think I am utterly wrong, but I have raised successful adults and allowed them to be children. Didn't do mindmapping crap, didn't overestimate my dcs ability. they didn't even know about tutors and if the norm where you live is to tutor at 8 I dread to think what young people they are churning out. My dd has dyslexia and we did get the specialist teaching she need for that (she has been a highly qualified marketing Manager and now also does swim teaching) she has also got the extra support for her dyslexic 10 year old dd. DS has 2 degrees one in medical field and he dropped out of A levels and did a B tec qualification instead.

One day you will realise you were wrong - not me. the very fact you had to have discussions about his future and 'what would help' suggests you have felt that what he is doing won't be enough. what a great message to give him. As others have said - you asked if YABU and a lot of us with experience have said yes you are but you choose to say we are . Like I said before really really listen to you son. He has lived with you all his life and you may think you haven't 'pushed' but he will know what you expect to keep you happy and however much you say you love him the fact you want to know what you can do to 'change' his results suggest you don't think he is good enough and your tears are a real (not so subtle )clue to him that he is a failure. However you dress it up - you are wrong not me.Examine your real reason for your upset - don't lie to yourself.

[shockedandupset]

I may have to change tutors - but they have been doing lots of past papers, and DS has done well in those.

DS will hopefully get his marked papers tomorrow, I'll discuss with the tutor when he comes this weekend I think, and go from there.

[cjel]

Why don't you lay off him for a few days and give him a break to get his head around what was said at school?

[shockedandupset]

Cjel in this area tutoring is the norm, across a wide range of abilities. Most parents I know who have tutors either want to push their DC to achieve higher grades, or don't feel the schools their DC attend are able to meet their particular needs, and have the tutor as backup for this.

If I'd pushed my son, I'd have tutored him from 8 like most of his classmates, got extra homework set for him as I know friends have for their DC. Insisted he read X no of books per week, or spent Y amount of time on homework. I've never done that, if anything I've been too laid back. But you seem determined to make me fit into some pushy parent mould, so go right ahead.

[cjel]

I am not pushing you anywhere what a ridiculous thing to say.All I've said is you aren't listening to your son, you don't really know what he wants, he may only be going along with all this mind maping and tutoring stuff because he feels he isn't good enough for you, your reaction to his reports show that you think he needs to be better, even when people are telling you just give him a hug you reply with talk af test results and changing tutors, If you listen to your son as much as you've listened to people with experience on here then you are in a mess. (Did you read ZOEs Post - or was she determined to push you into a mould as well) If you don't want help and advice why ask?

[TheMaw]

I think you need to look at getting a different tutor in. With Maths and Science subjects it's not just the final answer that matters - you are graded on your working too, so you have to learn the exam skills, not just the problem solving. If his tutor is only teaching him the answers, could that be where the miscommunication has come in?

[zombiesheep]

For fucks sake just leave him alone!!

[shockedandupset]

With respect cjel, I am listening to him. I don't have to agree with any particular tranche of advice provided - there have been varying viewpoints on this thread, yours isn't the only one or necessarily the right one.

Not one person who knows me in RL considers me to be overdemanding of DS, or that I push him. If anything, it's the opposite. The mindmap exercise was entirely driven by him - the ideas he came out with were not influenced by me (he could easily have said he wanted to follow my degree/profession, instead the direction he hoped to go in was utterly unrelated, and not anything I'd ever discussed with him). The point of it wasn't to identfy an unachievable goal to make me happy - it was geared around what made him happy, what he thought would make him happy in future, and getting him to think about how to achieve that. My friend has run the exercise over a number of years with many teens and says they have found it very positive. Hence I thought it might be useful for DS.

[wobblyweebles]

It sounds like he didn't revise, and he has had a shock that will make him work harder for the real thing.

I was exactly the same. Went to a very bad school and coasted through till I hit O levels, then got a shock when I did badly in all my mocks.

It made me really work and although I didn't get straight As in my O levels, I did get a good understanding of how hard I'd have to work in my A levels. I really pulled my finger out at that point and got the grades I needed to go where I wanted.

I wish I'd had a mum who cared like you obviously do.

[differentnameforthis]

Your son is not a failure & by getting too upset about this you are setting him up for huge expectations. He will feel like a failure if she doesn't meet them & it will be damaging.

I have a friend whose child will get A & A*s. She lacks all social skills though & has very few friends because she is constantly telling them how much brainier she is. She makes them feels like failures & they hate her for it.

Grades aren't everything.

[MsAspreyDiamonds]

I failed most of my mocks & didn't do brilliantly in my GCSEs BUT resat did really well and went on to A levels and a degree and got a 2:1.

It didn't help me at first to hear my dad and teachers say I was a failure who would spend the rest of my life on the supermarket tills. BUT being the person that I am, I thought fuck you I am going to prove you wrong and I did. Never ever tell your ds that he is a failure, you should be aiming your fire at the teachers. What are they doing to prepare your son for the summer exams?

It is just not enough to know the subject, you need to know how to present the information in a way that will earn max no of points. My school taught me nothing in the way of revision skills and I had to learn the hard way. Sit down with him and find out how he revises and then fill in the gaps, good revision skills will help him for the rest of his life.