to want to cry after my ds end of year results

[Bigglassofwineplease]

My ds came home with his report. 11% for English and less than 50% in every subject other than RE. I had sat down with him, helped him make notes, tested him etc. He seemed to have a good knowledge and I am heartbroken that he only managed such low scores. I want him to be empowered by realising that working hard achieves results but he really has a CBA attitude. He starts his GCSE's in September and I am dreading a battle in him fulfilling his homework and lesson expectations. From September I will have to take away his Xbox as I did in the run up to these end of year exams..but will it make any difference? We have a strong relationship but I am so weary with nagging and reward schemes and consequences and punishments. Do any other MN's have sons who have turned it around from 14-16? I need to be inspired that my energy is directed in the right way for the next 2 years. I am looking into the tutor route but I don't have a lot of funds. I help him all the time and did well at school and Uni so don't understand why he won't put the effort in. He gets up for school fine every day, doesn't appear tired, doesn't smoke or do anything else to the best of my knowledge and is happy with his friends and has a stable home life. Deep sigh.

Hmm DS1 is super bright, but with a bid load of CBA and SI (sheer idleness) thrown in.

He did fuck all in school despite threats, bribery and cajoling: he was a happy sunshiney kid who just wanted to mess around. I think he drove a lot of his teachers mad. He got mediocre GCSEs, insisted on staying at his school's crap sixth form for Alevels with all his similarly idle mates, and got crap Alevels.

He then had a bit of a panic cos his bright mates were going to uni and got a place on a foundation year at a Russell Group. Uni really changed him and he came out with a 2.1 and a much more mature attitude.

However, in the job hunt his A levels seem to be counting against him. He now has a decent job, but not an amazing one. He acknowledges he is going to have to work really hard to progress himself. He is still a happy lad though.

I have a similarly bright DS2(11) and I've asked DS1 for advice as to how we keep him on track. DS1 can't think of a single thing we could have done to have changed his work ethic (and maintains it has all turned out fine in the end ). However DS2 seems to be a totally different, extremely motivated child.

I think being super bright should mean you are motivated.

I would not class a child as super bright if they are not motivated enough tbh.

There are a lot of careers out there that don't need any qualifications to join the course and qualify as a professional with the ability to earn more than those who end up with a degree a massive student debt and end up working pushing papers around an office.

what ones?

Yes if you make it as a hollywood film star once you've graduated from RADA!!

Baalam because he fully admits it, and I do know him quite well having had him for 20 years. I'm not the sort of person who expected him to achieve As, believe me. His A-Level grades were abysmal, so it says a lot about university acceptances that he was even allowed in.

tell him he needs to get a holiday job. Any summer job will be menial and tedious. It will help him understand the jobs available when you have no qualifications. Not just for the summer but ever after.

Believe it or not, employers aren't queuing up to hand jobs to 13/14 year olds, without NI numbers. They are also heavily restricted in the kind and amount of work they can do at that age.

Basically, what I am trying to say is that it comes down to self motivation, which often comes down to maturity.

A good friend of mine got her DS tutored up to the eyeballs and sat with him every single evening going through his work and revising with him. He scraped 3 Bs at A level and I felt like I'd let my own DS down in comparison. But sadly her DS blew uni because he wasn't mature enough to do it for himself.

Tinkly - dies he actually list the grades if his a levels? The 2:1 counts for more than a levels (both important but it takes priority).

If anyone has less than sterling a level I'd gcse results then listing the subjects without the grade is better (e.g. If you got DDE). or if you got one B and three D's you could
put "a levels, grades b-d" then just the A levels subjects afterwards.

If it came up in interview I'd say that at the time you had not then learned the excellent revision techniques that contributed to you achieving a 2:1 at university.

Find the positive spin!!

Baalam you do realise that people are telling you about their actual experience with their actual children right? Dismissing us all is ridiculous. You don't know us or our children, and yet you seem to be telling us that we are wrong or it didn't happen.

GCSES give you choices. My cousin left school after GCSEs, never passed maths, worked for years in the theatre. Earned good money, lost her job, couldnt get back in. is desperate to be a teacher so needs to do maths gcse and a levels AND a degree before she is considered.

Im not dismissing you womble. Your ds got GCSES, a levels and accepted into Uni. He did well. With 11% the OPs ds is looking at not making it past the GSCE stage.

And of course I accept people can manage without them. But if you can scrape a few including English and Maths that will give you far, far more choices in later life.

typical boy imo
loads of my friends have been through this with their ds
me included - at the age of 23 he is still the same
it aint easy - i guess some just grow up quicker than others
i got him a tutor for gcses and did soooo much revision with him - basically re learning the whole gcse syllabus for some subjects
kicked his backside into college every single day
he did well at uni though.then went on to do a masters.............

now we wait - its over to him now

i won't hold my breath :)

good luck op

Star many graduate schemes nowadays specify UCAS points, normally at leat three Bs, presumably to filter out the many candidates who pick up shoddy 2.1s from less than stellar universities, or possibly just to confirm a solid level of effort.

DS has tried to wing it by claiming his foundation year is equivalent but had little joy. He has a decent job now though, but he's going to give the schemes another go this year.

What are school doing? My DS is in year 10 and has a number of interventions in place - extra PE theory sessions at lunchtime, science workbooks to be completed over summer etc.

You need to speak to school, urgently.

He isn't an academic type, but he is doing an NVQ in construction for one of his options, with a view to getting an apprenticeship and learning a trade.

Without a clear idea of what he's aiming for in life, it's going to pretty impossible to motivate himself, regardless of his ability.

This was my overriding problem at school, and I did OK in my GCSEs, so from his results I'd guess he has a much more extreme version of my feeling of lack of purpose.

Have you both looked at the National Careers Service website together? There's tonnes of info about pretty much any career you can think of and the steps you'd need to follow to get into them. There are also aptitude tests etc designed to nudge you in the right direction. And a great helpline if he would rather speak to a real person.

And of course super bright doesn't mean you are also super motivated. DS1 sailed through any IQ or CAT test put in front of him, he was gifted and talented in school. Anything that didn't require revision or where the teacher did plenty of revision in class he just skipped through.

But bright is definitely only part of the equation for success. I have a DD1 who is not half as able, but she is organised and hardworking and she has had much more academic success.

I had this with my sons, they do well in school but fail massively on their homework. I went into school and spoke to the head of year and his learning manager. I explained the situation and they put him in a lunch time group to complete his homework so he had none at home. As studying increased they also had obligatory sessions after school from 3-4 for supervised homework/revision. That meant that my sons got it all out of the way at school and they had free time at home .....which is the way it should be. 8.30-4 5 days a week is plenty of studying. My son got a good mix of grades 1A*, 4As,3Bs, 3Cs and a D.

I absolutely wouldn't waste your energy or money. You can tie someone to a desk but you can't force someone to revise or to take it in. The motivation has to come from him.

Just focus on keeping the brilliant relationship you have with him and know that one day he will want to achieve in life for himself. He can do exams again in future if he wants to. I wouldn't even nag, just offer support and remember it's his life, you can't live it for him. Otherwise the next couple if years will be hideous for both of you and he won't even get good results at the end of it.

There is more to life than a graduate job.

I will push and push and push my dc to engage in education, to get the bloody GCSEs, to get onto college courses, to give themselves options. DS2 will not be a problem- he's 8 years old, last night I taught him about multiplication to the power of, he has asked if tonight we can 'do some more of that fun Maths'. DS1 is going to struggle mightily, and if he achieves GCSEs at C or whatever the hell the equivalent will be in 2022 it will be a fecking miracle. I have GCSEs and A Levels and a BA and MA, I value education. But I started my career working with NEET young people without qualifications or the motivaiton to get them, for whom achieving 5 C grade GCSEs was equivalent to achieving a moon landing from, and I know there are options out there. Life will be harder, the possibility of earning large salaries will be much much smaller, but you still can get jobs without GCSEs, there are still alternative routes, and you do children a massive disservice by telling them otherwise. In particular, children who know they are going to struggle to achieve that 5 good GCSEs standard, when told if they don't get it, they will never have a good life, need to know that this isn't true. They need to know that there is still a reason for them to stay engaged with education and services, that there will be other routes and other opportunities. Telling them that it's the traditional GSCE route or nothing is a sure fire way of telling them to give up, drop out and not care.

This is badly written and I'm not sure I've communicated what I mean very well, but nm.

And think about why you want to cry over exam results? Are you seeing them as a reflection on you? Are you defining your son's success in life by them? Are you thinking he gets one chance and that's it?

My DS only applied himself when he realised he just had to. This was after not revising at all for his mocks and seeing how badly he did. It's hard to motivate boys. I said to mine to imagine how rubbish he will feel picking up those grades in August if they too are awful. This seemed to reach him and he knuckled down a bit more but I had to be on it without being a nagging pain as that would not have helped. I also got him a maths tutor. She was brilliant and actually also really good at telling him straight that he needed to make an effort. She was worth the money as I couldn't have got him through the revision, my maths is just nowhere near his level!! if you can afford the tutor I'd recommend it and wish I'd done it sooner actually.

What Allow is saying sevenfold. I had a hideous two or three years with DS1. I tore my hair out, I yelled at him, I very nearly did permanent damage to our relationship. And it still didn't make him work. He only did that when he grew up a bit.

And really, what going to fuck a kid up more, failing a few GCSEs or having a shit relationship with your family?

Tinkly - I sailed through GCSEs and struggled massively with a levels. I found them much harder. My parents laid the law down but I'd picked the wrong subjects (on their advice). Also I didn't really need to revise for GCSEs then I didn't know how to for a levels. I second the motvfalling out with your dcs over it but I wouldn't advocate taking your foot off the gas altogether. I think that lulls them into the sense that if parents don't mind, it can't be that important.

Also there are second chances but ideally they'd do it on the first chance rather than relying on second chances and putting no effort into the first.

If I had any advice it would be encourage your dcs to pick subjects they are naturally suited to rather than ones which might be more academic and therefore prestigious but if they can't connect with the topic, they are already at a disadvantage with.

I once got 13% in a Physics exam. Despite being bright I was lazy and unmotivated and did really shit in my O levels as well.

However, for the past 24 years I have run my own business and still do - being able to work from home all through the years of bringing up my kids on my own.

I did manage to get some typing and shorthand qualifications after leaving school, and later on I did an Access course, and also an English Literature A level at evening classes and got an 'A' grade. I then went on to do an English Lit degree as a mature student and got a 1st.

My son also did shit in school and barely scraped through his GCSEs, only getting enough to get into college by the skin of his teeth. He then had three attempts at his 'A' levels! The dramas I had with him - even kicking him out at one stage. He finally got them and has just finished a degree (will probably get a 2.1). He recently applied to a really good company to join their graduate management scheme. Vigorous selection process with lots of 'stages' and he's sailed through. Starts with them next month on a salary of 24 grand.

I understand how upset and disappointed you are feeling right now. My mum felt the same about me, and I felt the same about my son. But we've done ok and so will your boy! Not passing exams or being an academic high achiever is not the end of the world - far from it.

I see you said you are asking for a copy of his paper to see what went wrong. That sounds like a good idea as it might be a matter of handwriting problems (either illegible, or so slow he only answers the first few questions) or exam technique (spending too long on one question, not answering the questions correctly), or a genuine CBA attitude (if he sat with the paper in front of him not bothering to fill it in). Or a mixture of all three...

Baalam plumber electrician car mechanic plasterer kitchen fitter roofer. To name a few just in the college ds is looking at

Also you don't even need to go to RADA or any drama college to be a Hollywood film star.

My ds is never ever ever going to pass his English language GCSE. No amount of studying is going to help. The most he can do is he might have a shot at passing maths so it will be only 1 hour per week he needs to spend studying English and not 2 hours per week if he gets his maths exam.