To be disappointed about my DD’s future

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My DD is in yr11 and until this year had not shown any interest in learning/the future. I have been trying everything to get her to focus and this year it really hit her that she had to try harder. But it’s too late. She’s not unintelligent FYI.

Her forecast GCSE grades are pretty rubbish. She’s going to scrape a 5 in English if she’s lucky. Everything else a 3 or 4.

I now don’t know what to do or how to help her. I think going on an apprenticeship isn’t always the answer. She can’t get into the 6th form with grades like this. But she has her heart now set on doing a particular BTech and a particular A Level. I don’t want to have to be the one to tell her she can’t do these (if this is the case) as she has no other plan.

I don’t even really know what the options are for her yet, not sure whether to encourage her into an apprenticeship, college, do retakes.

AIBU I’m disappointed FOR her and IN her that it will come to this and feels like it will be a hard few years ahead for her. I don’t want her in minimum wage jobs - she is demoralised enough as it is. On the other hand a lot of this is all her own fault.

I am just so frustrated by her

She doesn’t have very much self motivation so if I don’t help her sort this out I will be living with an unemployed depressed 17yo

Keep in mind that uni is not the answer for everyone. I'm the first in my (and my partner's) family to go to uni, and I'm the lowest paid. Admittedly there are other factors at play there, but there may be for your daughter too. Pushing a non academic child along an academic route is not going to work.

Oh my gosh don’t write off the rest of her life at 16! She can go to college and retake her GCSEs / A levels if she wants to. She can do open university without any qualifications at all. She can get a job and work hard to get promoted within that. There are TONS of options for someone who really wants to do well.

My dh dropped out of university one term away from graduating because of severe depression. He is now working his way up in a good company and is a senior clinical account manager. It’s not the job he ever thought he would be doing but it’s a good stable job and it pays the bills! When he dropped out of university (and had months off with depression) he genuinely never felt he would ever get better, let alone do a good job.

Give her time to work out what to do. She has plenty of years to get herself sorted.

I think if she got an apprenticeship she would never go back to proper study.

Does that matter?

Further education colleges are what you need to look at.She can retake maths there and plenty of courses are for people like your Dd.
Uni is not necessarily off either as she can progress to access courses later.
Many children find the less pressurized feel of college better and most do Btecs.

As long as she has a marketable skill and enough confidence she can go far. She doesn't need to be academic.

My degree ended up being a dead end for me, however my one year getting vocational qualifications has kept me employed all my life.

Is there a 6th Form attached to her current school? Get her to speak to the teachers that teach the subjects she's interested in and ask them what the lowest grade they'll accept is. If they can see she's a hard worker they can make exceptions for students they already know. I know we did this year.

My DD did a health and social care btech which with good grades was able to get her onto a nursing degree
Friends on same course as her are now a radiographer, paramedic, midwife, pharmacist and 3 other nurses

wooah 16 is far too young to be thinking that she is destined for a life of min wage jobs ...you need as they saw to give your head a wobble..and i hope you are not catastrophising with your dd like this...

1. talk to her school - if they think she could do the higher papers with some elbow grease can they arrange that- go with her and with a plan for teh effort
2. if too late to change paper she does the best she can then resits for highers...ef doable
3. talk to the college re the btec - there is a level that is equivalent to a levels - colleges are often better with later bloomers than schools
4. if she has an idea of what she wants to do look at whats needed and work back...
5. is there a connexions service in your area? they often good at talking through options

i did a levels at night school/adult ed 1 a year whilst working, then that combined with my work experience , led to further education, a masters in my late 20 's was paid by my empolyer -

there are many ways through the formal educational process and lots of time..... she maybe out of step for a year or so but that is nothing these days......

if she's not actually capable then there are often other paths to where you want to get to rather than A levels and uni...
supportive parents and the fact she's realised she needs to get her head down at 16 is a good place to start from....

Have a look at cife.org.uk

If you want to support her then you need to be more positive and optimistic! She’s only 16!!! How can you write off her future like that?! She can do retakes for GCSE if she wants, or there are plenty of other options. How is she possibly going to keep her spirits up if you have already written her off? Yes maybe some of it was her fault, but we all make mistakes and she is plenty young enough to get back on track. But she will find it a lot easier if she can believe in her herself, and that means you believing in her too!

It's only October...why does she have to stay in the lower sets for the rest of the year? (or are they modular exams?)

Don't feel too dissapointed though, my dbro like 100s of others was a lazy/uninterested teen who mostly got Cs (with a few Bs and Ds) at GCSE, but pulled his socks up at uni and now has 2 degrees and a good career.

She’s certainly not resigned to a poor future at this age! But as others have said uni is not for everyone.
For this year I think you need to have a realistic conversation with her, showing her evidence that continuing at her present pace will not get her into a 6th form of her choice, and seeing if she will agree to pick up the pace with the study and try to improve her grades. If she doesn’t (or she can’t) it’s not the end of the world, there are re-sits or some decent apprenticeships.

Perhaps you could look at colleges on her behalf. Lots of colleges of FE have students rocking up on results day who haven't succeeded at getting into their sixth form of choice. It's really common.

At my DS's college you can take a one year level 2 course, equivalent to 5 GCSEs with grade 3 GCSEs. You can then move up to a level 3 course or start it straight away with 5 x grade 4 GCSEs. My friend's DS did an BTEC extended diploma worth 3 A levels in engineering and has just started university in Portsmouth.

Not all GCSEs have different tiers. English doesn't so she can get better than a 5 if she works hard. The foundation tiers in maths and science go up to a grade 5 as well.

It's never too late.

She doesn’t have to go to uni but having poor GCSE results therefore no A Levels isn’t the best start anyone would wish for their bright but very lazy unmotivated child.

As I know her well, I honestly do not think she has the maturity yet for world of work/apprenticeships and needs to stay in some kind of education to build confidence, Work out what she wants to do with her life. Possibly Getting fairly crap GCSE’s and feeling like she had no options i cannot help feeling disappointed in her wasting her education, up till now she just didn’t care or make any effort

There are so many unemployed young people right now or in low wage zero hours contracts and having limited education isn’t IME the best way to go about life, you can get stuck there and it’s demoralising.

I will look into BTech at college and retakes I think her best option if only for maths/science

I would leave it to the sixth form college to tell her her options.

I used to teach A levels and saw many students come in to resit their GCSEs. Probably 95% left after taking them and took an NVQ or BTEC, but 5% or so would go on to take A levels and do well - certainly well enough to go to university.

What those 5% had in common was a different attitude. They realised they'd messed about at school. They realised they wouldn't get a job they wanted with the qualifications they had. They put their heads down and worked really hard at their resits, to prove to themselves that they could do it.

It's just one more year of study, that's all.

Uni is not for everyone. Take one step at a time, there is still time to support her to pass the core subjects and some take more than one route. What help is she getting, are there barriers to her learning which could be addressed? Education is about far more than writing to a mark scheme. Look at your local colleges offering level 2 and 3 nvq and btecs so you knwo what is available. If she retakes some gcses it can be alongside another course.

If she's in tutor sessions every day she's working hard, isn't she? How can you say this is 'her own fault'? If she's attending the tutor sessions then she is motivated (believe me, I had one who refused to do any revision ever, that's what no motivation looks like). DS is 18 now & financially independent, btw. A bit of a pillock, but he's found his path.

There are lots of successful paths thru life. Academics is only one.

I would try to get her to make a few plans for different academic results. Plan B, Plan C in the picture, too, not just Plan A. Good grades don't come to everyone even if they try hard, but she can still have plans & aspirations, to feel like she's got some control over her future directions.

If she's lazy and unmotivated then maybe a taste of failure and a spell in employment would be good for her. She'd mature and maybe decide that studying is worthwhile after all.

Being bright is little use without some apllivation and you can't supply this.

ps: my DS2 is very clever but disorganised so under-performs. Got 6 on yr6 math SAT, for instance & still in top sets (yr10). I don't think A-levels will be his path, either. My quiet Plan B for him is apprenticeship.

I don’t say any of this to her! Her report came out recently and my heart sank (seems no better than any other year!) but to her I have been nothing but supportive and solutions focused. She’s seen careers officer but this year/next is visiting colleges and talking about next steps

She really doesn’t listen - she wanted to take GCSE PE instead of business/computer studies, I spent so long advising against it - she only chose PE as she thought it would be easy. Now she has poor computer skills and hates GCSE PE and wants to drop it. I feel like she doesn’t have the basic skills yet so a BTech would be a good next step.

Could she not resist the GCSEs the following year?

I pretty much did the same at her age, started to panic and realised I hadn’t tried hard enough, I could not sit the higher papers as I had been entered for lower, I scraped a C in maths but totally messed up English and science so could not do A levels. I with I had done retakes the following year but at the time I didn’t want to be set back a year (now I know a year is nothing).

I am having the opposite issue with dd who is year ten, she has been predicted high GCSE grades but now she can’t be bothered and is getting poor resaults in maths (probably the most important subject), she still plans on doing A levels and go to uni after but she won’t be if she doesn’t put the work in.

Try not to worry too much. Poor gcse results aren't the end of the world. My DS2 was in a similar position. He left school 2 years ago with no GCSEs above a D grade. Most were Es or Fs. He's not stupid, a combination of poor teaching and a lack of any effort on his part. Last year he started at our local sixth form college doing a level 3 btec in a subject he enjoys, plus maths and English at foundation level. He responded well to being in a college environment and passed with merit. This year he's started a 2 year btec extended diploma (equivalent to 3 Alevels) plus maths and English gcse. He's doing really well and has been told there's no reason he shouldn't be thinking about university of he keeps it up.

Btecs aren't an easy option, they have to keep on top of the coursework. But the learning style does seem to suit some students better. And it helps if they can focus on a subject they really enjoy, rather than multiple subjects.

@lljkk

She’s just started attending. Over the past 4 weeks. Because she realises finally what a plank she has been over the last 2 years. I chose her a school with a 3 year GCSE pathway to make it even easier for her to focus on the subjects and she has misbehaved for 4 whole bloody years, pissed off loads of teachers and got endless detentions for talking and being a general PITA

All your DD really needs is enough to get her to the next stage, it will be great if she picks up but not a disaster if she doesn't make the sixth form bar. A levels are a huge gamble and several of my DS's friendship group switched to BTEC from A level after the first year and were much happier at college than sixth form. IME, FE colleges are much more used to this than schools and take the attitude that it's never too late. A good BTEC through an FE college will be a great qualification in its own right and still get her into uni if she wants to go. I don't think schools always promote this in a positive way, nor do they make clear that you can do FE for 3 years, not just two...so there is a year's grace for any false starts and retakes.