To not let DS sit AS Levels?

[bluebellpillow]

Ds has always been a high achiever with little effort, was predicted straight 8/9s at GCSE. He barely did any revision, laughed and joked about not wanting to 'peak too soon' and that he would be fine. Results day he got all 8s bar one 7. In honesty we were disappointed as for him he could have done better, which the school wholeheartedly agreed with. He promised to knuckle down, had learned his lesson...

I will add here that due to where we are (without outing my location) he had to move to a fee paying school in order to pursue science/maths A levels. We did this before GCSE in order to make the transition for A level as smooth as possible. Ds knows that for us this is a sacrifice we are making.

Fast forward to now and his exam results have been terrible. First set he got B,C,D,U and most recently E,C,U,U. I phoned school to discuss this, according to them he is a role pupil who just isn't working up to his full potential . He is polite, does all his homework etc so no concerns.

Ds has lofty ideas about going to top unis which whilst are within his reach are laughable at his current performance. I have told him that if his next set of exams do not significantly improve that I will pull him out of school and he can get a job until he is willing to work harder for his exams.
AIBU? I'm just so annoyed and disappointed that we are paying for him to piss it up a wall.

He has a Saturday job and they would be more than happy to have him FT.
Be careful about this OP. If you're in England he will have to still be in some form of education at least part time. Maybe you're not in England though.

Cross posts with charlton.

You put it more delicately than I did. I'm not trying to be harsh, just suggesting that the GCSE grades are not as high as the OP maybe had thought.

MissCharleyP The A level syllabus and structure has changed considerably in the last couple of years. They are linear now, so you don’t get half an A level in year 12 and another half in year 13. Under the old system you were effectively doing exams for 4 half modules in year 12 and 4 half modules in year 13. Now students sit the equivalent of 6 (or 8 if doing 4 A levels) half modules at the end of year 13. Only the very brightest students sit $ A levels at the end of year 13 now, and it is often the case that those doing 4 are doing maths and further maths, and not 4 completely different subjects.

Universities, even with degrees in more rigorous subjects such as medicine, still only ask for 3 A levels.

The current model for A levels is considered more rigorous than when you sat your A levels.

CharltonLido73 a lot of independent schools do iGCSEs which are still graded A* - E.

The school still does the majority of old style exams. We are not in England. I wrote his results in numbers as that is what it seems most here use. I 'translated' them as the school have explained them to us as parents (they said a 9 is A*, 8 A/A etc) so apologies if this has been misleading.

Thanks for letting me offload, I think he does need to learn the lesson the hard way but I'm hoping that next term he really kicks into gear.
To reiterate, his combination of AS subjects are not available in a non fee paying school. Again without saying my location, we are not talking tens of thousands here but the amount is still very significant to us as a low income family.

The deal is, get a one-to-one tutor short term to get to the root of what the problem is and get study techniques for Maths/Science A levels in place, or reconsider the fee-paying school. You are not saying you are giving up on him - indeed, you are saying you are prepared to make even more financial sacrifice for a tutor - but you cannot keep paying fees for him if he's not prepared to try his best. If his best is not top grades, that's ok, but he should commit to getting a private tutor short term.

Totally agree with pps who've said that a bright kid can totally blag their way through GCSEs and this leaves them completely unprepared for study technique and understanding their own learning style, which is much more important at A level. A tutor is not for thickos, it's for enabling him to demonstrate his intelligence effectively.

Ditch the Saturday job. If he is playing an important sport for the school then I suspect this is played as most fee paying schools do it in a Saturday.

Quite a few 16/17 year olds struggle in year 12 and redo year 12 with different subjects. This happened to the son of a friend of mine. She told me that he did badly in his AS exams, and I suggested that he redo year 12 because my niece did. She has never stopped thanking me for the advice as he ended up with AAB at A level.

Could this be an option for your son?

Once it clicks and he works out what he needs to be doing and sees results, he will be more motivated to apply himself (not saying he'll ever turn into a mega swot if that's not his personality) but he needs to give commit to giving it a chance or you pull funding.

Mmm, your clarification does put a different aspect on it. He isn’t one of the very brightest on that showing - in fact, he got the same as my brightish son, who battled his way to ABC at A level (could possibly have gone a grade higher but not too all-A* level).

DD - who slogs - got several 9s, the rest 8s and 7s, and is finding A levels hard.

I think it would be harsh to withdraw him from school and make him get a job. There is a step change between GCSE and A levels and it sounds as though he hasn't yet adapted to it. He is just being a teenager and if you do make him leave school he will probably never forgive you for ruining his chances of university/career. If he is doing OK in class and doing homework etc then it is probably best to just give encouragement and gentle pressure. I share your frustration at having an able son who doesn't apply himself to academic work but I don't think punishment is the answer.

Thanks ischristmas and Lonicera, I suspected things might have changed a bit as I was replying. I always thought it strange that even students who had been hovering at C/D at GCSE were expected to be able to manage 4 A levels. When I started my A Levels (1996), A/S were only just being brought in and only offered in a few subjects at the time. The norm then was to do 3 subjects.

Is it conceivable that the school is giving him a bit of an easy time re his work because of his sporting prowess, OP?

DSS was allowed to get away with the absolute bare minimum of work at his independent school, because he was a star on the rugby pitch. He's really smart, but got very mediocre A levels because he was more focussed on sport than studying.

He got one A, seven As and a B at GCSE.*

No disrespect intended but those grades do not indicate someone who is super bright

So he's not super bright

And he's struggling at A level

He needs extra tuition to pull him up to B grades imo

Just to reiterate what others have said, as a sixth form teacher for 17 years, I would not write him off yet. First term is an adjustment. Judging by what I have read here, he hasn't yet faced reality and conceptually understood the subjects or made the leap to A level. I would look at how he is spending his time each week. Time management is crucial and not a skill most teenagers have naturally. In my school, he would be a candidate for intervention due to underperformance. He needs to get into gear next term and might need help. His attitude to tutoring is immature but understandable from a 16 year old.

With parent's hat on, I would be worried and disappointed and would try to talk to him about how it could affect him going forward without traumatising him. A sensitive time. Good luck! 💪

I would arrange with the school, ideally, or just say yourself that he won't be playing the sport unless his grades improve.

You also need to meet with the school and see if he knows the stuff and is just not pulling it out in exams, or whether he is struggling with the work itself.

Private schools are used to parents with high expectations who want to get their money's worth so don't worry about being pushy!

But you CANNOT pull him out of school and have him get a job, because that is against the law.

Yes the school mislead you over his actual results, as youve already now found out. This could mean the unis he wants are out of reach already. Look with him at their admissions criteria. The results, along with his current attitude, will could a number of unis out completely.

What he absolutely needs, despite his arrogance, is a tutor to help him learn how to study independently. One that will focus on revison methods and teaching him how to best revise the different materials in different ways.

This is a double edged sword. Many students get poor results at this time of the academic year for many reasons. The main one being the jump from GCSE to A-level.

His results indicate that he's either not understood the content, he's not being organised and that he probably needs extra help (a tutor). I know this would probably add an extra cost, but doing 4 heavy A-level subjects is tough, schools breeze through content, fee paying or not, because there is simply not enough time. The student has to pick up the rest at home. Plus with the added pressure of him knowing the burden of this extra investment its not easy. What does he want to study at university?

Your pushing him too hard, it's all about you, your sacrifices and your expectations with no regard for what your son might want. Sound to me like he's gone fuck it I'll never be good enough for you so I'm not going to bother.

Seriously you were disappointed in virtually straight A's?

Most children at fee paying schools start doing 4 A Levels and then you drop one mid way through your A Level years. You don’t need 4 A Levels to get into the top unis. My DD has three Russell Group offers and has had an interview at Cambridge with three A Levels.

You would need to work and be bright to get all 8s at GCSE. My DD is very bright but has had to work incredibly hard and put in many many to get her predicted results. It’s simply not possible to do well without hard work,

Agree that a kid with As at GCSE will struggle with the leap to A-level in maths and sciences. He might be working in lessons and doing his homework (how well in his homework?) but he needs to be doing far more than just what the school sets in order to get up to speed. A kid with A at GCSE maths isn’t statistically headed for A/B at A-level maths (more likely C or below), so he needs to really pull his finger out if he’s expecting to go to top unis. His reassurances that he will get As in the real thing just show that he hasn’t grasped the scale of what he needs to do. It didn’t work for his GCSEs or he’d have got A*s and it definitely won’t work for A-level.

What has he done about those tests he performed poorly on? Forgotten about them? Or gone over and over them, working at the topics he failed to master to ensure the next time they appear on a test he is better prepared?

I think you are far too overinvested both financially and emotionally in your DS's exam results. All your phoning the school and talk of your "sacrifices" is OTT. I have 2 17 yo DS, they are in the first year of A Levels - imo a far better approach is to give them control of what they study and how they study. Yes I encourage them, yes if they need any help they get it (cue the physics tutor one asked for) but essentially they need to work out in their own minds that if they want a place at a good uni then they (and they alone) have to work for it. Think of it like this - it's better they work because they want to rather than working because you told them too: the latter is not sustainable and will stop working out for you (as you are finding).

Mine are well aware they like life's luxuries and that these cost money - money which they will need to earn because I won't be supporting them. I think you need to ensure your DS is firmly in charge of his education and what he wants to do and then keep out of it unless he asks. If they stuff up exams then they will have to rethink their choices.

He has only been doing a levels for 1 term -give him a chance. With stem A Levels it takes a while for everything to click - especially physics

I don't understand where you can possibly be that doesn't have provisions for non-fee paying maths and science A-levels 😕

If it were my child in this situation I'd give him until the end of this year with whatever support he required (tutor, some mentoring in study skills etc) and re-evaluate at the end of the year. If he's still not getting the results he needs, at least then he still has 2 free years of government education (is it still up to 19?) that he can move somewhere else, do different A-levels or a vocational course.

I was that student who sailed through GCSEs, did no work, and got the highest results in the school that year. I did 13 GCSEs and didn't know what I wanted to do, went to the local sixth form, did 4 AS levels (maths, biology, French and German) and then changed my mind on some and spent the remaining 2 years doing chemistry, physics, biology and maths to A-level. I had little to no study skills following my cruise through education until that point, my mum did get me a chemistry tutor but to be honest, I didn't gain much from it. I finished up with AABC at A-level, went to uni and still had zero study skills and crashed and burned. £50k student debt and didn't graduate. There were other factors in this but I never should have gone to university. I went because it was expected of me. I did a high pressure academic course because it was expected of me. I was a high flyer expected to achieve X Y and Z and went with huge pressure. If I had my time again, I'd do a vocational course or apprenticeship.

A kid with A at GCSE maths isn’t statistically headed for A/B at A-level maths (more likely C or below)

This statistic is key and you would be well-advised to make sure he is aware of it.

Also based on his also based on his GCSE results you should not be expecting a and a stars at a level. B's and C's are more realistic for him