Stress levels about year 10 ds missing school going through the roof. Help!

[whenthejoyreturns]

It’s been keeping me awake at night. He’s the sort of dc who is very compliant at school. He listens and learns well in lessons and does very well in tests despite doing little at home. He basically remembers well what he has been taught without having to do much more. He is predicted high grades for GCSEs. Now of course this has all changed and I am so worried. He’s doing the work school are setting but this only takes him a couple of hours a day. I have tried to get him to do extra but he’s not interested and I don’t want to be on his case and put him off doing anything at all. I need to calm down but I am struggling. I’m afraid this is going to have a big impact on him going forward and feel gutted about it.

I’m a secondary school teacher and have also had three kids through this stage. I’d try not to panic too much. If he’s doing what’s set he’ll be in the same boat as everyone else when schools return. It’s looking increasingly likely that some form of adjustment will have to be made for a Year 10; particularly if they’re not back til September and that’s up to schools and exam boards to sort out. There’s little you can do at this stage.

Chill your beans OP
Be thankful that he's doing the work set, and stop stressing, it won't do you or him any good at all.
We are contacting a lot of year 10s next week, because less than half of them have done all the work set so far - and some of them haven't even logged onto our home learning at all, despite calls/emails home.
They're the parents that should be worrying!

Please relax! He is still young and can still do well on his GCSE's.

I know many people who crap or didn't do GCSE's and they're more successful than those than did.

Use this time to do things such as cooking, running, painting etc - something that he could have an amazing talent at but doesn't know it yet.

I have the exact same y10 child as you. Does bare minimum, resistant to putting extra work in, but manages to high grade. He's also told me the work the school is setting is revision only - he's not learning anything new. That's a worry if they end up missing 13 week's work or more. We are watching films of his English lit books and analysis videos on YouTube. I'm lucky as he has an elder brother who's helping with a couple of subjects. The deal is, he works on school work for two and a half hours but we then watch a documentary or a few interesting videos from you tube - we are using the Ted Ed site. The afternoon is his own but has to include some physical activity. It's the best I can do.

I assume the GCSE exam board will take this into consideration too so no-one is at a disadvantage because of it. Schools are well aware that not everyone has access to a computer etc so it would be unfair to assume everyone has had the same education.

I’m so pleased I posted on here you’ve been more helpful to my state of mind than you realise. I also have a year 8 and s as m not worried at all about her even though she’s less academic, it’s just the GCSEs that’s the issue. A few weeks ago I felt confident he was on track to get some really good results which he needs on his cv in order to get into the course he wants at university. I’m thinking too far ahead but I know and will try to relax about it

For those who are studying English Lit at year 10 - make flash cards for the poetry in the anthology. Look at themes. So, war poetry, then love, etc. Go on BBC bitesize - lots of quizzes on the poetry types of questions that come up.

TWIRLS is a great way to focus on poetry: So, T: Theme/title. W: Who, What, Where and Why. I: Imagery. R: Rhyme L: Language. S: Structure. It's a good start to exploring a poem, seeing links with others and understanding it.

For those worried about the Shakespeare, watch the plays (it was written to be performed, not read) but always ensure they know the actual text too. Too many year 11s write about the Romeo and Juliet film with Leo rather than focus on the text! Context is important - lots on line to help.

Shmoop is a great website for all the plays, books and most of the poetry that is covered at GCSE.

A few weeks ago I felt confident he was on track to get some really good results

If this is the case, it’s up the schools and the exam boards to make sure this still happens.

They'll adjust the grade boundaries - we expect this. All the students will be in the same boat - the predicted 9s, the 4s, all of them regardless of ability will be looked at. Some exam papers might be adjusted (reduced) but it will be fair across all the exam boards across the UK. It'll be ok.

Sophie

We don’t actually know what will happen next year.

I am not sure any allowances will be made. Given the idea at some schools that students who don't engage with home learning* should be punished by having their predicted/actual grades reduced, I suspect exam boards will airily say that the kids have got the summer holidays to catch up and that will be that.

*despite all the lip service paid to the fact that people learn in different ways and some people need face to face - but when it comes to the crunch they're just lazy teenagers, obvs.

There's also a difference in approach within schools/colleges, too.

DS has video lessons for two of his A level subjects, but for the third subject he just has work set on a Monday and has to hand it in on a Friday, there's no teaching.

When I was a bright year ten, I worked hard at school and did my homework but I didn't especially done tonnes of extra work.

I would read non fiction about areas I was interested in, but tbh that was mainly at sixth form. I read a lot of not terribly high brow fiction.

School only has 5 hours of lessons a day. Of those, at least 5-7 mins of each lesson is spent moving between lessons, registration etc. So that's down to 4.5 hours. If you pick things up easily you probably don't spend as much time recapping the stuff you're building on (say 5 mins a lesson gone) and you probably don't need to spend the same amount of time on explanations so down to say 7 mins from 15. Lose 3 mins to disruption and that's another 15 minutes per class you don't need. 15*5 is 1.25 hours so then that's 3.25 hours left. Take out PE and PHSE at say 3 hours a week total and you're down to under 3 hours a day to complete the equivalent work at home. That also fits with what I felt when I was at school. I definitely thought that if you just got on with it, you could finish school in 2-3 days a week. I was a bright, keen kid, and my answer to that was not that we should do extra schoolwork in my imagined time, it was extra time off.

I wouldn't stress if he's doing all the work school sets. I would consider if you can concoct some non-screen-based hobby.

GCSEs are not as important for degree courses as choices of A-Levels. And decent-ish results will allow access into A-Levels, which will in turn allow him to get the grades for his course.

Don’t panic so much. It sounds like he’s doing everything asked if him.

The exam boards will have to take all of this into consideration next year. I have a year 10 too and am a teacher.