To think it’s ok to do ‘well enough’ at gcse’s

[Laughingstock91]

DS is doing well in school- I don’t know what his predicted grades are yet as he’s in year 9 and the school don’t do predicted gcse grades as they take the (sensible I feel) approach that it predicted grades too early on can cap achievement. I like this approach.

DS is doing well by their markers but gets very stressed by pressure. And the pressure seems to come from the get straight A’s & A* that seems to be hovering about - not from the school nescrssarily- but from an expectation in his peers that anything less is a failure. It drives me nuts! I got 8 GCSE’s grades a-c, did 3 Alevels grades a-c and then went to Uni and got a 2:1. I really want DS to pass his GCSEs and be able to go on and study but I don’t want him to feel ridiculous pressure to try and get straight A grades (or 9’s or whatever the modern day equivalent is.

But is that ok? Am I failing him by not pushing him? A friend with a child in private school where they get pushed to achieve straight A’s thinks I am letting him down but not saying he should aim for that! I just want him to do as well as he can but to not go mad with the stress of it all.

Aibu?

This is not a Covid issue. This problem predates this. I have no idea why you would think otherwise.

I agree. I told my ds to work hard to get the best he could. But not everyone gets a 9 and very few get 9's across the board.

I told him it's fine to have strengths and weaknesses.

He actually got the whole range of grades from 4-9!

He's very able in some subjects and ok at others.

He did his best. It's so sad some children feel they have to study every hour god sends and then feel that even if they do this and don't get a 9 they've failed.

The truth they don't get told is that it dies t matter how hard you study. You'll only do the best you can do for how your brain works.

@Mamamwmwma

This is not a Covid issue. This problem predates this. I have no idea why you would think otherwise.

Because, as I said quite clearly, you don't seem to understand how hard university staff are currently working.

I know that there has been a slow shift, from a time when universities generally interviewed/tested everyone, to now, when interviews are very much the exception. But I think saying 'can't be bothered' makes it sound as if this is just laziness, and I really don't think it is.

I know how difficult it is for university staff at the moment. I have a dc at university and it’s perfectly obvious.
However, as I have said, this issue predates Covid. There is no excuse for any university not to read personal statements from applicants.

@Mamamwmwma

I know how difficult it is for university staff at the moment. I have a dc at university and it’s perfectly obvious. However, as I have said, this issue predates Covid. There is no excuse for any university not to read personal statements from applicants.

But who exactly are you blaming for this? You say 'can't be bothered' as if this is something admissions staff are supposed be doing and have just not fancied.

@SarahAndQuack Of course they should be reading personal statements.

I agree with you, OP. My DS is in year 10 and doing well but we haven't pushed him beyond reminding him to do his homework.

However, he's generally doing well. Maybe if he wasn't we would push more. I'm relieved to see what you say about GCSE results not being the be all and end all. They weren't in my day but you never know if that has changed, so I wouldn't want to let him down by not pushing him if it really was needed. I think it's not and he could easily be an anxious student since he's quite perfectionist.

That said, my younger child – still in primary – can't see the point of learning to spell in a world that has spellcheckers. We do test her spellings since we work in a field where we know not being able to spell is both common and tedious to deal with. But we don't make her do homework since it's not compulsory – she sometimes does it, mostly not.

it dies t matter how hard you study. You'll only do the best you can do for how your brain works.

I agree with this

One child's best is another child's worst. Not all children can achieve A*/9's no matter how much they try. The pressure to be high achievers causes great damage to children who simply cannot perform at this level.

My dp's arranged for me to sit the 11+. I did not pass and remember the disappointment in my dp's eyes.

I received appalling GCSE results due to various factors. Even after resitting my GCSEs I was unable to study A levels or be admitted onto my desired degree course. I found a degree course via clearing and did well considering. Probably because there were no exams!

Though I am now on management level, a sense of failure has followed me through decades of my life. I always feel like the least intelligent person at work and in social settings.

The kids who get the top grades aren’t pushed. They are a product of decades of involved parenting and as such have learned all the revision techniques they need to, to get the top grades. These kids often have parents who also did extremely well at GCSE and so can share tips including how to manage stress. The kids who get stressed are the ones whose parents do nothing to help (presumably because they can’t) but still pile on the pressure anyway.

My child is on track for several top grades. We read to him, didn't make him do homework in primary school (but did test him on spellings), and have no clue about most of the subjects he's on track to do well in. I think he just understands them... It's just the way he works. If we put pressure on him, I think he'd do worse because he'd be stressed. This way, his motivation comes from himself.

It's like when I did couch to five k - I got to the end because I wanted to – and have to say I found it really annoying when the person I was doing it with was trying to motivate me to finish. I was doing it for me, not someone else.

It depends on your child's personality though, doesn't it? None of mine would have reacted well to pushing, it would likely have the opposite effect. It also depends on their ability - I suppose it is easy to settle for 'good enough' if you know they are likely to do well anyway (eg maybe a grade 7 rather than a 9). More difficult to leave them to it if they are on the boundary grades 3,4,5 - then I suppose you have to use all your powers of gentle persuasion.

Dd (Y10) is predicted very high grades across the board. She has ASD. It would be lovely if she gets her predicted grades but I'll be happy if she passes them all and gets the grades she needs to go on to A Levels.

Yes, I agree, user1471443411
That's exactly right.

[quote Mamamwmwma]@SarahAndQuack Of course they should be reading personal statements.[/quote]
But, I asked you, who are you blaming here?

Do you think that there's a situation where staff are just not bothering to do part of their job?

I would very much like it if VCs put more funding into admissions, but I don't get the impression that is what you mean. (Maybe I am wrong?)

@SarahAndQuack of course they should be putting more money into admissions.
I think what many middle-class mothers don’t realise is that some kids are catching two buses to do voluntary work or other things because they want to enhance their personal statements. It’s a disgrace to think that universities are ignoring all that effort. No wonder social mobility is going backwards in this country.

[quote Mamamwmwma]@SarahAndQuack of course they should be putting more money into admissions.
I think what many middle-class mothers don’t realise is that some kids are catching two buses to do voluntary work or other things because they want to enhance their personal statements. It’s a disgrace to think that universities are ignoring all that effort. No wonder social mobility is going backwards in this country.[/quote]
Yes, I've already agreed they should be putting more money in.

But that's nothing to do with 'not bothering'. That is VCs making fairly cynical decisions about where to spend money, with the result that the people actually responsible for admissions don't have the budget to do as much work as they might like.

I wish the myth that students need to 'enhance' their personal statements with voluntary work would die a death, though. For 90% of subjects it doesn't make the tiniest bit of difference.

So the stress is all coming from his peers?
He needs to find a way to bolster his self-esteem without seeking their approval about his grades.

I can't relate to any pushy parent. I didn't get choices like that & I would lose my own sanity if I tried to be a Tiger Parent, anyway.

I think both you and your friend are wrong tbh. Imo every DC should be pushed to achieve the best results they are capable of- for some that will be all 9s while for others five passes would be a great achievement.

What I don’t agree with it just leaving DC totally to their own devices. 14 and 15 year olds do not have the maturity necessary to see the importance of doing well at GCSE.

All DC therefore should be encouraged to work hard and should have study routines in place.

All of my DC have a set amount of time that they have to study for each day to earn screen time- this time is age/year dependent. For example, DS2(year 10) has to complete 2.5 hours of homework/revision on school nights and 6 hours over the weekend.

Imo every parent should have these rules and expectations in place.

I think it's daft to push them to do more than they are comfortable with. Our eldest is doing GCSE's this year, she has subjects she really enjoys and will get great grades in but others she's not so fond of where she's just aiming for a reasonable grade in. I'm happy with this, if she realises later she could/should have done better then she can look at resitting to improve the grades (if needed).

Every child needs to be considered as an individual. My youngest is doing GCSEs this year. He's fairly bright, but he has numerous hobbies and if I left him entirely to his own devices he would always prioritise playing his guitar or doing his sports over doing school work. He would almost certainly still get a reasonable set of results and get into 6th form with fairly minimal effort as he is fortunate enough to be bright enough to do that. So that would be "good enough" to progress to the next level. Should I accept that unquestioningly? I don't think so.
Despite what he might think, he is still a kid, and I am an adult with a bit more understanding and experience of how the world works and it is my job to guide him. I know that he is capable of achieving high grades, without abandoning his other interests completely, but he sometimes needs someone to help him prioritise. Good enough grades may allow progression to the next stage but better ones potentially give him more choices. I would never want to see him stressed out and crying but equally I don't want to see him achieve less than he is capable of and later regret it.
My approach is kind of to work backwards - this is what you want long term, this us what you need to achieve it, and whilst your rendition of Sweet Child of Mine is coming on great that physics homework is not going to do itself is it, so how about I unplug the amp til 9pm? I never did anything like that with my elder son who, if anything, needed to be encouraged to stop and do things other than school work, but DS2 is easily distracted and still needs a bit of, well, parenting...

I've voted yabu by comparing what you were able to achieve with your GCSEs to now. Grade inflation has been a massive thing and therefore you can't compare As-Cs 20+ years ago to the grades of today. As a previous poster mentioned the percentages of kids who get As and A*s are huge now (in some parts of the UK as much as 49% of all grades achieved). So you can't apply the educational outcomes you had with your grades to today's kids.

That said, it's not about flogging him to get As and A*s if he's not able for it. None of us here will be able to tell you if it's right or not to push him more. You and his teachers should be able to discuss this and form a view. What I wouldn't do is assume that the top grades are anything like when you did your GCSEs. They're only really comparable either side of the years they're sat in (and with the pandemic, not even that).

To the pp who said GCSE grades are irrelevant for uni, not so on many oversubscribed courses. GCSEs are often used there to differentiate the applications.

Do really well in the GCSE's he wants to do at Alevel and just pass the ones he doesn't. Teacher here and that is the advice I am giving my DC.

Kids are like farts, if you push too hard it will end up messy.

@CoastalWave

For a child to get a Grade 9, they need to do it themselves. You can't push any child to get better grades than THEY want to.

Totally agree with this.

* Learning revision techniques, exam technique etc is just as important as learning the core content. That can come from home or school, but it has to come from somewhere for kids to achieve the best they can. Unfortunately, some kids don't get it from either and set themselves up to fail because they spend inordinate amounts of time trying to learn the core content and still don't get the results they deserve because they don't revise effectively or don't understand exam technique to get the marks - that's the real travesty - the ones who spend a lot of time but still don't get decent marks/grades.*

Exactly. My Mum is a high achiever and her revision technique was ALL exam based and doing a little at a time so we avoided stress and still managed to do the other things she wanted us to do (housework :x). All of us, even me (I went down down the childcare path at 16 but still studied) got top GCSE and A Level grades even if we didn’t go to university. In fact the revision techniques she taught me did me well when I finally went in for my degree. So this idea that all the top achievers are highly stressed monkeys while the ones scraping by are the cool and ‘healthy’ kids is utterly damaging. Education and success begets more education and success - it’s why women being well educated is important because they’re the ones most likely to then ensure their kids get the right tools for being educated themselves.