To want 9s not 7s for my child in their GCSEs?

[ZeldaFighter]

Child is a model student and no problems with behaviour or attendance. Definitely seems intelligent and diligently completes homework, often without prompting.

Report is 6s and 7s. Husband is pleased and says they're As and Bs. He thinks only kids in private schools doing extended papers get 9s.

I got As, Bs and Cs many years ago but I always strived for As. AIBU to think they should be getting 9s or at least striving for them?

i do kind of get where you’re coming from. My son is very bright and I think capable of 9s however seems pretty incapable of properly applying himself which is very frustrating

7 is an A
8 is A-star
9 is A-star-star

It's not true that 8s and 9s are inaccessible for ordinary pupils but a 7 is a worthwhile achievement to be proud of. If you aren't celebrating your child's achievements with a 7 then that is shitty parenting imo.

If your child is in a school where the teachers have had to spend a lot of time on crowd control and haven't been able to cover the full curriculum your child might need to do some extra independent study to learn the content for the 8/9 grades.

In 10 years no one will care whether she got a 7 or a 9. A 7 is adequate for any A-Level course and only a tiny minority of university courses look at GCSE grades, the majority select solely on A levels so this is very unlikely to affect her life.

They are doing well, are they happy and settled too? If so pick the battle carefully. Yabu to demand what you want just because that’s what you got

Is your child happy OP? Does your child have hobbies / outside interests? Friends?

Do you love your child? If you do then does your child know that?

This is a human being, not an extension of you.

You get one childhood and that influences the rest of your life. You sound like you are setting your child up to fail in life.

This must be the most unaspirational post I’ve ever read on here. 3 hours a week of revision is not ‘working hard’- it is nowhere near enough for anyone who wants good grades. My DC had more homework than that in year 7.

Of course a grade 7 is good if that is the best a DC can get with hard work, but that is clearly not the case here.

This ‘just pass’ attitude does DC no favours as it limits future opportunities and doesn’t let them see the importance of hard work in other areas of life.

All I asked my DD was to do her best. She did, getting one 9 and the rest being 6s, 7s & 8s in her GCSEs. Effort is important, more than grades. I would say to her, as long as you know you have done your best, that’s good enough for me. She’s doing her best at A levels, predicted ABB. That’s good enough for the next thing she wants to do. The teachers tell me she could achieve AAA but DD needs her social life and hobbies or she’s going to burn out. As long as she’s putting in the effort five evenings a week I’m happy.

You can ask for all 9s but that doesn’t mean you’re going to get them. Pp are right, these are not your exams, and not your life path. Your child isn’t you. Treat them as an individual with their own strengths, weaknesses, interests and hobbies, and attitude to learning.

Something this thread shows is huge culturally different attitudes towards education in the UK.

There is increasingly a divide between those who are aspirational for their kids and want to promote hard work and striving for your best, and people who talk about ‘just being happy’ and wanting kids to make their own choices about whether to work hard and push themselves or not.

It’s so evident in areas where there are grammar schools, that some groups of parents have this aspiration by their over-representation: and lots of other parents would say they are overly pushy parents and ruining their kids lives.

Of course kids have different abilities and will and can achieve different things. But isn’t it a terrible shame if someone who could get top grades achieved significantly below because their school or parents didn’t encourage them enough to aim for their potential.

Teen life is hard and pressures can be big, but there is time in the week for teens to go to school, do a range of activities, see friends and have down time, as well as doing more homework than an 11 year old in secondary school might expect.

There’s a balance isn’t there. No, it’s not right to pile on pressure to achieve what might be impossible or to suggest that the kids are only loved when attainment is top. But lots of people wrongly think this is happening when loving parents encourage and set a context for their DC to work hard and achieve their best - when they set up patterns of hard work and study and build it as the norm.

I think OP worded her first post poorly. If she had said her DC was getting 7s but capable of 9s, I’d like to think less people would have leapt on her. But actually I suspect many would because somehow many see having aspiration and aiming for their best for kids as some kind of dirty and abusive action. It’s the attitude that underpins a lot of problems in society and does the next generation no favours, because how they can they strive for their best, when their parents aren’t willing to encourage them to do that?

@WombatChocolate DD is Year 11 Grammar and she finds it really hard because she sees the effect in her friends and in the classroom and refuses to stay bexause she doesn’t want to do chemistry and biology with a lot of peers who have been forced to.
the giving out of exams is fraught bexause she sees the impact getting a 7 can have on her friends and the punishments they receive for doing so

she had her party on March 1st and a couple couldn’t come becuase they are not allowed out between now and exams

the problem isn’t that we shouldn’t be encouraging our children to do their best it is the fact that the new A is a 7 to 9’places unnecessary pressure by breaking down the grade

I agree with this.

It a lot harder to be happy if you have fewer choices (let alone none at all), not much money in your pocket and less security.

There’s me if my dd comes out with 5 Cs I’ll be over the moon 😂

she’s had a very tough time though and she’s not academic in the slightest.

I have an elder daughter of 22 who put so much pressure on herself to achieve the highest and she did, several A stars (we are in Wales and it’s a state comprehensive) that she burnt her self out and ended up with in hospital the night before one of her exams as her mental health took a nose dive

personally I don’t care what my dc achieve as long as I know they tried. They’ve all gone to college, resit what they had to and are now where they want to be, one has a 2:1 degree in conservation, the other who got 7 Cs is now in an industry that he wants, got loads of practical qualificationss and the middle one is a nursery nurse.

i can’t believe the amount of pressure some parents put on their dc to achieve 9s. How ridiculous. I’d rather have a much lower achiever with robust mental health personally

If you rely on Mumsnet, the majority of kids get all 9s. They don’t. Not even most kids on Mumsnet get all 9s. Whatever their mums tell you. However, the sector they go to makes no difference.

Totally agree- there’s a happy medium between hot housing and lazing about on TikTok.

The OP’s DC is doing an hour of work “every other night”. My DC had more homework than that in year 7. They have plenty of time to work harder while also having a social life and other activities.

Ime those who scrape through GCSEs half-assed struggle a lot more at A level than DC who’ve worked hard and developed good habits and work ethic.

I also have no idea where the idea that only private school pupils get 9s comes from. Of course an individual DC is more likely to get 9s in the independent sector for a multitude of reasons- teaching, cohort, behaviour.

However, state students can and do get 9s. There was a DC featured in our local paper last summer from what is easily one of the worst schools in the country (Ofsted special measures, terrible behaviour, every lesson disrupted, poor teaching). He managed to get some 9s and 8s.

I would have huge admiration for him given the effort and discipline it must’ve taken to get those grades given he probably didn’t even get taught most of the content at school given the behaviour.

Future employers etc will think much more of him than a lazy grammar/indy student who was happy enough with 7s despite all the advantages they had in terms of teaching and lack of disruptions to their learning.

Wow there's a real culture of low expectation in this country judging by the first few posts.

See that’s the thing. People could look at mine and think oh they did shit at their GCSEs so therefore they can’t be arsed at life and jobs.

my ds has an incredible work ethic, he’s never been off sick, he’s worked himself up the ladder, put himself forward for practical qualifications that were done on the job and he walked out of college in his second year and then went straight into a job. He’s 25.

Dd2 did poorly at school, she hated every second she was there, but went to college and passed childcare and then went straight into a nursery. It’s not her forever job, she’s aiming for other things but again she works incredibly hard.

oddly the dc with a degree, who got all the qualifications and distinctions is really struggling to find work now, (she does have poor mental health and other issues) and she’s working part time in a minimum wage job.

too early to say with dd3.

honestly it does my head in when people say half assed GCSEs equals poor work ethic or outcomes. Yes I know my example is anecdotal but I also see many young people similar to my dc with similar experiences.

the only thing I expect of my dc is to try hard, and leaving school means you either go to college or straight into a job, no sitting in your arse doing nothing in my house. They have tbf.

none of mine did A levels either. They wanted to do practical based college courses.

Just to clarify - my DC is Year 10, not Year 11. Oldest sibling IS Year 11 so I'm up to speed with the VERY impending exams! If oldest sibling gets 4s, I will be delighted. He is both lazy and possibly dyslexic - I cannot tell you if that is linked but it's not just schoolwork where he is lazy. 4s will be very much an achievement for him.

But I think this is where I'm struggling. 4s for middle child would not be an achievement.

My parents put very little pressure on me but they didn't need to because I put it so much on myself! Mostly they tried to calm me down! Honestly, I am a little disappointed that he hadn't got "top marks" because that was my standard and they are "the clever/academic one". But I've learnt here that 7 is an excellent mark and not a C, which is how I mentally thought of it.

However, I don't want to not push them and let them get away with not working hard jusbecause they've got good marks. Laziness and complacency have been my downfall and I still battle them constantly. I'm proud of my grades but I will never forget the one that got away.

I'm also scared that complacency now could have serious repercussions!

I think i will try to follow the good advice about talking to DC and seeing how they see things.

I just want to be a good parent and help my child achieve what they're capable of.

I'm finding this quite hard to navigate so I appreciate the thoughts and advice.

Thank you everyone

Take control and help your child. Go to savemyexams.com and practise lots of past papers. GCSEs are not about acquiring knowledge, but more about answering the question in a certain way. Make sure you know what exam boards each subject is in.

The vast majority of DC will never get grade 9s. What is important is that they try as hard as possible and get the grades they’re capable of. This also serves them well for the future as they develop a work ethic and discipline.

A DC who is happy with 7s while doing “an hour every other night” is not working hard by any definition.

But people aren’t saying average or poor GCSEs = poor effort.
Everyone has different capability.
Someone with 7s could have worked very hard to get them, or been capable of 9s and didn’t try very hard.
it’s the same with all grades.
The question is whether they and the school and parents had an expectation they would work hard and should aim for their best - that they should’ve be satisfied or pleased with 7s if 9s were achievable for them.

Shouldn’t not should’ve.

That sounds like a positive update. I would chat with them about their current level of effort v outcomes.

I also wouldn’t say a 7 is an excellent result if they’re capable of better and I wouldn’t be transmitting that attitude to them.

Nope there should be an understanding that no matter what no more than 7% will get a 9 because that is the boundary set

it is about recognising that GCSEs are marked in a bell curve bexause by and large it is a bell curve and the majority will get grades 5-7

that it is this shitty system that has sub divided an A to the point that a 4 which is a pass isn’t seem as good enough anymore

that as much as some people on this thread try to say differently unless you really do want to go to Oxbridge GCSEs beyond passing maths and English don’t actually matter - getting 4s in them is vital

and that all the hardwork in the world can escape the fact that some incredibly annoying person will refuse to do any revision for a maths exam and get 98/100

and I say that as the parent on of the child would
did exactly that and will get all 9s even though she revises the amount she needs and is comfortable with. I will never expect her brother to achieve this bexause it isn’t in his wheelhouse to do so

Extended papers?
What do you mean?
There are foundation and higher tiers

@ZeldaFighter a 4 is a C in old money.

Plus if she is year 10 a 7 is actually probably
on track for an 8/9 anyway - do the school give an indication of how they do the predicted grades etc.

for example DD only went to 9s for her predicted grades in the last set of year 11 mocks in Year 10 they were still looking at 7 and 8 for some subjects because she hadn’t finished the curriculum

Total nonsense. The percentage of people who can get a grade 9 is irrelevant. If a DC is capable of being part of that group, that’s what they should be aiming for!

Also total rubbish that GCSE grades don’t matter. Many competitive universities beyond Oxbridge will look at them. Employers also like to see a consistent trend.

Equally, DC need to develop the skills that will stand them in good stead for A level study.