Worried about GCSEs

[alevelbtec]

I can't sleep at night as worried about teen dd and her results. She failed all her mock exams except English. I want her to do A Levels and go on to University like most of my family but I don't think she will be able to. I am really panicking about her future. AIBU!? I think it's effecting me more, she pretends she's ok or maybe she isn't I don't know.

It is absolutely crazy to think that uni would be better than an apprenticeship. Is she’s not academic then she won’t be able to do a good degree from a good university so then she’ll end up with a degree but be far far less employable than if she has good life and work experience through actually working through an apprenticeship

GCSEs don’t define you. I have no english no maths yet i work in finance on £43k.

good luck to her but never force YOUR needs of her going to uni.

I think you have to manage the situation you're in.

If your dd failed her mocks, she clearly isn't en route for a highly academic career path right now.

She can look at something she has the qualifications for (and I don't agree all apprenticeships lead to badly paid careers, thinks like plumbing or being an electrician pay very well) or she can try again for better grades.

Either way, it has to be up to her to plan her life!

Try not to stress! This is her life and she might not want to go to university anyway!
Getting a degree is not the b all and end all (speaking as a successful person without one!)
She will find her way.

I failed my GCSE English and only got two others above a C.

I graduated from my Ph.D two years ago.

You need to chill out.

She doesnt have to stay in the SE though.

GCSEs are often tougher to give some able but under performing students a wake up call .

Ring the school for advice.

I think you need to focus on trying to encourage her to do the best she can, she doesn't need all A stars if she wants to go for a vocational course or a modern apprenticeship. She will need reasonable grades and passes at C and in English and Maths minimum.

. Lots of late bloomers do marvellously at vocational training / apprenticeships and some employers will even fund degrees later when she is in her twenties, if that's what she wants and has demonstrated aptitude. . It might even be win win if she is aware that she will still have options if she puts a bit more effort in even if A levels and university isn't immediately achievable. Don't make her feel a failure at this mock stage, or indeed at all.

Your DD’s path in life has to be suitable for her.

It’s affecting not effecting. Uni doesn’t guarantee a large salary.

Her school will have advice available with results as will the local careers service and your local sixth form /FE Colleges.

Between them they will be able to guide her to an appropriate set of courses to study for the next 2-3 years.

It's probably going to be worth her starting a planned course in September even if she's looking for apprenticeships or other full time employment.

It's obviously worth looking at dyslexia and similar potential difficulties if you didn't after the difficulties with mocks. Also worth bearing in mind that schools can mark mocks very strictly to attempt to improve motivation whilst examiners can be more generous.

Uni may come later for her rather than at 18. All is not 'lost' if she does more vocational courses now and returns to more academic stuff when she's older having a clear idea of what she wants to study. There are and have been for years Access courses for people over 21 who don't have A levels who want to do a uni course. She might also choose to study with the Open University.

Proud of getting 1 GCSE?

Yabu

Your poor daughter - I really hope you aren’t putting your expectations on her!! I lived with a Mum, who almost kicked me out when I failed my a levels because I didn’t meet ‘her’ ideals - needless to say we had a purely functional relationship when I got older and left home.

You do know there’s apprenticeship engineers/ lawyers jobs don’t you? Have you actually looked?? My DD got all A’s at Alevel, didn’t want to go to uni and is now half way through her apprenticeship in accounting. You perhaps need to change your mindset!!

Thought I was getting on ok in my career until I read this post and saw how I’m only earning 500quid a month more than an amount deemed ridculously low. Haha. Seriously though I’m doing nowhere near as well as colleagues because I wasted my time fanning around at uni when I could have been working my way up the ladder. Daughter’s hopes and dreams matter more than anything here at the end of the day, and feeling like a letdown to family isn’t something our kids should ever be made to feel, especially when she’s tried her best 😢

I can't really believe this is not a goady post as OP doesn't really sound like someone who went to university. If it is genuine... OP, if you wanted your dd to become doctor, architect, engineer whatever, you most definitely will not be reaching GCSE and be caught by surprise that she may fail. It just wouldn't happen. Families that want their child to go into those professions, rightly or wrongly, will be all over their kids academic performance from an early age. What have you been doing all this time if you have no clue what she will achieve at GCSE?

I had a friend who had poor GCSE results. Her parents also felt similarly to you and she aspired to be a dentist as it was a highly paid profession.

She went on to do A-Levels. She did poorly in her exams even after retaking. She went on to get a place at a uni but couldn't manage it. She lost her place after retaking a few times.

After that, she spent 5 years at her parents house mainly just in bed with depression and has worked in a supermarket since then (now aged 40).

My view is that instead of going down a path that was completely unsuitable for her, she could have flourished at doing something less academic that she was actually good at.

I’m not sure there is a kind way to say this. She has said she’s interested in being a hairdresser but you want her to be a lawyer or a doctor. Her grades have dropped dramatically. Is it possible that she feels that failing her exams is her only way out of your plans for her?

If she isnt academic enough to go to Uni why would you push her to do something she is likely to fail in.

A uni education doesnt mean she is going to get a fantastic high profile highly paid job.

Support her - if she is better academically suited to an apprenticeship then encourage it.

That doesn't make sense. I've met loads of people on engineering apprenticeships. They spend a significant amount of time actually working on the job in addition to learning so they're not entering the job market completely green like many graduates.

And plumbers etc can make six figure salaries if ambitious. Some people don't want to work in an office talking about blue sky thinking etc. Some people are happier being their own boss, doing a hands on job, and still being a high earner.

My son started an engineering apprenticeship after A levels. He did not want to go to uni but wanted to be a train driver. He was too young to apply so worked hard at his apprenticeship and passed but as soon as he was old enough, applied to be a driver.
He's now a driver manager on roughly £90k.
Also, have you ever met a poor plumber or heating engineer?
The NHS has lots of apprenticeships too.
You need to stop being so snobby and open your eyes to a world of possibilities for your daughter.

And tbh for a lot of middle class women quality of life is more dictated by their husband's salary than their own, even if it's a bit of a taboo statement. Many don't keep pushing the career with the same intensity into their 40s which is the decade men reach peak earning potential.

Yanbu it’s just something you need to get through

Why? Just to get herself into debt and fail more exams?
This world needs supermarket workers, cleaners, manual workers etc and none of those require a degree.

Yes - this is what struck me too. The OP seems to have very little knowledge of how her daughter is doing or why - beyond the poor mock exam performance. If you seriously want your child to be a Doctor / Lawyer etc, then you have surely been really engaged with their schoolwork, reports etc over the years? And if she has been consistently struggling, you'd know? Just seems really odd that OP is taken by surprise and only has her daughter's word for it that she revised. If you have these aspirations for your child, aren't you at least engaging with how much revision they're doing?? Odd.

This is sound advice. Hopefully, she will pass her GCSEs but Maths and English are the essentials, then as above, she can enrol at a good further education college on a course that suits her ability and interests.

But why do people so often default to discussing low paid jobs if uni isn't an option?

I agree they need done in the same way low paying jobs in academia and research need done, but all else being equal you'd be better off picking a job with a decent salary.

I hated my graduate job and I'm not overly money focused. Most of my hobbies are pretty cheap. However, I wouldn't have been very interested in a job with shit pay. I got my truck license for £2k (and also a few heavy plant tickets now) and my last contract on HS2 was paying £360 a day Mon-Thur for working mostly 16:00-19:45
and £200 for sitting at home on Friday on stand down. I'm only 30ish so I think that's a decent wedge, especially considering I have zero stress aside from when I occasionally prang a concrete block or something.

It was so easy if you could drive half decently. There was a batching plant onsite so I didnt even drive on the public roads except to get there. I just did two loads most days, which involved backing under the plant to load with concrete and then driving five mins down the haul road and pouring it into the foundations.

Even in my less than four hour shift I'd be sat around on my phone half the time as the piling rigs had to drill the holes first and they often imploded. I got paid £700 a day for working Sat/Sun on bank holiday. First day I spent ten hours napping in the truck/watching films as they couldn't get the admixtures right. Second day I did about an hour's work.

They didn't care about paying us to be on standby as they needed the foundations poured as soon as they managed to drill them as they'd cave in otherwise - I'm assuming that all the drilling teams were a bigger expense so they needed them not to be repeating the process multiple times.