My DD1 (nearly 10) has hit a really bad patch with concentration, I think this is partially due to early puberty or pre-puberty (has had many signs since last year) but I am starting to worry how it affects her education and outcomes.
Whilst she is popular, very active in sports, orchestra, productions, dancing and seems to relish every opportunity on offer, when it comes to her academic work both in and out of school her efforts are pretty poor.
At the end of last year her teacher told me her English tests showed her as "below average" (she was in Y4) - this decline from begin "way above average" the year before, was a result of her acing half of the test and then losing concentration and completely flunking the other half. She also does this at home.
We sat at home with L5 (11+) papers and she aced them all. At school she could barely complete a L4 paper. (Same format). She just came home last night and told us that she did the same with maths. She was always in the top set and now they are getting streamed based on a paper where she said she got "distracted" and made loads of "silly mistakes". I suspect she will now be moved from the "top set" to a much lower one.
The frustrating thing is that again, she is able to complete very complex maths with no mistakes when someone sits next to her (not helping her, just supervising and reminding her not to daydream). Daydreaming seems to be a huge issue.
She also does this with her homework, I cannot leave her to do it, I have to sit on top of her as she would just go with half of it incomplete or make a complete hatch of it as she basically can't sit and concentrate. I have tried the following in the past year;
- rewards, punishments, long chats, shouting (a lot, not proud of it and it doesn't work), pep talks, ignoring it - none of it seems to work. I just want her to achieve her potential - any ideas?