Disapointing GCSE results

[happysunflour]

So DS got three 9s, three 8s, a 7 and two 6s for his GCSEs and his disappointment is so huge that he doesn't come out of his room ALL DAY. He is regarded as an academic child and I can see he expected him to have done better. But are they that bad for an academic child?? OK he could have done better in some areas but I still think they are good enough and however the results I would like him to celebrate the end of the stressful year. Perhaps he has friends who got all 9s or something I don't know. How could I tell him he did just fine??

Well it seems to me this year there's a lot of kids (mine included) who were predicted all 9s or 8/9s and haven't ended up with that. I think it has been a stricter year and honestly if he wanted a better grade and expected it and studied for it then it's pretty crushing not to get it.
I think telling him today that it's a good result is not actually that helpful. That is not what he wants to hear.
Acknowledge his disappointment, ask him which ones he's most disappointed with. Empathise, tell him you understand how frustrating it must be given he worked so hard etc. Assuming he's got into the 6th form he wants you can then say "at least you got 9s in your favourite subjects /A level subjects" or whatever.
He prob needs a bit of time and space is all.

This are, of course, a good set of results.
If he’s been expecting 8/9s across the board then he’s going to be disappointed. He’s allowed to be disappointed if he was expecting better and feels he’d worked hard enough to get them.
Did he work hard enough to have expected better?

These are genuinely great results, and if you haven't already, you should tell him how proud you are of him. They'll keep all his doors open, including Oxbridge or Medicine if that's what he wants.

Can you offer him a reward, maybe lunch out or a shopping trip or something tomorrow to show how genuinely pleased with him you are?

Yes to all of this 🙌

Thank you so much for all your reassuring words.

People would often comment how bright he was, which he absolutely hated, and yes he was predicted mostly 9 with a bit of 8. So I guess he felt he should have done better.

He is in the entertainment business so missing lessons happened a lot and he was busy before and after the exams. He prioritised the subjects that would affect his a level and was openly saying that he would not care much about other subjects. But it seems he didn't mean to get 7 or 6.

Of course, I tried to tell him they were amazing results but he didn't want to hear any of them so I stopped talking about it and let him have some privacy until he came out of his room for supper.

I don't think the school pressured him unhealthily. It is more like coming from himself. So I guess he just needs to learn to have a realistic perspective and to deal with disappointment. He seems a lot more cheerful now (though he still refuses to talk about GCSEs).

I think telling him today that it's a good result is not actually that helpful. That is not what he wants to hear.

This.

He didn't want me to say 'how happy I was' or 'he did very well' speech. As the poster suggested time, space and empathy are what he probably needs. It's a shame though. I thought we were celebrating tonight.

"In the entertainment business" 😁

I guess he's learnt a lesson about what economists call "opportunity cost" then. If you want to be top in exams you do need to focus on those to the exclusion of all else, at least for the 2 or 3 months prior.

He was strategic - and it worked.

just give him time to process. my son was predicted 5-9s 9 (1 x 9 for english). Ended up with 3 x 9s and 5 x 8 (2 of which were 2 marks off a 9) and a 5. So somehow managed to dramatically improve his grades. And yet all day he was upset about not getting a 9 for english as it was predicted and he tried the hardest for this...we're telling him but you got 3 x 9 for subjects not predicted 9s...

The only time I cried with stress was before my O-levels - not because of the academics but because of everything else (family holiday when I just wanted to study, violin exam, weekly activities). Perhaps part of it is coming down after the rollercoaster with the acting, and finding it’s not quite what he expected.

The A level system really supports people who want to excel at 3 or 4 subjects and are less bothered about the others, which they can ditch. The IB suits all rounders better. They are both much,much harder than GCSEs. If you have really good teachers and are bright, getting the top mark in GCSEs is almost formulaic - gathering every last mark without making mistakes, according to patterns that you have been told in advance you will be tested on. Being able to do that is not the same as being able to ace A levels, which require a much better grasp, intelligence and plasticity (or IB which is vast). Lots of people ace their GCSEs and get disappointing A levels because of the huge gap. If your son’s GCSE results have pricked his teenage sense of invincibility/almost entitlement to be top because he is clever, that is a much more valuable life lesson than a basket of 9s which promise so much and deliver so little. When he plans his gigs in sixth form he will have to make some difficult choices how to balance that with academic studies and life in general.

Hopefully not in the adult entertainment business OP

I found it funny as a lot of my 11s are in the entertainment business. Which really does get in the way of their learning.

If this young man's in a band or music theatre troupe or whatever then all power to him - but everything worthwhile takes time.

This advert from Maureen Lipman has always been dear to my heart - and speaks up for the hidden people who aren't grinning in the papers:

I really don't know why they don't revert to A*-C grades as being passes. Most people (above 25 or so?), in their heads, convert new grades to their more easy-to-grasp yesteryear equivalent. So really what is the point?

Once upon a time, even in super high-achieving schools, it was extremely rare for anyone to get all A*s or As. And young people (nor their parents) would have expected to ' ace' all subjects. Very very few people are equally good at all subjects, are they?

Think it's good to build into young people's lives some resilience to accept that less-than-perfection-is-okay. We seem to be moving in the other direction which is not okay at all.

Agree with previous posters that the OP's YP's results are excellent, and need to be viewed in the context of the wider cohort than a very high-achieving school/friendship group.

@LouisCatorze A* - C were passes. But so were D - F.
In my GCSE's I got 3 C's, 2 Ds and 1 F. How many GCSEs do I have? I have 6. Not 3. I PASSED 6 GCSEs.
I hate this "anything below grade 4/grade D is a fail" because it's a lie. They are low grades - but still passes.

No they're not. A C Or above is a pass.

Incorrect. GCSEs are Level 1/2 courses.

Grades 1-3 are level 1 passes.
Grades 4-9 are level 2 passes.

When people ask for a certain number of GCSEs or equivalent they are often using it as shorthand for “level 2 passes”.

The results haven’t been scaled right back though. They aren’t ‘much harsher’ they are slightly better than 2019 and only slightly worse than last year. This years cohort did not have any gcse disruption due to covid. Sometimes we just don’t do as well as we hoped, final exams are not a particularly fair method of assesment and many people are very bright and struggle with exams. Others are just naturally good at exams. I think overall kids work harder and are pushed more than when I was at school so it’s difficult to get top grades. There’s also an expectation from social media that anyone can do anything. I don’t think it’s helpful to kids to tell them the exam boundaries were harsher, they weren’t.

No they are technically a pass or the grades would be a-c then u. It’s just that for most things they’ll ask for a pass at c or above

How ridiculous. He won’t get far with that perfectionistic attitude. Nothing is ever good enough for some young people.

He is in the entertainment business so missing lessons happened a lot and he was busy before and after the exams. He prioritised the subjects that would affect his a level and was openly saying that he would not care much about other subjects. But it seems he didn't mean to get 7 or 6.

In which case he is correct that they are not great grades for him because he knows he could have done better.

Telling him that they are great grades in general won't help because he knows he not only underperformed, but that it was his actions that caused it.

A discussion is therefore needed about his entertainment business (is this a professional thing where the school sanctioned missing lessons or was he bunking off?) and whether he needs to scale it back for A-levels in order to ensure that he doesn't underperform there. Did he make progress with his entertainment thing, so was it worth it?

It's very confusing then because in those charts that show equivalence between 1-9 and A-U, it says 4 is a standard pass and 5 is a strong pass. So there is a clear implication that anything below a 4 is a fail.

But as you say, @Takoneko when people say pass, they mean level 2 so it feels a bit like semantics to say actually 1-3 are passes but at level 1 because they don't count for passes.

I’m in Northern Ireland and we still have A star to C. My son got 3 A stars, 4 As and 2 Bs and is delighted. In conversion a 9 is A star, 8 is Lower A star high A, 7 an A, 6 a B so your boy got 7 A stars/A and 2 Bs in old money - how is that not fantastic? Maybe if you explained it to him in the old grades.

I would be asking why he feels disappointed. Is it a specific subject? Is it that he has heard how friends/other students have done and feels his don't reflect how academic he thinks he is?

He needs to identify why he is disappointed and then work out why he didn't get the grades he wanted and learn from his mistakes. It sounds as though he didn't prioritise his revision over his entertainment stuff? That's a big learning curve. Was he possibly a little but cocky?

What he needs to come out with is:

• reflect how he felt after each exam. Did he come out thinking they were ok? Did he finish papers?
• process what has happened and accept he can't now change it
• look at grade boundaries and see how close he was
• identify what 'went wrong' or what didn't work eg did he do lots of revision but got a low grade? If so then find a different revision technique
• get into a positive mindset and acknowledge that it's 'A' levels that will get him the uni place and they are a BIG step up

Reiterate that comparison is the thief of joy and you can't change the past but you can take control of the future

Agree 100%. OPs son has exceptional results in my mind.
My DS is predicted 5/6s next summer which on the new system look OK. But Bs and Cs were still celebrated in our day. Now it feels like anything less than 7/8/9 isn’t valued which feels so wrong. Particularly when mental health isn’t great amongst our teens right now.

Reassure him how fantastic he has done and how proud you are.

My DS got all 6 and one 7.

He worked hard but he's also naturally clever and could probably have got 8 and 9s if he pushed himself....but that's not who he is.

And I'm proud of that. I'm proud he's calm under pressure and takes everything in his stride. He's well rounded , he's a kind and caring young man and very mature.

Your son needs to know that the numbers on his slip do not define him.

They are just the ONE route to the next step.

He could have failed and there would still be options for him.

I got A*s back in my day.

I obviously sat in the same classroom as those who got Cs when I went to college. We were all on the same page.
Top grades made no difference whatsoever!!

Also I was a whizz at languages apparently....took French A Level.and failed..I found it way too hard!

GCSEs are not everything!

I wish schools etc would stop applying so much pressure. It's silly.

Hugs to your son.