Could work ethic be the one thing schools could teach to really change results

[gofigure5]

Sometimes when looking at my DC and talking to other parents who lament the lack of work ethic/drive (for academics) in their children too, it seems a topic that comes up very frequently.

I should add that these kids are all at an academic (independent) school and and did very well in primary and went on to have grammar school offers so they certainly have the potential to achieving highly.

Issue is, they still, at 15/16/18, tend to procrastinate and be very uneven in their application towards study.

At home we talk about the importance of effort. I do get frustrated when I see they only put in the bare minimum. DC have class mates who are super bright and don't do much work (or at least they say they don't) but most of the others are not necessarily brighter than them at all but they do seem to put an enormous amount of effort and hours into their work and so reap the benefits.

My DC's school, and I suppose many schools, teach study/revision skills and talk about the importance of setting out what to do, time tabling and using past papers.

But when I look at the common denominator amongst my friends and our children who seem not to be reaching their potential, it's this lack of drive/work ethic (and instead their procrastination) that seems to be what sets them apart from those who are successful.

We have noticed that, generally speaking, children of teachers ALL seem to work consistently hard and get great results (even those who are 'average'. Teacher kids are clearly not all naturally super bright; some are, some are not, as would be expected amongst all groups, but there seems to be this ingredient which means they work consistently hard with a steely drive and work ethic).

Both my DH and I are driven, our kids see us work hard, help others and volunteering in sports/the community and we always frame things in terms of working hard rather than talking about 'intelligence'. At times we do discuss results (and might ask what was achieved v the class average score) which I guess is a no-no.

Would love to know if there are schools out there that actively teach working hard/drive/work ethic (and, if so, how do they do it) AND what teacher parents/grandparents do that seems to produce such hard working children who go on to do so well.

I don’t think there really is a magic ingredient. I think you can create an environment where hard work is valued… but you (each of us) can inadvertently really press the wrong buttons, to ensure that the kids reject the religion they are being indoctrinated into.

Some questions to think about are:
Whats the difference between being diligent and being neurotic?
Why do I always have to do my best? Why is my best the only version of me that is acceptable to you?
When do I get to do something for it’s own sake and joyfulness, without It being compared or measured by you?
Are people who don’t do their best at all times worthless, and how do you as a parent make sure that your children don’t have the impression that you find them worthless if they don’t comply to your way of living- which is where the “cultural factors” play out.

@AlbertVille couldn’t agree more.

@AlbertVille actually, that’s not entirely true. I agree with there having to be a balance.
We hear on MN all the time about posters kids not working, not trying, not interested etc. So some obviously do struggle with motivation. None of my three are like that. But I don’t think it’s anything we’ve done in particular. I think it’s mostly innate. They want to do well, whatever ‘do well’ means for them. We need to encourage them to sit back sometimes and smell the roses. Just enjoy. Not always easy as I think they feel surrounded by competition. Not only with others but with themselves.

This is so interesting. I think there is definitely a continuum with the 'doing your best' and neuroticism/perfectionism which perhaps is not always healthy although undoubtedly a key driver and fantastic if you can get the balance right.

My DC do well but are never going to be ones now to always give 110%. One, in particular could, if they applied themselves properly, be that child (naturally very bright) to smash it out of the park, prizes/competitions etc but they are just not motivated by those things even though these things undoubtedly would be helpful now that university applications are so competitive.

I have seen a few times on here the reference to 'doing your best'. Amongst teachers their 'doing your best' is probably not the same for them as it is for most of us. I think in their world it means 'I'll be there to help you be your best' so that from an early age there is much more education and helpful input and going over what could be redone/reworked to produce 'the best'.

I think this is where perhaps most parents diverge. Parents are on the whole involved with the reading, doing the spellings etc. But I don't think we spend enough time analysing the teachers' feedback on specific work or test results i.e. it's probably more a focus of 'next time' instead of really drilling down on what went wrong and coming up with strategies and teaching to the gaps . That can of course, spill over into perfectionism/anxiety - and it is something I have seen amongst some of my friends who have teachers in the family - although they are delightful kids and well adjusted.

In fact, and this is perhaps where I went wrong: I somehow thought that too much involvement in homework in the early days was somehow cheating (ridiculous, I know!) but I now know that starting the involvement/support very early most likely leads to it being internalised and encourages children to seek out help. My DC never really seek our help out, they feel they 'want to do it on their own' and I think this is probably why they don't approach teachers for help either, which is a shame, and something that at sixth form is seen as a real negative.

So, perhaps having the inspirational / motivational talks at secondary/sixth form stage is simply just too late. It will inspire those who are already motivated but to get a strong work ethic ingrained it needs to start much, much earlier, at the early stages of primary school.

Teachers have far too much to do already but I wonder whether parents - or at least those who have the ability to be or want to be involved - could do with almost being shown by teachers what 'best' looks like (already in KS1), how to use a mark scheme and examiners' report and use these to inform and gently guide how to improve.

In reality, I think for most children and parents, mark schemes as a concept only enter into the mix when kids are at GCSE level, when work patterns are likely already firmly set. Show parents how they can teach their children to analyse what went wrong and then work to improve but much earlier. We can't all be teachers but we can be perhaps offered the tools and how to use them? The GPA in the US also seems a good system in that it encourages consistent application of effort. But I think some independents have a little bit of that as they send home reports after each term with feedback and predicted/on-track grades.

I come from a country where both sets of parents tend to work fulltime (regardless of 'social class') and so there never was (or at least back then) a culture of parents involving themselves with their children's' education to the extent we do here. So the idea of being so actively involved with the children's school work was anathema to me and I'm still very much learning about 'how to parent in relation to academics' here. Given children are set so early here, it clearly is important to try to reach those higher sets earlier (if the kids have the ability, of course) so that they don't put a label of themselves as somehow less able from an early age. I guess here those with heavy parental involvement get the benefit of that, gaining confidence from that.

On the other hand, in my home country, there is much more fluidity and less of a set path like it is here where 'one' is expected to go straight to university after A-levels or, if not, take a 'gap' year then back onto the path again. Instead, there many people might not reach their 'level' until much later. They may go into the world or work but then go back into academia later, when they're in their mid-20s. Also less focus on universities being of a certain 'tier'.

Fascinating responses on here - thanks for all the constructive posts and suggestions!

I think schools have enough on their plate, and the idea from parents that they have to do something because the parents have decided they have potential for it and also the idea of the child's life is over if they don't get top marks means that parents are living through them and not listening to what the children want themselves

Yes I would agree. I would say that teachers generally will have had positive experiences of school / education and pass this on to their own dc. They will value school and teachers more than the general population, and therefore potentially make more of the opportunities offered by school. As a teacher, I have very high expectations of my own dc, and have always worked with them to make sure they are achieved.

My 3 children all have high drive to work and 2 are very high achieving while the other is laid back but successful in life. It's not something that can be taught if it's not modelled at home.

It’s not important to reach the higher sets! Thats one of the issues parents don’t understand. It’s best to have a good understanding of content at the right pace. How can every child be top set? They plainly cannot. It’s also wrong to think that hard work will deliver a child into the top set. The whole key to education is enjoying learning and being encouraged to be your best. That’s not top set best for every child. My DD2 showed great improvement at maths when dropped a set. Why? Got the best teacher! Speed dropped a bit and DD filled in the gaps. So much happier.

At secondary I never saw my DDs work or pored over test results. No idea what they were. DDs developed their goals and worked towards them. I found grammar parents I knew (obviously not a huge sample) to be far more anxious and wanting their kids to strive harder! Not a trend I noticed in the parents of DC at the secondary schools who were more relaxed but encouraged dc to do as well as they could.

At my son's state school, Alumni and ex pupils were a big part of it. All organised and financed by the "friends of....." group of parents and basically nothing to do with the school, teaching staff, etc., other than use of the land and buildings for fundraising events, etc. They also ran a uniform/equipment "shop" selling second hand uniform, stationary/calculators, books, etc open every Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, again staffed by volunteers from the "Friends of" group. They were very active right from the open days and new starter induction days and "recruited" parents right from the start, so it was a kind of conveyor belt of parents being involved for 5-7 years, although some continued long after their kids had left. The fund raising paid for all sorts, such as a 3d printer, lighting for the stage, kits for the school sports teams etc. And no, it wasn't a "rich" area at all, it was in the run down North West! Get parents/volunteers involved and the cost to the school is minimal.

Teachers are good at helping their dc to navigate through school and to know what's important and what isn't. I don't think it's about respect exactly. Insider knowledge about the system is useful. My dc know that I am openly dismissive of certain spects of what my their school does and I would never say the teacher is always right. I encourage them to recognise bad teaching or bad policy but make it clear that they still need to do as they are told!

In reality, I think for most children and parents, mark schemes as a concept only enter into the mix when kids are at GCSE level, when work patterns are likely already firmly set.

Unlike when I was at school, it is generally expected that students from the beginning of secondary school have access to assessment criteria. I'm currently marking a Y8 German assessment. The students had the markscheme on Teams well in advance of the assessment, to help them focus their revision on the right things. They then have a tick list so that they can check that they have fulfilled all the criteria they will be marked on.

@AllProperTeaIsTheft

Teachers are good at helping their dc to navigate through school and to know what's important and what isn't. I don't think it's about respect exactly. Insider knowledge about the system is useful.

Insider knowledge is indeed useful, but in these days, it's not necessary as there's so much advice, guidance, etc available freely at the touch of a screen via online forums (such as this!), unlimited you tube videos, helpsheets, worksheets, podcasts, etc. Parents need to step back from mindless tik-toks and actually "parent" a bit by doing some research to help their kids.

My OH and I aren't school teachers (OK, I taught at college for a while but that was 16-18 & adults doing AAT accounting, so not a school environment nor subject), but we researched things for ourselves to help our DS, both in terms of finding the best fit of school, looking regularly on SMH and the school's portal, various online fora for general background, etc. I honestly don't think we'd have made a better job of advising him and guiding him through his school years had we been teachers ourselves. None of it is secret and none of it is rocket science.

We need to find ways of getting parents to step up and not just abdicate the entire upbringing of their children to "someone else".

@AllProperTeaIsTheft

Unlike when I was at school, it is generally expected that students from the beginning of secondary school have access to assessment criteria. I'm currently marking a Y8 German assessment. The students had the markscheme on Teams well in advance of the assessment, to help them focus their revision on the right things. They then have a tick list so that they can check that they have fulfilled all the criteria they will be marked on.

Some teachers do, some don't. For any subjects where the teacher didn't start off by giving a copy of the exam curriculum and marking scheme, we found them ourselves and printed them off for him, so that he could use them and refer to them throughout the course, rather than just at the end during the revision phase. At least parents can do that these days (and once you've done it a few times, your child can start to research that kind of thing for themselves!), back in the day, (1970s/80s for me), we were reliant on teachers for printing and handing them out - again even back then, some did, some didn't, so not much has changed really, except nowadays there are more options and easier access to fill the gaps where resources etc provided by the school are less than ideal!

@taxtaxguru I think it's unusual for a state school not to have a PTA that fundraises. That's not what I meant. The school I referred to was doing proper big gift capital campaigns paying for whole buildings.

PTAs don't do that and nor are they allowed to. And running proper alumni schemes, endowments etc is a big job, which is why universities have teams doing it.

Wouldn’t you worry that if parents involve themselves too much in homework, kids don’t learn to take responsibility for it themselves? It’s a fine line between supporting the kid and making it your homework!

I think the art is to withdraw gradually once good habits have been formed. We were very engaged with our son's school work once he started secondary school, i.e. virtually sitting with him every evening to help him do it, but we soon started pulling back and leaving him to it and withdrew completely over a few months. When it came to GCSEs, we did the same and got very involved to get him up and running with revision, i.e. helping him make mind maps, making revision notes, doing exam practice questions, but again, pulled back after a couple of months. He did his A levels and his degree entirely on his own with no input at all from us (we'd not have been able to help much anyway!)

I did none of that. Only the educated know what a mind map is! Hopefully the school helped with revision although DD2 told me she was not great at it. Afterwards.

In my day, feedback from teachers was minimal. Words like “satisfactory”, “good” was about it. “See me” was the dreaded one. Usually a telling off and no advice forthcoming.

I only found out about mind maps whilst looking at online fora for getting revision technique ideas. It wasn't something I did in my school days.

I’m really curious about this. Did you do O levels? And we’re given mark schemes? I went to a (supposedly) excellent comp and definitely didn’t get a mark scheme. My year was a mix of o levels and the then new GCSEs.

I haven’t RTFT but, as a secondary teacher, I can tell you the work ethic needs to come from home. I don’t see your child enough to change them.

As a parent you need to model the rewards of hard work as an end in itself (ie not by giving treats, money etc). Discuss it.

If there’s a teacher connection I think it’s because my kids saw me working evenings and weekends and accepted that you had to work hard. They both had weekend jobs at 16 and paid for their own social lives.

I also never made excuses for them If they didn’t do it, they had to face the consequences.

I come from a poor, council estate background and my children always understood the need for a work ethic. They are now both successful, well paid professionals. Remember the phrase ‘they can’t be what they cant see’.

Yes, O levels and CSEs! Some teachers did, some didn't. I remember some subjects where we didn't have a clue about mark schemes and not even the exam spec/curriculum, and I certainly remember a couple of occasions where there was a question on a topic we definitely hadn't studied in classes. Past papers/exam practice questions were also hard to get - usually we'd just see the previous year's paper as the mock which was the only time we saw what we should expect in the real exam. Thank heavens for the internet these days along with CGP revision/practice books! Back in the day, if the teacher didn't provide the practice questions etc we'd be working blind as to what to expect!

I did none of that. Only the educated know what a mind map is!

I bloody hate mind maps . They are not compatible with the way my brain works!

@gofigure5 have you seen this thread from last year asking a very similar question…

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/4828085-encouraging-a-love-of-learning-and-instilling-a-good-work-ethic

I would advocate an early focus on how study effectively adapted to the individual including the neuroscience behind it by short courses towards the end of primary school and then repeated regularly. Also a short course on neurodiversity and perfectionism so that DCs as well as teachers and parents can pick up earlier whether they fit into one of the categories and what to do about it. Most parents are clueless about both so it should come from the school.
There will always be different character types who tend to do better at school ie people pleasers (sometimes due to cultural background), competitive (sometimes reflecting parental push) or perfectionist types. My DCs were / are of the short-cut variety but I think acquired the notion of the benefit of repetitive, often boring effort through music and sport.

There's a problem when kids are exhorted to "do your best", namely that this is so woolly and vague that it's actually meaningless.

When my DCs were in elementary school they were taught very methodically how to produce written work in various styles. Each exercise was done in stages, with planning, rough draft, final draft, and "best work" as the stages. Each stage required consultation with the teacher. The emphasis was on the process, which taught the students to reflect on their own work, and to realise that they could work persistently toward improvement.

As they progressed, the drafting process was applied to ever more challenging material in English, History, History of Art, and other essay subjects or subjects where research and writing were involved. There were deadlines for each stage.

In every year, the syllabus was outlined, along with the general breakdown of elements of the students' contribution to the class that would be graded, with the percentage accorded to each element explained - for instance, 50% individual written work, 20% verbal contribution/ participation, 30% exams and tests including final exams. Each assignment or project also came with its own grading rubric.

It was highly systematized and transparent, meaning that everyone knew where they stood and what they were aiming for.

The focus on the process of writing as opposed to the finished product, and including drafting and editing, was an eye opener.

Not RTFT but answering your original question. I coordinate the EPQ in my school and around 60% of students see it through to completion. For very many of them, they say it kicked them into cultivating a good work ethic. They may have been procrastinators, but the accountability of having to face me/their parents for regular reviews made them step things up. I love getting emails from them from uni saying how much the EPQ has helped them in terms of personal organisation as well as researching, referencing and logging their sources.

Personally, obviously I fit into the teacher category and both my adult DDs have an excellent work ethic. DH is probably more driven than I am, mostly because his home-life as a teen was challenging (single-parent, disabled sibling etc.) so he had to work a lot out for himself. The DDs grew up observing his work habits. We are also musicians and like PPs I supervised practice sessions when they were younger, so they had that discipline or structure. If only I put the same zeal into house tidying.