How do you get able children to do more than the minimum?

[BrushYourHairRightNow]

I have two daughters in the equivalent of Y6 and Y4 (we live abroad). Both are bright, happy, sociable kids. Their first few years at school they were getting "top marks" in everything - though the assessments were pretty gentle. Now they do more and more tests and for both of them their marks are dropping to "average".

I coasted as a kid. I was bright and could get away with the minimum, so never really had to put the big effort in. I was always relieved to not get crap marks, and "happy" with my mediocre marks, but always a little ashamed that I didn't do better.

I've said to both girls that really I don't care about the marks themselves, but do care about a) how much effort they put in and b) how they feel afterwards (ie proud rather than relieved/ashamed).

But how do you reinforce that in them? They are so capable, and I HATE to see them go down the same path I did. It made me shy away from challenging opportunities, and whilst I've done ok now, I do know I could've made choices that made me feel good about myself instead of blocking out certain opportunities because I was scared they were going to just prove that I should've worked harder.

They both do some nice extracurricular activities where they see the obvious rewards from putting in the effort... It just doesn't end up the same when it comes to school work...

Encourage the good work. When they put effort or when they do well give praise. My dc like to do well. Although, I also have the same issue sometimes with my eldest, as she finds everything easy, so to do well she does not put much effort. However, that will hopefully change when she starts at an academic selective secondary school this september.

I don't have any easy answers here but have you looked into the Growth Mindset? Plenty of podcasts, articles etc.

This is where you definitely don't praise good marks, only effort. Your opinion as a parent does matter, and if they see that you admire and value hard work, it might help.

Are they doing their homework? The other thing that may help is if you are more involved in their learning. Sit beside them, be interested in what they are learning, ask lots of questions and be interested in their answers. If they are learning about the ancient Egyptians, visit the British Museum and watch related movies together. That kind of thing.

I think it can also help if you model learning to them, working through bits you find hard and talking about how you find the motivation.

(And to be clear I don't mean you are unhappy about good marks, it's just if they get a good mark, the emphasis of what you might be pleased about is the work they put in/what they learned)

@BrushYourHairRightNow Perhaps they have peaked? Hit a plateaux? Do you know what they cannot do in the tests? What do they not understand? What do teacher assessments show? Early promise is not always sustained. So maybe they are doing as well as they can? How do you judge effort? Lots of effort doesn’t always mean great intelligence or top in tests. Other DC also catch up and surpass. Has this happened?

The school has always recommended that they do homework on their own, without much help so that they can understand the child’s true ability, and there is a focus on managing work independently so this is what we do. We generally stay on hand for questions though and guide them if they need it.

However life has felt busy this school year so we probably haven’t been as on top of what they’ve got coming up as we could’ve been. Because they have become quite independent we’ve kind of let them get on with it.

So I think their homework is ok, but their marks come from tests and they are generally swerving revising. Eh we say “oh I see you’ve got a maths test coming up” and they’ll say “we can’t revise / books can’t be taken home / we’ve done loads of practice in class” when actually that is mild BS so that they can get out of doing it.

We’ve had some big talks about how important it is to push yourself, and know you’ve done all you can. But thinking this all through, they are still the kids and we need to be on it more.

The work has increased for sure, and I think we’ve (DH and I) taken our foot off a bit and so have the kids. Next year is a big exam year for our eldest so we’ve got to get it back a bit.

Teacher/parent engagement is generally only if there’s problems. I’ve been at parents evenings behire and the teacher has literally said “Everything is fine. Is there anything else you’d like to know”. Which is v typical for this country by all accounts!!

I love growth mindset stuff but haven’t looked at it for a while, so will do do again.

Thanks for the replies, it’s made me think a bit more!

Forgot to say there’s a language element as well. Both kids are fluent but we’re English speaking at home so not quite as submersed as a local. But both doing ok in that language.

I actually think the answer is that we need to focus as a family on “homework” and carve out dedicated time all together for it.

@BrushYourHairRightNow I think I would ask the teacher to identify what they get wrong in the tests. If you don’t know the gaps. I don’t see how you can fix them. So maybe ask for more details. I’m not sure pushing Dc all the time really works. Try and find out why they don’t want to revise? Are they fed up with it? Maybe iffer bribes and inducements but if you don’t know what they need to focus on, it’s difficult to help.

We get the marked tests brought home and we look through them, and it seems that most of it is quite "careless", not one thing in particular... Eg, they didn't revise for their language tests and then get verbs wrong. A few mins spent revising would've covered it.

They both know that it pays off to revise - the proof is in the pudding - they would just rather do other stuff (as is normal for kids) at the time.

However, I think we as the parents are putting too much responsibility on them - "Have you done enough revision?" is realistically only ever going to result in them saying "Yes" as an answer whether they genuinely think they have or not.

Whereas I think it's up to us to make sure they've got the right conditions (ie time, space, energy etc) to ensure that they have done enough revision and engaging with them whilst they're doing it, rather than just leaving them to it. I mean, how self-motivated will an 8 year old be to revise the evolution of man on her own?!

So I've kind of answered my own thread. They need a bit more more active, rather than passive, engagement from us. It's made me realise how busy life has become and how we've lost the focus a bit - so no wonder they have too.

Honestly I was like this until standardised testing made my school put me in advanced classes. Once the work became challenging / more interesting I naturally engaged with it more and so despite it being harder my grades became straight As. Being under challenged has real consequences for certain types of able children. I suspect this is what’s happening with your kids. Being bored is very demotivating

If we step back and look more at DCs as peers rather then children. The psychology is more in the realm swimmer's body fallacy rather than not applying themselves.

Whether 5 years old or 40, people will always put more effort into things they find easy. We enjoy what we find easy.

The transition to finding things easy is where the work goes, usually through observations that feed into teaching to see why DC might have blockers (at home rather than leaving to school). But ultimately people (including children) are not lazy.

I disagree. People put effort into things they find challenging enough to be interesting but not so hard as to be taxing / discouraging. The right level of challenge is what everyone needs both in school and work.

Overly easy tasks are boring! Think of the difficulty level that makes a crossword fun for you and that’s the sweet spot for enjoyable challenge.

No idea ... my DS is 22 now, has coasted along all throughout GCSEs, A levels & Uni ... managed to get into his first choice Uni (not RG ) ... despite dropping a grade or two ... had a great time but more focussed on the sporting side than studying... now awaiting degree results.
But I am very much a 'coaster' too so he probably got it from me rather than DH who is much more focused and hard working.
But on the positive side he has a happy, sunny personality, gets on with everyone and is always cheerful - finds part time jobs easily and although no graduate job yet is happy to work full time in a busy local pub whilst he looks around for future employment.

Both my boys only do the minimum. Mind you so do I in many areas. Why do more than you need to? If you want an A* A'level to get into a particular Uni course then fine. If you only need 55% to pass your ACA accountancy papers then why do more?

If your children are not scoring as well as you'd like in tests, my inclination, as a primary school teacher who tests children all the time 😞, is that they likely can't actually do what you believe they can do. So much of primary school testing doesn't necessarily test things which reflect effort in the moment, but rather their secure knowledge of key facts and understanding of / ability to apply methods and formulae, remembering a sequence of operations to perform, etc.
Writing is a bit different to Reading, SPaG or Maths. In Writing, effort and perseverance really do matter: the ability to stick at and engage with a task over time, returning to it from different angles, weighing up editorial decisions and actively problem-solving around a wide range of issues. I have had this issue this year where pupils (upper KS2) have just not performed as solidly in Writing as I'd anticipated. On reflection, I tend to come back to the idea that children do well when they can: if my competent orator consistently struggles to express ideas in writing, it's probably not because they're lazy or unmotivated. I have probably not made the task accessible enough for them or given them enough tools to work with.

Find them a class with kids who work as hard as you want yours to. Use peer pressure for good ;)

I feel a bit like you are projecting your child self onto them and mistaking them for being just like you were. Just because you coasted as a child and were capable of scoring higher, doesn’t mean that they are.

You don’t really know why their grades on exams are more average, you’re just assuming it’s the same reason your grades were average.

You said the mistakes were largely a wrong verb in a foreign language- perhaps they aren’t as fluent in writing as they are in speaking it?

So, are you sure it’s lack of revision vs still learning the language after only a year in? Or perhaps a bit of test anxiety meaning they don’t do as well in exams as they do in coursework?

For us, it was a matter of spending time with our DS basically "forcing" him to do homework and other forms of learning, with us sat with him. Sometimes it was formal with the TV off and working "hands on" with him. Other times it was having him in the same room doing his work whilst we did something else like reading, but where we could keep an eye on him and stop him getting distracted. Every time he decided to work in his own room, he simply didn't do it, hence why we made him do it under our view/supervision.

Because he was in that habit during primary years, it remained "the norm" for him to do his secondary school homework/studying in the same room as us too, right through to A levels, and as a result he actually did the work to a good standard and learned the "separation" between work and fun, i.e. once he'd done his work, he'd go to his room to play on his xbox, ipad, PC, or whatever and didn't need to pretend he was working (neither to us nor himself).

He's now at Uni, and still won't "study" in his room even though he's got a desk, shelving, high speed internet, etc. His room is for "fun". When he has work to do, he goes into campus and studies/works either in the library or in one of the many study areas in the departmental buildings. He really loves the "work/fun" divide.

Good habits start young and can last a lifetime!

So true, peer pressure can be a good thing if you're surrounded by workers who want to do as well as they can. That rubs off on everyone around them. Just like it works in reverse if you end up lumped with a load of people who don't want to work and aren't interested which drags you down.

@elij

Whether 5 years old or 40, people will always put more effort into things they find easy. We enjoy what we find easy.

Not necessarily. As a pp said above, if the accountancy exam pass mark is 55%, then why aim for 90% - it achieves nothing, especially in ungraded exams which are binary with a pass/fail mark. Obviously different where grades are awarded that actually matter, like GCSE and A levels.

Personally, I very quickly lose interest if something is easy, whether it's an exam, a crossword or other puzzle or even DIY.

Coincidentally, me son is doing his final Uni exam today. Talking to him last night, he says he's aiming for 40% which is the pass mark. He gets nothing for a higher grade. If he passes it, he will be awarded a first. If he fails, he has to do it again, then once he passes it, he gets awarded a first! So, it's simply pass/fail. It's a strange paper with a choice of two 70 mark questions, the other 30 marks being multiple choice. His strategy is simply to chose which of the two 70 mark questions he can pick up about 20 marks guaranteed - he doesn't want to risk one where he "may" do better and get 50-75% but may screw it up and get less than 20 - so he'll be closely examining every part/section of each question to evaluate which one will guarantee him scraping a pass rather than the aspirational one where he could get a lot more but with greater risk!

How does he get a First if he 'just' passes? Doesn't the university give out second and third class degrees?

You don't need to get the "first" percentage on all papers to get a first. It's all averaged out over all the papers, assignments, tests, etc for all the modules over the second and third years. If you get high enough scores throughout the years and in other year end exams, then you've basically already scored enough marks for a first, and don't need more marks from the last exam - that's his situation. He just has to pass it!

My children simply were not tested all the time at school. They had work assessed. Not that I was convinced it was used for planning lessons by the teachers! Mine did very little revision at primary as a result. They read what was required. They learnt tables and number bonds. Didn’t seem to hinder them. They probably enjoyed life as they did all sorts of clubs and activities after school. No doubt others were being coached for future greatness. Frankly, if Dc are interested they will do well. You cannot force them. I would like to think Dc enjoyed primary school. They understood secondary required more so they did more.

Both have had periods of coasting in life! Effort was made when it made a difference. Doesn’t seem to have harmed them. I’d call it self preservation. When the going gets tough, the tough get going though.

I am not just saying this because they are my kids, but we have seen the "proof in the pudding" so to speak. DC1 practised practised practised something and got great marks. With DC2 there were three parts to a test in history - we didn't realise and only focused on two of those parts when revising. 2 out of the 3 parts the marks were spot on, the bit we didn't revise for was a poorer mark.

Classic case of you get out what you put in.

Teaching styles are definitely different to those in the UK...

I am conscious of projecting. But don't we all want our kids to learn from our own mistakes rather than watch them follow the same path. I've struggled with self-confidence for YEARS because I was constantly told I was bright/clever but have had no foundation in how to put effort in and how to push through the hard stuff, so instead shied away from it.

We've lived in this country for 7 years, the kids have done all their schooling here. For sure they are fluent, but not native due to the fact that culturally we are still very much English (ie their local language skills are way better than mine, we speak English at home, extended family is all in English, lots of English books/films etc). So yes, they do need to work harder in the foreign language, but nothing that sitting down and reviewing verb endings for 10 minutes wouldn't fix.

Yes this is what we'd like to instill. And actually, on reflection - they used to do their homework together in the lounge up at the table. Now they tend to go off to their rooms, and quite possibly stare at the wall for 30 mins.

Creating the good habits is really important. Knowing how to create them and also having that sense of pride that they deserve to feel proud of themselves is actually more important to me than the marks they are getting.