Nat 5 with little support from school

[Ayryfairy]

DD is in S4. I'm concerned for her exams. School has a long history of very poor results.

I am trying to support her at home but we are in effect trying to do the whole of each subject at home. For some subjects there isn't even a subject teacher.

We are using the hodder revision books right now and I will print off the course specification for each subject. I dont think that will be enough. Communication with the school is very bad. They say she's doing fine but she doesn't seen to know what they have covered. She has no notes and no textbooks. Everything is done online but they seem to google everything and there are no learning materials. Obviously I have approached the school but been told all is well. Parents from the year above are urging everybody to get tutors but we are not able to do that.

Can she manage with just the revision books? I read somewhere they are aimed at helping you scrape through and not attain higher marks. Moving her is not an option at this stage. She was an A grade pupil at her previous school but not now and the new school views a C as a really good mark. I know it is all numbers now for grades.

That sounds terrible. Off the top
of my head, these are two sites that our school recommends, but you will
need a login from your school, I think.

https://scholar.hw.ac.uk/using.html
https://www.e-sgoil.com/senior-phase/study-support/

There are lots of other online resources if you have a look. Sometimes other schools have good stuff on their website.
Are you sure that there aren’t notes/resources on Google classroom or similar?

TeeJay books are good for
maths.

This site is really good but you need a subscription https://letsachieve.co.uk/pricing/

What subjects is she doing. I left in 2019 with AAAAAAAB at n5 and AAAABB in higher. I can maybe share some resources I used? I know the coursework hasn’t changed vastly as I have a nephew in S4 currently x

DD also attends a low achieving school and got AAAAABB in N5, but we had 3 tutors to help as there were teacher changes in several subjects, meaning she often didn't know what she was meant to be doing.

The study books are good, but they are best for exam revision as parts will be hard to understand without a teacher or tutor to explain them.

I would really recommend a tutor if you can get one. Rates do vary. You can have a searh on Facebook or post requesting one on a local page. You can also look on sites such as 'first tutors' or 'my tutor', there are some good tutors on there and their rates can vary from £20ph up to about £60ph. You can get university students, or actual teachers (I prefer actual teachers and ones who work in Scotland - make sure you read their profiles). You can expand the search within a 25 mile radius to get more matches and opt to recieve tuition online.

In addition to tutors, DD attended every supported study class that was available. She used YouTube - there's some good teachers on there who uploaded videos during lockdown so just search for 'national 5 maths', 'national 5 English' etc and see what comes up. DD found this really useful.

And there's bitesize website, scholar and e-scoil or whatever its called that is meant to be good.

Create a timetable for your DD with a subject each night on each subject (this is in addition to homework time). put in the timetable what she is to do. It helps to be organised and get into the pattern of studying. An hour a night should be ok. You will need to do your own research into what she is meant to know in order to create the timetable.

So for DD, I would do things like:
Monday - Maths - "watch youtube video one week on unit whatever", and next week "look at bitesize article".
Tuesday - "watch you tube video on Aunt Julia poem" one week, then the next week it could be "read bitesize article on RUAE".
Wednesday - Business Management - she had a tutor, so every Thursday would be "tutoring".
And so on.....
She had weekends off for time with her friends.

I don't know if the tutor is any good, but I've just seen this on my local Facebook page.

I have not used them myself. It seems more affordable but I don't know how large the groups are.

Before going down the tutor route I'd be exhausting all possibilities with the school. Ask for a meeting. They should be prioritising teachers for exam critical years and even poor performing schools should be able to get As at Nat 5 for "A" pupils. When my kids school had problems with staffing for a subject they provided the teachers books for the subject and had video lessons with a teacher in another school. Even a trainee teacher helped out.

They should have lots of pupil premium money. How are they using it?. Are they running supported study after school.

My daughter uses pin Tuition and Heather is great- well worth looking into her zoom classes if she has room.

Ds went to a poor performing school in the bottom 1/3 in Scotland but he and good friends did well in their exams.

Someone suggest teejay for Maths practice and it is very good, also youtube is great at explaining answers in past papers once she starts do them. Do little and often practising each topic regularly taking notes.

The brightred english course book is very good and I tutoured ds on his English ruae and folio using that and supported him with the other papers. I am terrible at English but the book really helped guide us. Start it now as there is quite a bit of reading and work to do in it before attempting past papers.

What other subjects is she doing?

A very experienced, current Scottish Maths teacher I know has set up a tutoring business where she charges very little for an online session. I’ll have a look and see if I can find her facebook page. I think it is called A Little Inspiration.

These are the lessons she is running.

E-sgoil are excellent. They'll have study sessions running soon.

For English, the Learning Cauldron on YouTube is invaluable.

Group tuition would be a definite NO from my DD as she would prefer 121 support as opposed to being with other kids she doesn't know. What if some kids are quiet and others dominant? How will kids be able to voice any private concerns / ask questions in confidence? Its cheaper, but not necessary better.

Thank you all for these replies. DD is very dishearetned right now but we are going to talk about it this weekend and try to come up with a plan. There are some good ideas on here.

Which teejay maths books are for N5? I'm sure I have loads from when DS was at school. I have had difficulty finding out from the school what they are learning at any given time. I am looking at the websites of other schools but they may well not teach everything in the same order.

This is the one my S3 is using if that helps

TeeJay National 5 Mathematics amzn.eu/d/hjUah4N

Remember you can buy some of these textbooks at a discount via Young Scot website.