How can a teacher manage this...

[GypsyMoth]

Get a very able but unmotivated students maths, science and English grades from predicted c's up to A's.... Bearing in mind there is 20 weeks left til study leave begins?

Are you the teacher or the parent? Does he have the ability to get As? If so why is he working at Cs?

That'll be me in English then...although I do teach in an exam factory & any student capable of getting an A is jolly well predicted one & his arse kicked until he gets one.

We work through a mocked up exam paper every week - I create flipcharts for the IWB for each. I close mark them EVERY week (at the expense of KS3...).

H/W is set via the website so the parents can see it, & mostly consists of stuff they could get done in class if they got their finger out, so they quite quickly get the message that working arse off in class = minimal HW.

If it's not done, I have a weekly lunchtime catch-up (& if they don't show to that I sic my frankly terrifying HOD on them).

I scan good work, annotate it on the IWB to show why it's good, & send praise postcards home (they love 'em).

Spreadsheet of doom with all their Controlled Assessment grades on & a column for each weekly exam total, which then turns their name green or red dependent on whether they'd've got the target grade with that mark.

Oh yeah - & a massive jar of pound shop toffees for contributions in class.

To be fair, if you're capable of getting an A/A* in English, it doesn't require too much slog once the Controlled Assessments are in the bank, & if you aren't, no amount of slog will do it.

I would need more information to be of any real help with this, particularly the reasons for underachievement. Is the student unmotivated for any particular reason?

In general, improving from a C to an A is possible but needs a lot of commitment from the student to:
-revise regularly and thoroughly
-attend revision lessons (possibly in the holidays)
-complete extra work such as practice exam papers
-identify areas of weaknesses and address them
-make the most of every lesson that is left

Just read your OP again and I'm not really sure if you are writing as a teacher about your class or as a parent about your child!

Depends on if they have sat modules and got low grades or if it is a linear course.

It's my dd

She had a managed move... Bad behaviour/attitude. So she had to catch up in some areas, other areas she had already covered. She is capable, but missed some asessments. Had to drop some subjects.

Whole thing has been frustrating. She is in a headteachers group fir those predicted to get A-c grades.

Head of year has decided to mentor her, this is after she called him a knob and walked out of his class. She had internal exclusion. I went in at re admission time. She had already apologised to him and they had a chat. This is always case with her.... Bad behaviour, redeems herself! Those poor teachers. But really, they care and are a credit to their profession.

So she comes home and says he will help her with her grades as she wants to get into a specific 6th form college

Doesn't it have to come from within?

She wants to. Now it's getting close she is panicking she has blown it.

She might have blown it and needs to go from being an unmotivated student who swears at teachers to one who not only from now on pays intense attention in lessons and takes full advantage of what is on offer at school but she must also put in a lot of extra work outside of the classroom, independently of what is being set for those who have been working hard all along.

In terms of maths, she needs to identify gaps in her knowledge and then seek ways to address these.
There are some useful resources here including grade descriptors which illustrate which topics she needs to master to get each grade up to A* - she can use these as a checklist. There are also some graded assessments she can use to help identify topics to revise. Past papers are key, however there aren't many available for the new maths spec.
Once she has identified gaps in her knowledge she needs a good revision guide. BBC Bitesize is an online option but if her school has a password for mymaths, I would recommend this, especially the use of the Booster Packs. She must not however rely on online revision, she needs to actually write maths and get used to showing her full working out.

If she has sat modular exams in maths and only got a C so far, or if she has missed assessments, I would recommend that if she wants to aim for an A she abandons the modular course and asks her school to enter her for linear so she gets a fresh stab at all the content in June. However, if the rest of her class is preparing for modular, this means that she needs to cover the extra content herself.

I'm an english teacher. Did she complete all the controlled assessments in English? What did she get?this will be a major contribution to her final grade.

Leave the teacher to do their teaching and ask for revision guides.

Then the hard bit.

For 2 hours every evening (can be split into 20 - 30 mins slots)the TV goes off, the computer goes off, all music is off and she does past papers / revision

Allocate a topic / subject every night. That's what you talk about in the car / having dinner / whenever's best

Actually I think if she has finally found some motivation and she is bright she might just make it.

I screwed up my mock GCSE's appallingly - around 11% for some exams I had been predicted 90% for - due to general blocking around.

To be fair some of it was the school's fault, they assumed that as I was freakishly bright and annoying that I was just messing around when I told them I didn't understand ANY of the Maths and Physics course.

Anyway I decided there was no way in hell I was going to spend another year resitting them because that would be even more boring, did a lot of cramming, memorised all the units so at least there wouldn't be any completely empty answers (always remember you get a point for writing in the correct unit even if that is all you write!) and came out with B's in the exams I'd failed and A's and A*'s for everything else.

If she wants to do it, she's capable of doing it, and she's now shitting bricks that she won't do it - I think that's a pretty good combination.

I'd focus on making sure she eats well, sleeps and generally looks after herself. It sounds like the school is putting some good support in place academically. Offer to help with revision etc but don't overdo it. You want to maintain a nice low-level motivating buzz of fear not let it turn into all-consuming panic.

raven you sound like my idea of a perfect teacher. I'm just hoping you teach at one of the boys' secondaries in Surrey.

Either very underpredicted in the first place or super hard work from DD (change in circumstances maybe?). Sorry if thats not helpful but can't think of anything else. My DC have made a spurt at various points then stalled again, DD1 in maths iinparticular around p7/s1. Life is just a rollercoaster.