go on, tell me how you actually get children to do revision ...

[Clumsymum]

DS is in year 7, he's facing proper summer exams for the first time after half term.

He is bright, very high in his year, very academically able, but unfortunately he is very aware of it. (if it's relevant at all, we pay for the academic ability with immature emotional development, still get major toddler-style tantrums sometimes)

Over the last week, homework has basically stated "revision" in almost every subject. DS classes this as 'haven't got any homework, it's only stoopid revision'. If pressed about it he says "I'll do it over half term", but of course, he will have other things he wants to do next week (and I wanted to go to stay with rellies for a few days, pref without taking school stuff with us).

Then last night he said "well, I'm clever, I probably don't need to revise anyways". Now pride comes before a fall, as we all know, and half of me says 'let him get on with it his way, let him fail, and then see how he feels' - but I know he'll be devastated, and that's not quite responsible parenting, is it?

There is also a possibility that he'd do OK in most subjects even if he doesn't revise, but OK isn't what we would like for him ideally, and it's a bad habit to get into.

Now I know I was also very dilatory when it came to revision when I was in secondary school ... and looking back I know I could have done better, but that is what growing up is about.
But have you got any hints or tips to encourage, preferably without it being a HUUUUUGE battle every day.

I am thinking of saying 'no computer time until at least x mins of revision has been done each day', but is that just fighting talk ?

OP here's what I did/plan to do with DS1 who's now in yr 8 and is reasonably bright though not top of the class. Yr 7 exams - I did show him how to revise, ie how to condense information down to little cards etc. He did a bit of work every day in half-term and did well in his exams. The info-heavy subjects where we'd sat down together and made the cards - history, geography etc - were the ones he did best in (and I was able to point this out!) Yr 8 - I'm leaving him to it, and so far, no evidence of any revision being done. Yikes! But I agree with other posters, at some stage, you have to let them take the responsibility and perhaps realize that if they don't do the work, the results will be dissappointing...better in yr 8 than yr 11.

Yes I think you have to actually show them how to revise, my dd didn't have a clue in year 7.

I also think you have to be honest with them.

I asked mine what sort of lives they wanted to have, what they wanted to do etc etc, and then said Right, well to get there you have to do a big load of boring old shit. But that's how it is. Learn it and churn it out. It's just a process that buys you ultimate choice and freedom.

Up to A levels when hopefully you ar choosing subjects that do interest you...

It is difficult at this age because trying to lecture pre-teenagers about long term consequences will go straight in one ear and out the other (it is a well-known fact that teenagers need to learn about cause&effect cos they just don't get it!), but he needs to learn at some stage or else he is due for an almighty fall at A Level or Uni.
Can you model the behaviour (i.e. effort = results) in other ways and hope that he makes the connection himself? - either by modelling the behaviour youself (I put in the work on xyz therefore I got promotion/bonus) or by encouraging him to take up a sport or a musical instrument (where it is all about practice, practice, practice).

Meanwhile, does setting next year depend on these exams? Ask him how stupid/embarrassed he will feel if he goes down a set because he was too cocky to revise.

I don't know if this helps but... I was/am academically able and despite 'encouragement' from my parents did barely any revision up to and including GCSEs.

It was only when I got fairly mediocre (based on what I should have got) GCSEs that I realised I had to learn to revise and did so for my A-levels (and carried on to a PhD eventually).

I'm not sure what anyone could have said or done to 'make' me revise. I think you could encourage him to have ambitions and if he has a 'drive' to do it then he'll realise he needs to work to achieve his potential.

Could the problem be simply getting started? The most difficult part of revision is getting the books open.

What about getting him to set a timeable of what work he could do when?

Lastly I would say that revising by doing mindmaps makes the revision more fun and more memorable.

How do you revise? I am sitting here trying to revise for MSc exams & after all these years I'm still not sure I'm doing it right! I never had study skills taught at school. I have books on 'how to pass exams' but all this stuff about mindmapping etc is just so unfamiliar to me that I wouldn't know where to start. I just copy stuff out & try and learn it, but I know that's not efficient. I really struggle with mnemonics as well...

I think it's an individual thing, Dragon. I do pretty much what you do. I go through all my own notes and the textbooks, collate and condense. Then keep making notes of notes until I am down to one sheet of A4 with trigger words. And on a separate sheet I keep lists of quotes etc to learn off by heart.

Ds loves Memory Palaces, he makes them for everything and they really help him. I cba with them!

But if he's in Y7, it's a pretty good time to get a shock, if he needs one. It won't have dramatic consequences and his self worth won't take too much of a hit because he is praised already.

Leave him to it and see what happens- after a chat about consequences if there are any. Will he be moved into lower streams at school etc? He could e correct nd able to wing it , which is fine - hell eventually get to a point he has to work at !

Year 7 is the time to learn if you have an inflated sense of your own ability or if you are correct.... Nothing will happen that can't be recovered from by spending year 8 working bloody hard, and maybe that's what he needs.

My 3 have always planned and one their own revision with a bit of gentle prodding. They do what they feel is needed , we give ample opportunity though - by having tv/ console free time .

School also provide guidence, revision help and revision sessions.

Similar situation here. In some ways I'd be tempted to leave my year 7 dd to it, but (a) dh was exactly like your ds, and had no pushing from his parents and failed to pull his finger out until his MA - after years of disappointing results - he is v v insistent that we should not let my dd make the same mistake and (b) the results of some of these exams put them in sets and so do 'matter' in terms of longer term results - hard to move up once in bottom set. So I did nag a bit.

In my case, her exams were the week before last and so I speak from experience - I only discovered, a night or two before the exams, that her French and Classics (lots of Latin vocab) were reall, really pants - cue me trying to teach her a year's worth in a night or two. It did work - we have the results back - and she got 100% in Classics and a v respectable score in French. But remember that unlike maths or English, which one can do well in on cleverness alone, subjects like languages require steady consistent learning; other subjects like biology or geography require one to have learnt and memorised facts. So your ds's statement may possibly be true - or he may be trying to hide from/ignore the subjects he's struggling with but doesn't want to admit this. Or he may just not realise that there are areas he needs to learn.

Based on my dh's experience, I'd sit down and test him - let him do it, but then go through his books and do a test. It may then become aparent that he does know it all - or that he is struggling or strggling to revise. in which case you can offer help if it is needed.

No PC, Mobile Phone, pocket money, chocolate, friends over, ipod, fiction books or games console until it's done.

Unless you don't think he has been taught how in which case Google revision techniiques so that you know what your talking about and help him out.

Dragonwoman, as long as you're reading the information you need to know and then turning it into a different form, it'll stick.

Copying out etc does work to an extent - but I think I've seen studies saying only 10% of what you read will go into your brain.

Mindmaps take some getting used to and I was always very skeptical about them, but I'm completely converted now.

Try breaking your topics up into subtopics and then each of the subtopics into smaller segments. Illustrate this using a diagram (e.g. a mindmap). Highlight key words in colour. Make yourself a little set of cards with shorthand, diagrammatic versions of all the things you need to know. It does work, I promise, when you do it properly. Mnemonics are only good for certain, specific things (like memorising the names of planets or something).

/hijack. Sorry OP

Better that he fails y7 exams than GCSEs. And he is probably right, he probably doesn't need to revise if he is bright.

Bribary and blackmail can work (depends on the child). Set him a prize for how well he does in each exam. Do they still do 'places'? A top 5 place gies a reward. comming first a bigger reward. But if he comes less than top 5 he looses something such as time on his computer, an doesn't get it back until he does well in his next exams.

Well I don't know the answer to the OP and I'd quite like to know too. None of my kids have had the self-discipline to do much in the way of revision and they are not especially clever so it has definitely affected their outcomes in exams. It's frustrating, when I know they are capable of so much more.

Some people have a naturally strong conscientious streak and some don't. If you are one of those very controlling, militarily organised parents who can force their children to comply with rigid schedules of X hours per day of homework/revision, then X hours of piano practice or whatever, before they are allowed TV or Playstation etc, and you are the type who knows just as much as the teacher what is involved in each stage of the national curriculum, and what they need to do to achieve each new SATS level then you can push and shove a child to do well through school, but in the end, when the helicopter parenting stops, they are on their own and the truth will out.

If he is as bright as you say, chances are he will be one of those kids who can achieve A* everything without too much effort, so I wouldn't worry too much.

But being very clever is only half the story in the long run. We all know that in the workplace there is a great deal to be said for work ethic, conscientiousness and social and emotional intelligence, and I am not sure those things can be taught. Which is a good job, or there would be no hope for 75% of average academic achievers!

I disagree, I think they can be taught, and learned from watching good examples. Id rather not believe you're just born conscientious or not as it seems a bit defeatist!

You do not need to 'pay' anything for academic ability in a child! Major toddler-style tantrums at the age of 11 or 12 are not a necessary corollary of high intelligence. If he were mine I think I'd be tempted to say 'Look, you're clever enough but you're not all that. And if you want to do well you need to shift a bit or all those kids you think are stupider than you will come up from behind and overtake. But it's your call. Meanwhile, quit these silly tantrums, you're in secondary now'. That sort of thing, or a variation on that theme.

Hilly Having a good work ethic is a habit as much as anyhting else.
And revision should become part and parcel of the non-negotiable aspects of life, like brushing teeth, good manners and five a day. None of which are traits you are born with!

Once you have instilled a good work ethic there is absolutely no need to stand over your DC in a millitary fashion, just as most parents of older DC don't stand over them in a millitary fashion when they brush their teeth.

I do think we need to guard against assuming badly of the parents of DC that work well. I know it's comforting to think they are monsters who will all have failing DC at the next level. But really that is only to make us feel better. It's not actually true.

that ^^

DS is in Yr 7 and he just finished his summer exams and what I did was work out a detailed timetable for the first half of term. He did not have the capacity to do it for himself and I think he was quiet grateful to have it organised for him as he did not know where to start. The teachers had told the whole class to revise and they did a lot of revision in class but given no guidance. I found giving DS small managable slots of time with a specific topic to revise but fitted around extra curricular activity like sport seemed to work.

I made sure he stuck to the timetable with gentle reminders but other than that I let him get on with it and decide 'how' to revise.

He is a bright scholarship level pupil so the school has high expectations and he knows that so I made sure that I didnt get on his back as well about the exam thing. He is 12 and has enough pressure as it is.

By the way, on learning Latin and Spanish vocab. DS used his iPad to do online vocab tests for 10 mins each alternate morning. The online vocab tests were attached to the text book he was using in class so it was a bit of a novelty and he enjoyed the challenge of doing it and the iPad was a good medium for doing it on.

In other subjects he decided to make little learning flash card booklets he could flick through which he often carried in his blazer pocket and use if he had a 10 minutes spare.

morebeta I always do a timetable for my DC.
This to me is the most crucial thing. My own Mum did it for me and it always worked a treat. And no I didn't collapse and fail when I went off to university .

As for vocab tests I am a firm believer in little and often throughout the school year. It helps so much at exam time. DD's school is superb at this. DS's less so.

And yes, to flash cards.

"You do not need to 'pay' anything for academic ability in a child! Major toddler-style tantrums at the age of 11 or 12 are not a necessary corollary of high intelligence. If he were mine I think I'd be tempted to say 'Look, you're clever enough but you're not all that. And if you want to do well you need to shift a bit or all those kids you think are stupider than you will come up from behind and overtake. But it's your call. Meanwhile, quit these silly tantrums, you're in secondary now'. That sort of thing, or a variation on that theme."

Oh Yellowtip, how easy you make that sound ... Believe me we have made it clear that the tantrums are NOT acceptable behaviour for a boy of his age, and NEVER excuse them or give way to them ... but I do really believe that he cannot yet fully control his emotions. The incidence of full-on rages is now far less than it was - so he is growing out of it.

I believe we all develop differently and at different rates, DS was a precocious learner, I feel his intellectual development was at the expense of his emotional development. He does have some traits of aspergers - I know many many boys do - he has a half brother (DH's elder son) who is profoundly autistic. This probably plays a part in his tantrumming. It's something we all have to work on, DS more than anyone, but it's more complex than " quit these silly tantrums, you're in secondary now".

To everyone who has contributed so far, thanks. I'm planning to sit down with DS tomorrow morning and work out a revision timetable with him, and help him plan his action. Then I'll largely back away (save a simple reminder every day).