ds did too well in his mocks...

[lainiekazan]

...and now is resting on his laurels.

He has not done a stroke of work during half term and every time I make encouraging noises about some revision he says he's fine as he got top marks in all the mocks.

But the mocks aren't the thing! Does anyone have a useful strategy? Mocks are supposed to be a kick up the arse, but in ds's case they seem to have been an invitation to sit on his arse and not do another thing.

I'm not sure how to motivate him at all.

If he did well in his mocks and is on top of his work then this half term is a good time to do nothing. I really wouldn't have expected any of mine to be revising for GCSEs this early.

lainie the girls at DD's school are told to rest and recoup during half term.

To make strategies and plans for their revision. to look over their papers and marks from the mocks... But most of all rest. Many year 11s have gone away with their families.

There are three months to go. It's going top be very hard work and those who did well in their mocks need to ensure they don't burn out too soon.

You need to quiz him on random stuff every time you speak to him. Maybe have a random question posed at family mealtimes. Can he 'beat' all of you?

(ps I am an embarrassing parent!)

Worth checking whether the mocks were genuine (full) past papers with the proper mark schemes and grade boundaries applied.

Sometimes schools will just use a single paper for a subject (rather than having students sit all the different units) because otherwise mocks would go on for 6 weeks like in the summer.

Othertimes they may use more generous grade boundaries to reflect the fact that students are not 'revising at full speed' or have not completed the syllabus yet.

Either of these could see the mock results not be an accurate reflection of the grade a student would get if they sat their full GCSE today.

Even if they weren't full exam papers (which they properly weren't ) it still means he was well motivated to revise and understood everything that was covered by the mock exams. Mumsnet teenagers can't win - either they do badly and get nagged or do well and still get nagged

Is he in yr11? ds1 last year - bright lad - worked hard in class and doing homework tasks; but he didn't start any 'extra' revision until 2 weeks before Easter. He ended up with all A*s.

Thanks. Yes, he's in year 11. At the moment he's studying the films of Quentin Tarantino with a bit of Jeeves & Wooster on the side. Perhaps I'll keep my nagging in check until it's back to school on Monday...

I came across two attitudes to revision in my year 11.

One was a fellow pupil's mother who saw me at the February half term and looked down her nose at me and said "shouldn't you be home revising".
The second was a friend from another school, when I said I had to go home after a couple of hours to revise, he said "why? My exams don;t start for nearly a fortnight!"

I will note I did considerably better than both of those.

I didn't do any revision other than school stuff until around Easter. What the school gave was more than adequate.

DD1did ok in her mocks, she's been working very hard during 1/2 term.

At singing and swimming

This sounds so familiar! My DD1 is full of ambition and aspirations, but less good at putting the work in. The thing is, I trained as a coach so I know that motivation can only come from her! All we can do as parents is support. You could try asking him how motivated he's feeling (you might be surprised at his answer) and what would help... Good luck!