How to get DS (14) switching on his brain and thinking?

[Hebegebes]

My son is in Year9 in a very large, mixed comp. He is very bright, but naturally lazy. Until this year, he was not stretched at all apart from in Maths, the only lesson that was set. This year, more subjects are set and the expectations have risen, to my great relief. However, when I see him doing his homework, I realise that he has a tendency to respond in the easiest, quickest, briefest way and never actually engages his brain to really think about things in depth.

I am concerned that his experience in mixed ability classes over the past two years - completing work easily and teachers being satisfied with minimal effort on his part - means he is not firing on all cylinders academically.

Has anyone any suggestions as to how to encourage a much more enquiring, intellectual approach to the tasks he is given? (He thinks that I am being ridiculous, teachers are perfectly happy with what he is doing, so why bother with any more effort?)

I remember one MN thread which mentioned a course or workshop in London for thinking skills, but can't remember any details. Perhaps someone can point me in the right direction or suggest something else which might help in giving him a bit of practice in analysing things more deeply, and perhaps interacting with other teenagers at a higher level than he has experienced so far.

I have no idea how to change it, but if it helps, I think that is very, very, very common / normal amongst brighter teens.
He's got a point really - how can you argue with someone who can get top marks with minimal effort?

You'd have to take it up with his teachers. Talk about whether he would be expected to get an A* at GCSE in their subject if he carried on with the same amount of effort.

Boys seem generally more efficient with their effort and pragmatic about not aiming for perfection. Either expectations of the quality of work / content he can produce are too low so that he is getting the highest grade with only superficial effort or he is content with less high grades and is not engaged enough. You could find out which from his teachers.
If expectations are low and you are worried about a downward spiral then you could consider supplementing outside school with some sort of tutoring. Not necessarily to finish with high GCSE grades but more to extend his thinking skills outside the taught syllabus.
There are some books and probably online courses for logic etc but he would have to be motivated to get something out of them and do extra work outside schooltime.

hebe - you haven't actually said whether your DS is getting high marks or whether you know him to be capable of higher than he's achieving?

For the record, my DS, 15, Y11 is still the same, as in 'could do better'. The difference is, time is running out for him! I have no idea how to motivate him (sorry, not very helpful!). He has a personal mentor (a teacher) as a result of a poor end-of Y10 report and being one of only a 5th of pupils, in his best-in-county-academically comp who failed the GCSE they all take at the end of Y10... but he's in the accelerated triple science group and the second maths set where the top set is full of DCs who already have their maths GCSE if not A level! So the school figure he 'is capable of achieving' but trying to change his 'near enough is good enough' attitude is proving nigh on impossible. The horse is being lead to deep, clear, glittering water but is still refusing to drink.

I acknowledge there's only so much I can do, but have told him that he is never to come to me, a few years' hence when he's trying to combine GCSE resits with a minimum wage, zero hours contract job, and say I should have made him try harder....

Sorry to be not very positive! But you're doing the right thing in investigating now why maybe your DS isn't achieving his best- but, if he's effortlessly getting As and A*s, be thankful. Yes, somewhere along the line, such DC may come unstuck but until they do, don't go looking for trouble!

Tansie, one of ds's friends also failed BusCom in the year above. Ds got a really bad grade (and went to bed for a day).

The trouble is the pervading rumour was that it was dead easy and you didn't need to bother doing any work for it. Ha! I told ds that it was a lesson learned: when other people breezily say, "Oh, I did no work and, well I never, I got an A*!" - it's a big fat lie.

I share the pain about all your dses. My ds was forever droning on, "But it's not in the exam," at my painful attempts to engage his interest in the wider subject.

It's not much comfort but if you have a younger dc I think it's easier second time around because they see the mistakes the first one makes and you are an old timer and know the ropes.

Caveat: if the first one is a swot then it's vice versa - my eldest sister was a brilliant student and went to university a year early. Next sister rebelled and messed up all her O Levels on purpose.

Could you do it by stealth, outside of his schoolwork? In the hope that it will encourage a general overall increase in cognative thought - board games, activities like Geocaching etc.

Thank you all for your replies, really helpful comments.

Summerends, you made me smile - when I am getting frustrated with him, I will remind myself that there is a lot of merit in being efficient with your effort! It reminds me, too, that I wouldn't want him to be a perfectionist either, always pushing himself too hard.

Tansie his results seem good, as far as I can tell: end of Year 8 results were English reading 7c, writing 7b; Maths 7b, Science 7C. The rest were between 6a and 6c, apart from Spanish - 5a. His effort levels were 1 for Maths and art, drama and music, 2 for all the rest.

He got level 6 in both Maths and English in his KS2 SATS. I read on here about kids working at level 7 and 8 in year 7, and initially thought that if others were doing it, he ought to be capable of similar. I understood that less than 1% got level 6 in English that year, so assume his potential must match most of the high achievers I hear about. However, I realised that the mixed ability classes at school for years 7 and 8 did not really lend themselves to surging forward at that sort of pace. It didn't bother me too much, as I felt it would only really matter at GCSE level.

In the meantime, we got a tutor for Latin outside school fortnightly. He really enjoys the lessons, does the homework without too much complaint, but it is difficult to get him to do any learning vocabulary, so his progress has slowed down considerably. I am beginning to wonder whether it will be worth carrying on next year, as I don't want extra strain during GCSE years.

Although I did feel that the relaxed pace in years 7 and 8 were fine, now that the pace has stepped up, I am concerned that his attitude hasn't. I really don't want to be nagging him all the time …

It's difficult to know about approaching the school. I don't really know who to speak to. We did speak to the Head of Year 7 at one stage, saying we were worried he wasn't developing a work ethic. He seemed to understand, spoke to DS, and emailed all his teachers but we didn't notice any difference in his effort levels. I suppose they look at his marks and think he's fine, why worry. Perhaps they are right, but my instinct is that where he will come unstuck is when he starts A levels and realises that he has a lot of catching up to do if he is to get the course / uni that wants.

thinkIve - good idea, will give that some thought, and find out what geocaching is!

Hebe what does he enjoy most? If maths maybe swop the latin tutor for a maths one so that they can work through some maths challenge type questions. Alternatively swop latin for a tutor who can go through some critical thinking / logic type work.
The stalling in his latin progress probably reflects a problem with putting in effort for tackling more boring but necessary tasks required to access a higher level in a subject.

This probably won't help your frustration. He has to want to do it. Could you have a grown up conversation with him about the correlation of effort with success. Is he easy to talk to? ( I'm thinking about my yr8 dd - who it depends on which hormonal moment you catch her in)