Am I being unfair...GCSE results

[Abloodybigholeintheground]

Real first world problem here.....

My son has just got his GCSE results. He has been privately educated and the past year has been a complete battle-us/his teachers vs my son! He is a bright kid-not super genius but more than capable of achieving top grades. He is also bright enough to have worked out what he needed to do through the year to get by-keep out of trouble (mostly) but do no more.
He didn't work particularly for his exams-he did a bit but was kidding himself most of the time.
We set a bench mark for continuing at private school for sixth form-all grade B's or above. Although he isn't overly bothered about school per say he does have a good crowd of mates and loves the sports available to him which are not offered at the other sixth forms.
So-he did OK but got one C.
I think we should stick to our guns and pull him out-his stinking teenage attitude also weighs heavy in favour of this in my mind!
OH is going to bottle it-I am sure. He went to private school-in fact this school-and has a habit of not sticking to deals.
Should I stick to my guns and insist he leaves private education? He knew about this all along and didn't seem bothered (until last week when As came out and started to be nervous). It is only one grade-but what lesson does it teach him that he didn't achieve what was required but got to stay anyway?
Or am I being a miserable cow....

Just to add-all B's were more than achievable for him. He was told he could achieve A*/A in all bar one subject-ironically he got an A in that one!!

Another thing that might be worth thinking about is that bright kids that do no work and get good grades at GCSE can come a bit unstuck a bit at A Level. The need to actually do some work can come as a bit of a shock.

Which of the two schools do you think will manage that better?

Blimey. I am quite gobsmacked at this thread.

Your ds has done brilliantly. Lazy or not, they are a fine set of results. If he was lazy and failed the lot, that is one thing but he passed every single one of them. I hope he got mountains of praise for that.

My dc who is also privately educated got nowhere near the grades that your boy did, and we were fine with it.

I have older dc who are now out working. None of their exams mean anything now. Once you have A levels, the Gcse's mean very little. Once they have a degree, the A levels mean very little. And once in the workplace, it all comes down to how well you do your job and the experience gained in order to move up the ladder. If he has enough qualifications to go onto the next level, then surely that is all that matters, and with results like yours, he will go far anyway.

Fret not, all will be fine in the long run and you will wonder why you ever got so worked up about it.

^Awash on the sea of our own vanity
We should rejoice in our individuality
Though it's gale force
let's steer a course
For sanity^

PortiaCastis I love that!

And the first bit!

(Just googled it - have now downloaded it, had never heard it before, thanks )

Why the hell would you use education as a punishment?! What will you do if he turns around and says "that's fine, I just won't bother doing A levels then"?

He isn't going to try any harder or do any better at a shitty school, and you are being very unfair - his results really weren't bad at all!!

OP - why did you post?
You seem to only want to hear that you are right and justified. You dismiss posts that suggest otherwise.

You don't want to hear that actually his results are pretty good.
You don't want to hear that actually some As, some Bs and one C is overall a better achievement that all Bs.
You don't want to hear that at 16y he actually is still a child and hence why he I'll make childish decisions, and that those decisions might have less positive outcomes.
You don't want to hear that it sounds like you are punishing him by sending him to a state school, which brings a whole new level of discussion in itself.

You just want to hear that he didn't do well enough for you and that you should feel happy and justified in making him look elsewhere for sixth form.

This is MN. You won't get a whole load of people only saying they agree with you and you alone.

As a family you have to make the decision of what is right and best for your son. If that is his current school or another school is your decision as a family group.

But don't blame him for spending money on education. That was not his choice. It was yours, and his fathers. Just because you paid doesn't mean he owes you in terms of results.

Don't change schools for the sake of one grade. He has done very well overall. If you have other reasons, e.g. financial changes in circumstance which would make maintaining private harder, of course change but make sure he understands why. A serious talk about how much work he will need to put in is important, whether he stays private or moves to state-funded.

I must admit though I was shell shocked at the jump from GCSEs to A-Level and I did really well at my GCSEs. I would suggest if he isn't bothered now he will massively struggle next year. which ever route you go down its worth making him aware of how harder it's going to be even if he puts all his effort in. Now isn't the time to mess around

OP, if your concern is the cost of keeping him at the school you chose to send him to, you should move him.

If you feel this bad about a very respectable set of GCSEs, imagine how cheated you'd feel if he stayed on and then did badly in his A-levels.

I think the mistake you made was making it about the results not the effort.

If in 4 years time privately educated Ds got those results id be over the moon.

If dd got them though I'd be seriously considering whether I was prepared to pay for an academic 6th form.

I understand what you're saying OP. You've basically said that he was given a benchmark that was easily achievable to him and he wasted the opportunity to achieve to his full potential. To the tune of 30k.

He honestly has done really well in his exams. Yes he fell below your benchmark on one exam but he excelled on the others. For that, I'd keep him where he is.

I wouldn't just hand it to him on a plate though, I'd explain all this and then ask him how you should all move forward. Do you know that he definitely wants to stay in private education?

My ds is similar sounding to yours except we can't afford private schooling. He is incredibly bright and achieved 2A, 5A, 2B without very much revision at all. I am over the moon with his results even though I know that with effort, he could have probably achieved all A.
I'm still super proud!

The crux of your problem is that you're worried you've issued an ultimatum and you feel you can't be seen to back down - just like when children are little you have to follow through your actions. I get that. I just think it might be a bit harsh to move him just for one grade C.

I think some people are forgetting that you're also worried about wasting another 30k if he doesn't buckle down with his A levels!

Talk to him OP. See what he says

I think if you feel the school hasn't got the best out of him, for whatever reason, it might be worth saving the cash.

We sent Dd1 privately for seven years. She got average solid results. She would almost certainly have got the same if she'd gone to the local comp, which she is moving to for. 6th form. Probably better, their results have been stellar!! So it was a bit of a waste of money. However, she's a lovely girl, happy and kind and still very involved in sport which may not have happened if she'd gone to a different school.

How many people in this thread would be happy to pay 30K for their child to piss about at 6th form and come out with a set of Es and Us, maybe with a D thrown in.

30K is a very large gamble to place on hoping that her DS doesn't do what others here seem to have done and go 'that's a good set of results without any work, I'll be fine'.

It is a good set of results, but a good set of results with no work ethic, is different to a good set of results that has been worked for and the gap between GCSE and Alevel is huge.

OP there's some extremely random marking out there in the humanities in particular so for that reason alone I think you're being entirely miserable. I think it's miserable on other grounds too though, since the results overall are objectively pretty ok for a teenage boy. I reckon if you move him he might dig his heels in if he doesn't settle well at the new place and then all of your investment in his education will be wasted.

Also, is there really such a problem with backing down on occasion - it's not that he's a million miles away from what you asked, even ignoring the marking thing. I've backed down frequently over the years with my eight DC and the sky hasn't fallen in. This kid is not a toddler anymore either - he should be capable of a reasonably mature conversation.

I'm in two minds about this. I don't have a problem with backing down either. And, without context, his results are good. With context they are OK.

But I would expect any half way decent school to have flagged up underachievement as a possibility well before the event. And if I was paying megabucks I would expect the school to take a lot (not all, of course) of the responsibility for dealing with it. How are they going to make as sure as they can that he doesn't underachieve at A level?

There's no way anyone can make sure a student doesn't underachieve at any level.

However, putting pressure on any student to achieve specific grades, on the grounds that you want a return for your investment, sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

No. That's why I said "as sure as they can be".........

Yes the problem with never backing down is that it assumes the parent is always right, which is of course bullshit.

Moving children from private to state education for A level is so common, as long as there is a good A level college. Just don't link it to the c grade as a punishment. I think it should be made aware to you DS that £30 is a lot of money, especially under current circumstance with University fee to pay.

I get it that it's about 'effort' but that's very subjective. My idea of working hard could be completely different to yours. Did he do his homework? Did he revise? If he got those grades doing nothing he is super bright surely? Otherwise maybe your expectations are unreasonable.

Sunny, my ds has never done homework in his life, plays on his iPad during class, and cruises these sorts of grades. I may be being subjective, but when I have had ten years of teaching staff discussing earnestly with me how to motivate him to do some fecking work, I'm fairly content in my assessment that as far as schoolwork is concerned, he is a lazy toe rag that is using his innate ability to get away with doing fuck all.

I recognize the op's son (in that I have his damned twin). Either that or I am projecting like the Odeon. With this sort of kid, the best thing you can do is work out how to inspire them towards effort. Or you just accept that really, they are wasting what could be a brilliant mind. Congratulating them for what are mediocre results (in terms of what they really should have got if they had bothered to pick up an actual book here or there) isn't going to motivate them to do anything at all.

The playing field is obviously totally uneven. For lots of kids these would be great marks. For this kid, they aren't. To treat them as though they are is to do him a disservice.

Congratulating them for what are mediocre results (in terms of what they really should have got if they had bothered to pick up an actual book here or there) isn't going to motivate them to do anything at all.

This is the problem really, isn't it. I do wonder whether failing a few of mine would have given me the right shock to have motivated me more at ALevel. I definitely don't think that all the praise I got for my GCSE grades helped.

Just to update....
We chewed it backwards and forwards and in the end as I was away on the day of the deadline for continuing, I left the decision up to my husband as it is him who is going to have to continuing grafting to pay for him to stay. I also made it clear that I could not have another 2 years of having to chase him every day to get up, to get on at school and make some effort and deal with the constant attitude (our DD is now onto GCSE work and she will need support to keep her from going crazy as she is the complete opposite end of the spectrum-she will work herself into the ground to get the best marks). My DH chose stay, sorted uniform etc. So far DS is going to bed early, getting up in plenty of time for his lift...work has yet to really kick in but the attitude has changed for the better so far. Maybe I'll update in 2 yrs time...
And interestingly on returning to school a proportion of his friends have switched schools or gone to different forms of secondary education that their friends didn't know anything about.

I don't know whether to respond as a mum or as the pain in the arse teenager I once was! I understand where you're coming from, totally and completely. Private school is bloody expensive and it's upsetting and disrespectful to feel as though your DS takes it for granted. Having said, that I wouldn't make him change schools, this isn't a battle you need to win as there's much more at stake. The grades he got were good (I got 2 A*, 6A and 3B in 2005...at a state school where I spent most of the time smoking at Starbucks and hanging out at home with my grandpa and the dog.) I remember my parents being pleasantly surprised but also pissed off that I could have actually done better. If your son loves his school, please let him stay. I hated the school I was at, I never fitted in and felt really sad and lonely all the time. My grades improved dramatically when I went to a private school for Alevel. Going to a school I finally loved made the world of difference to my life. I was so happy, confident and hardworking that I got into my first choice uni (St Andrews). Please don't pull him out. Even if his grades don't magically improve at least he'll be happy and that really is the most important thing when we're talking about hormonal, volatile teenagers.