AIBU to be worried about Year 8 results??

[Kezza8]

DD just came home with end of year results and they are not good! She is at a great school ( year 8) but I am concerned. She had trouble revising and I had to help out a lot. I was concerned then at gaps in knowledge and results have proved me right. I have spoken to school before about a certain subject but this now seems to be more across the board! Next year is year 9 so I really need to address this! Any ideas??

Are they genuinely not good or have the school just started benchmarking against "new" GCSEs thus making everyone look worse?

How do they look compared to the previous set of results (last term?)

I think understanding what the results actually mean and secondly whether she was making progress would be my first concern. If there is a genuine problem I'd then be contacting teachers (presumably you have a mechanism for doing this?) and asking why the results are not as expected.

Hmm, sounds suspiciously like mine this afternoon, also in Y8.and at similar-sounding school ... will also watch out for helping tips as the shouting technique on my part clearly isn't working!

I think it's better to discover weak areas in Year 8 than Year 11.

As RedSky says, do you have the context for the results? A mark of 50% can have different implications depending on what the average mark is for that class / set, and also what sort of mark that student usually gets.

If her classwork is much better than her exam performance then look at her exam technique. Does she understand what is expected of her? Is she managing her time efficiently?

The important thing is how she feels. Is she surprised and/or depressed? If so that'll help you help her as she might agree to a bit more support.

We had similar in science last year (yr7). DS got 50% in the end of year exam - he was in top set and came bottom, so was hugely demoralised. He just didn't know how to revise and with 4 hours of science a week, the amount to learn was overwhelming. Throughout this year, before every end of topic test I've helped him work out some simple revision sheets. He stores them in a folder and uses those to revise from. He had a biggish test before half term and got 85% and came 3rd in the year. He no longer thinks he's useless at science, which of course is brilliant. It really was just revision technique though, so probably is something similar with your DD.

Are these just exam results, or do you get some sort of term grade too? Is there a difference between the two? ie did she perform badly in the exams through lack of revision/poor revision technique/lack of exam technique/nerves?
Do you know how the results compare to others of a similar ability to your DD ie were the exams hard/harshly marked so all have lower than expected grades?
Have you had any comment from her teachers on her performance? If not, that might be a good place to start.

Thank you for all the replies.

Mid year results were promising (70's and 80's) with some end of year results at 40%, so a pretty big difference. I do think she has trouble with understanding how to revise efficiently, and I did try to help her. I just think this needs to be addressed now as it will only get tougher.

She is quite low about it all as it is a good school and the averages are very high. She said there are girls that aren't happy with results in the high 70's and she got 40% so she feels rubbish. :-(

Does she have adequate materials to revise from?

dd is about to do end of year 8 exams.
i fear a similar outcome

it's almost like they tell them to relax, don't worry, but there is so much to learn - 12 subjects !

dd did a bit of work over half term. she is nowhere near prepared. but she isn't too worried. i am not sure if this is good or bad. she may be in for a shock when the exams and results come.

at least going forward they will be going over the GCSE course - they will be repeating the same topics in end of year exams, mocks etc.. wishful thinking?

i also think the school, no matter how good, don't really worry about the year 8's. they have yr10 and 11 plus the A level pupils to focus on.

Think of the yr8 exams as practice for the future.

It's good that she has found out her revision skills need improving - many schools don't do formal end of year exams until year 9.
Hopefully your dd's school will identify her as someone who falls down in exams and give her some assistance, techniques, practice? That's what I'd be pushing for next year. Throw it back to the school, they should have suggestions, ideas - don't try and solve it yourself, just support your dd.

Thank you.

Yes, I do think the school need to focus more, as they are used to have very high achieving girls and seem to think it comes easily to all, which it doesn't. I don't want to make her life a misery of constant nagging about revising, but I also think she needs to understand she has to put the work in to get the results.

Fingers crossed we will work it out x

I've persuaded dd for next year to go over all her maths during the Easter holiday
then during the term between Easter and May go over all her vocab and grammar for languages.

so i think that's a bit of progress from where we are this year. It's just not possible to spend a couple of hours a day at half term before the exams and revise everything.

I wouldn't take it upon yourself to nag. You can just suggest and support. She'll work it out. I think if you're happy with the school generally then you have to trust them. It's good that these issues are coming up this year.

Getting some objective evidence about how the bottom 20% did might be helpful... I bet OP's DD did not do as badly as she fears.

I think you can usually find patterns of things they are & are not good at. And work on that weakness.

Eg: DS is not used to writing out lots quickly by hand. So he did badly in English this year. But we can work on that... I am getting DS to write a page about Minecraft every day & he's finding THAT easy. DS is also lousy at creative work, but luckily we can drop most creative subjects (phew).

Is this school selective?

If so please ask for some objective information rather than relative percentages. It could well be that the 70% are on for high 8/9 in GCSEs and the 40% still getting 6/7s. In other words at least point out that in a non selective school she would be in the top sets.

Highly recommend a book called 'Make it Stick' for advise on helping with revision techniques. More for you to help her devise effective revision techniques.

Sounds like she has some learning to learn to do! Your daughter might also need to get proactive and ask for help! It might very well be an unexpected result for her teacher too.

And a quick flick through her work before each lesson/ during each lesson would be time well spent in future.