Is this normal?

[Buck3t]

I get my DS is not a high achiever, he likes what he likes and he's stubborn and lazy.

He chooses to hang with the smarter kids and gets teased that he's not black enough🙄. He is extremely shy but he still tap dances and doesn't want to give it up, and only a handful know that. So I'm proud of the fact that he is a resilient individual. Great, that's my DS's profile.

He's in year 10 so GCSE's are looming. As it's my first child I have made mistakes. Number one being believing the teachers in year 9 who say his progress is good. Not fine, not adequate, but good. So I'm no teacher so I'm not sure what I should have been looking out for but it seems my DS has problems answering questions such as "Describe", "explain", "analyse". This has really come to light this year after his spring half term tests. But this doesn't appear to have concerned the school. However, it concerns me so, about six weeks ago I contacted the head of year. I wanted to see if they saw it how we saw it. I asked to speak to his subject teachers. Only one teacher has come back to me so far. His English teacher. Now this is my question really. She had concerns months ago and spoke to DS about them. She asked HIM if he would like to move to a lower set. He said no, she told him that he would have to work hard to catch up and improve. Which he hasn't done as the boy won't read unless you are actually in the room with him and that's the number one way to improve. Is it normal to only discuss with 14 year old? Is this independent learning?

Anyhow. We ended the conversation with the one thing I think is working against him. Her telling me how polite and well behaved he is, and what a joy he is to teach. I know my child's well-behaved thanks. But last time I checked there's no GCSE in polite. So are they overlooking him and his issues (laziness, disorganisation, Lack of motivation), because he's easy to have in the classroom. Am I worrying over nothing (52% on a test he revised for to the detriment of other subjects, so I don't think so.)

What is my next move I'm looking at tutors for English, but then need to look at maths and chemistry (according to him). The subjects he loves seem fine geography (except for those explanation questions), product design etc. He just thinks chemistry lets him down for his triple science.

Sorry it's long, just wanted to paint a picture.

Are you expecting the school to deal with his issues ( laziness, disorganisation, Lack of motivation ) . This seems to be a conversation you should be having with him.

I don't think I am but if he's slipping I would expect them to discuss it with me rather than just him. No? How would I know that he's disorganised with schoolwork? And isn't motivated unless I am made aware of this. I'm not at school with him. When he's at home he does homework, but I don't know the efforts. Everything is online and all we see are progress reports.
I know it's not primary school so the comms is less, but I don't know how to help him if I don't know the issues.

Might be easier if I list my questions:
Is it normal to only discuss issues with the pupil?
Is this independent learning?
Am I worrying over nothing?
What is my next move?
I'm trying not to focus on the impression I have that the skill set missing in answering questions should have been identified earlier. And focus on what we can do now, so any help there would be appreciated.

Yes it's normal to discuss a teen's progress with that child and not necessarily involve the parents (otherwise we'd be doing nothing but talk to parents all day). However progress reports usually have a grade for something like effort, do yours not?

If he is lazy and disorganised then you need to give him a kick up the arse. You could ask to have him put on a report at school for a couple of weeks to get a better picture of how he is in lessons if teachers have not responded to your enquiry.

So far the laziness is something we discuss. At home he has a set defined list of tasks that he knows needs to be done or sanctioned. The organisation thing is harder. We can only make suggestions based on what works for us.

Whereas his way looks messy as hell but there is a method to it. Whether it works or not is anyone's guess.

I'll ask about the report. Had never even heard of it before now.

Progress being good is teacher speak for he's progressed as much as their computer program predicts. So someone achieving D has good progress if they are still on the D achieving curve. To a lay person it sounds like "good progress" means high grades.

Does your school do 2 or 3 year GCSEs? Ours do the latter and they don't really do exam technique until the course has ended. The teachers go through tests in class before y11 but kids like my son who are good at flying under the radar can end up not listening until the end.

I have 2 at secondary and I've known for years that my son does the bare minimum (just homework). He rarely studied for tests before y11 mocks. His sister is the opposite and often asks me to help her study for tests whether it's German vocabulary or Geography case studies. She's very open about test scores and will tell me what the top scores in her class was.

In my experience it's unusual for schools to get parents involved at the micro-level that primary schools do. They try to teach kids the routine of study through tests and homework but it's up to the kids to actually do it. My ds has a routine for study but would never do more than the bare minimum. In my opinion it was not possible to make him change that. He's lucky that he can put minimum effort in and get good grades but I'm expecting him to find A-levels harder. Hopefully the study of the last few months will continue in y12.

Thanks Zombie. I can understand that. So I just need them to be upfront on what they mean. And the level that he is working at. I'm wondering therefore if getting a tutor is worth it and maybe allow him to find his own way. So many choices have me tying myself up in knots

So are they overlooking him and his issues (laziness, disorganisation, Lack of motivation), because he's easy to have in the classroom.

That's exactly what happened when I was at school. I started as a straight A/A* pupil and ended up failing all but one of my exams. Because I wasn't any trouble, I was basically ignored. I turned up, did the bare minimum I could get away with, and went home.

I remember my maths teacher in year 10 talking to me about moving down a set. I was embarrassed but would have hated my parents to know. I did very little about it as I didnt really know how to, so a tutor would have helped me.

Does he have a diagnosis of dyslexia?

DS's school prefer to talk to the kids themselves and get them to take responsibility for their own learning, but does your school not give you grade/ working at type predictions? I know they're not v.accurate, but ours each term sends parents a report sheet. There's a grade prediction for GCSE, which is based on what they should achieve after their SATs in KS2. Then for each subject you get 'on-track' (academically, so are they on track to get their target grade), 'above track', 'below track' or 'significantly below'. Each subject teacher also gives marks for behaviour in class and homework. It's not foolproof, but at least it gives parents some idea as to whether their child is working/ progressing/ etc. If they're 'significantly below' you automatically get called in to discuss your child's progress, etc.

Badbadbunny I thought I wanted to hear the truth with this one. Turns out I didn't 😁. When I speak to them again I don't want it to sound confrontational that they are doing something wrong or not doing something in this case. Just want to find a way to help him with things he doesn't understand to do yet.

I'm sorry that was your experience, hopefully you made it out the other side and all is well.

DD is in Y7 and teachers discuss her learning with her and not me. There is a facility to get a demerit which is marked in a contact book and the expectation is that it is DD discusses this with us. There is an end of term report and we saw a discrepancy between term 1 and term 2 on one subject and did contact the school after speaking to DD. I don't expect the school to contact me except in a major situation. Did the school reports highlight anything for your DS? When you looked through the schoolbooks were there any comments from the teachers with comments about how to make the work even better?

I sympathise with the whole making "good" progress. I think it's very misleading. I know a few people that have been caught out by it....believing the teacher is telling them the grade their dc will get will be good, as opposed to, not on the teacher's radar for needing to improve for stats reasons.

I think a lot of kids struggle with describe", "explain", "analyse" - it's part of the exam technique, it's vitally important to get it right....but with the current approach to GCSE and marking, my kids struggle to get the right amount of information down, often they know it they just didn't think they needed to further explain, they have to constantly hone their exam skills till they get a better feel for what is needed. Lots of practice answering exam questions. Someone mentioned a technique that encourages the dc to BUG the question.
Lack of motivation to study is pretty common - they are 15, I think it's perfectly understandable that they don't want to revise but the way of the world leaves them with little choice in this regard. I favour putting the ball in their court, having a chat about what they want for the future and their plan on how to achieve it, creating a supportive environment that encourages school work - distraction free. all the right resources, comfortable, well lit and taking an interest - but not too much. Stay involved in his progress - keep in touch with the school while you remain concerned.

Caulhead he talks to me about most things, when he's in the mood to talk (not often admittedly), but when last year his Spanish teacher wanted to put him in a lower set he told me. I was sympathetic because I know he felt useless as he's the only one in the class that doesn't speak another language. I haven't asked him why he didn't tell me. I can only guess. I'm trying to be more of a fixer anyway. No point in dwelling on what's happened.

He hasn't been diagnosed with anything. But his handwriting is atrocious. I can't think of any other indicator.

This is slightly left field but anyway:

• what are his motor skills like (eg sport, pencil control)
• does he have high level of fussiness wrt taste or materials

Are you sure he is lazy and disorganised and unmotivated because he can't be bothered, or because he doesn't know how to do it?

My DD was diagnosed with dyspraxia in y11. Massively struggled with Point/Evidence/Explain, needed me to organise her revision and schoolwork. It wasn't that she didn't try, she just couldn't do it herself.

There comes a point when you don't want to know about progress - good progress from a low starting point can still mean not passing GCSEs. So ask the questions you want answered, e.g Likely GCSE grade.

I was wondering about dyspraxia? Difficulties often manifest themselves in can't be bothered to disguise the real issue. Messiness, disorganisation, lack of focus may all be indicative of an SpLD. Perhaps it is worth asking about a screening?

Traalaa I do get progress reports. He is in the red for RE though does his homework and is well-behaved. But effort etc. Lacking. He is just completely against the course that we thought it best to focus on the other subjects.

Everything else is yellow hitting targets and his favourite subjects are in green exceeding targets.
English came back red for progress in the last progress check. But have been yellow consistently before that.
He's top set for Spanish and set 2 for every subject there are multiple sets.

Crossed posts!

pettswood he has three exercise books. Maths, English, science. Haven't seen any others. All other work is online so I have no idea what advice is given. We go on Edmodo and it will tell us he has had an assessment and the result. Most homework is set online.

blanketdog My DH has taken the where do you want to be, what do you want to do approach. My DS finds it difficult to respond. But it's good he's thinking about it. I find it hard myself as at 42 I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.😁

We've taken distractions like Xbox away. But he needs computer to work and finds distractions, but we are able to monitor to see what he is doing. He seems to have been taking this seriously and shown improvement here. It's mostly product design he uses it for.

Maybe it's easier to ask what he doesn't want his life to look like? Maybe discussing standard of living - where to live, holidays etc.
Ds seemed to think he'd inherit our home - large in the South East and never really have to leave home - that was his plan! We told him our house was part of our pension and we would be selling it and travelling the world for a few years - we have told the dcs there is no inheritance worth relying on, they will have to work their butts off to maintain the standard of living they have now! That is what motivated ds to work - he really didn't want to be poor!

Could you ask to speak to his Head of Year instead of subject teachers then? I'm guessing they have one. It's bad if apart from the English teacher, no others got back to you. They might be able to reassure you overall, as it sounds like he's doing okay/ well on a fair few subjects still.

ds is 14, and the school would mostly talk directly to him, but we would also get an email if they had a chat with him due to concern over work.

Having said that last year he went down a maths set, and we wouldn't have known if he hadn''t told us.

You mentioned the reading. My ds will only read if forced to. So we have made it compulsory that he sits in the living room and reads for 20 minutes before the x-box goes on.
Through the summer holidays, the whole family reads for half an hour after lunch every day.

I got this from my SIL and her teenage non reader. She used to make a thing of it - everyone to Costas with a book; all down the park with a blanket and a book, ice cream to finish etc. (she can afford more bribes than I can!)

ds kicked against it and tried every trick in the book for about a week last summer, and I was quietly consistant. He set an alarm and would stop mid sentence when the alarm went off, but he was reading.

The explanation questions. If he is co-operative, (!) then do a lot of this verbally, maybe over dinner. Ask simple questions and then ask him to explain somethign from it, analyse the pros and cons, explain his viewpoint. Make it about the subject, not the process, so you end up having an interesting conversation about politics, where you have promted - explain why; what are the pros and cons of.....

It's good that your ds will talk to you. My kids were embarrassed when teachers suggested set changes. It depends how big your school is but in our school set 1 and 2 do the same work. Being top of set 2 can be good for confidence and people at the top of set 2 will be as smart as the people at the bottom of set 1 so it's worth playing the long game and enjoy being top of set 2 - especially if set 2 has a teacher who's better.
Nobody is going to know or care about his set once GCSEs are over.
I think that it is important for your son to try and work out the problem - if he can't understand it then a tutor will help but if he hasn't been doing it then change can only happen when he makes an effort. My son admitted that he was easily distracted and would leave his phone with me before homework that didn't require the Internet.

I've learned that teachers vary a lot with the marking. Some are too lenient while others are super strict. It helps giving leeway with the strict ones.

I've also learned that my kids learn best with different types of teachers. My son works hard for teachers who are clear with expectations and more old-school. He does not try at all if the teacher is gentle and wishy washy. This is a big fault of his and means that his progress since secondary is super spiky. For last year's chemistry teacher he was on a grade E flight path. This year he's on the A* flight path - crazy.