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.

My kids don't read. If pushed to do a non-digital mental activity then they'd rather do puzzles like word searches, Sudoku etc or draw. Ds in particular would rather spend 30 minutes learning new difficult words to sound like Sheldon Cooper than read.

TeenandTween

• motor skills like (eg sport, pencil control) He's good at playing tennis,

terrible at football, but the way he holds his pencil is like he's fighting against himself. He's so heavy handed.

• high level of fussiness wrt taste or materials (okay so he used to be quite fussy, but I'm assuming he's grown out of it mostly, he just doesn't like certain foods, likes the taste of mushrooms, but hates the texture, so picks them out. Has decided he doesn't like chilli (which is new). I'm assume that's just him being a kid and he understands how tastes change and develop over time.

He definitely struggles with PEE. I've put it down to laziness as it appears as though he does the bare minimum but never expands, I never thought he might not be able to expand.

Good point about progress reports. I'll ask outright.

Blanketdog - good idea, taking the question from a different angle. I'll try that later tonight.

Traalaa - I got an explanation from the HOY, who also put me in touch with the subject teachers of which only one got back to me, presumably because she was about to go on mat leave before parents evening.

Steppemum - I like these tactics we do discuss things over dinner, but never thought how to tap into getting him to explain stuff. I'll give it a go and see how we fair.

Thanks all. Very helpful tips and insights to how it really works. At least if I mess this child up, I'll be better prepared for the other one (because of course she has the same personality and everything will be exactly the same )

at ds school they did this really cool thing where they had to fill in a booklet.

It did things like which car do you want, where do you want to live, which phone etc etc.

It began with asking which job you wnated. They then had to add up the cost of all the things they had chosen and see if their chosen profession would cover it!

It was quite an eye opener. Ds was quite clever, he chose a second hand mid range car etc rather than just writing porsche!
It made them realise how expensive London is, and how some jobs are London only.

It made them realise that most of them needed to win the lottery adapt either their expectations, or think about their chosen job if they wanted to acheive that.

It then worked backwards - wnat to be a lawyer? Then you need these A levels and these GCSE, and brought it right bakc to now.

One conversation rising from this was that ds realised he HAD to work on his English, as every single thing that you want to do requires English and Maths GCSE.

It really helped to make what they are doing today relevant

We have a termly report for each subject, teacher normally put down comments about DS1's learning, and there is the score teacher put down and also score for end of term exam.Then there is a yearly parents evening, you can talk to each teacher for 5 minutes. Apart from this, there is not much correspondence between teacher and the parents. If we email teacher, they do reply in 2 days.We only emailed once in the whole 5 years.

As there is 1 year left for the GCSE, I think you'd better put your effort on help DS improving his learning rather thank push school. As I think school is a big place, there are lots of students, I don't think they are able to do much more.

On one side, get him finish whatever school ask him to do. On the other side, I will ask him to make a plan to start revision on the important subjects from now on. For the important subjects, I mean math, English and science. Along the way, he should find the point he doesn't understand and solve it. For the way to do it, it will depend on your ability to help him. For example, if you can help, then you can get GCSE revision exercise book , get him do it, you mark it and then correct it with him. But if you can't, then you may hire tutor to do it. One of my friend did this, she hired an English tutor and then did the math and Science herself. And also, past paper is useful, by doing it , you can easily find out what he can't do and didn't understand.

The booklet thing sounds great. steppemum

Autumnsky, it would seem it's just us. so I will have to get things started with what we can do.

Our School did a similar thing to steppemum's but they were all randomly assigned jobs. Ds was a nursery worker (poorest paid in the class) dd was a civil engineer. Ds quickly realised when he plugged the numbers in that he couldn't afford a car, a pet or much of a holiday. Dd offered to pay for her friend's holiday as she was on a low paying career as well. It was good toking point for ages - they found it massively entertaining but the message was very strong - ds in particular was not happy being the poorest in the class!

blanketdog ... Im loving the BUG technique... going to share that with my daughter....

OP - I so sympathise with your situation... I've currently got a y10 DD, academic but unmotivated at the moment.... and I realise that I need to understand what she needs to do and where the gaps are.....and best to start working on these post summer exam results than wait for mocks which is getting rather late...I'm chastising myself for not getting involved before, but on reflection think this is a pretty good time to get involved with a year to go to GCSEs...

I'd suggest you look at:

1. What are his predicted grades in each subject?
2. Are these good enough - in his eyes? in yours?
3. What does he need to do to achieve these? OR to improve them?

Definitely worth getting a tutor if once you've analysed these you reckon you need one... its got to be the best possible time to invest... and even if you only use them for a few sessions, it'll give you and your DC confidence and clarity about where he's at etc....

Hi just read the posts and wanted to say that my children weren't obviously on the autistic spectrum until the pressures became greater in high school - disorganisation when workload more intense was difficult and despite being very bright , struggled with understanding what was being asked of them in English tests for example. It became clear that for one of my children, their anxiety levels were way beyond usual exam/school pressure anxiety whilst the gap between them and their peer group grew wider throughout high school until they had no friends. Just for a consideration, I'm wary of jumping in and saying they need to get their act together - sometimes there are other issues going on which aren't obvious enough to pick up on when they're younger. And young people are sensitive underneath the don't care exterior...