Anyone else's DC got mocks in New Year and doing NO visible revision??

[kitnkaboodle]

.... i hope so because the other threads on the subject of mocks are making me feel like crap parent of the year!! My DS has good grade predictions and apparently has a plan for studying these hols (nothing at all done in first two days ...). DH and I have agreed to let him do it his way. He reacts very badly to nagging - it would ruin everyone else's Christmas. No charts, colour coded timetables, etc, here

Anonymous I agree although it's easier said than done!

Dd is likely to do ok in her mocks. She needs five 6s to get into sixth form plus a 7 in maths. She's likely to get it on no revision and will be happy enough with that in August I think (although she wants a 9 in maths). It'll get her where she wants to go.

Of course it won't look good on an UCAS form and you can't brag in the PS that you did it on zero revision.

Also I worry that if she coasts to acceptable GCSEs she won't have learned how to work and A levels will be a disaster.

But as I say it's her life and I'm not going to get too worked up about it. I spent my teenage years being told I wasn't doing enough even though I worked my arse off. It didn't make me work harder and it caused serious damage to my relationship with my parents.

As a note, A levels are a huge jump regardless and the first year is often a bit of a shock no matter what, especially with science or languages. Its good to be forewarned of this as otherwise it can cause a lot of concern/panic! (I found this out the hard way haha)

It is such a hard balance of leaving them to be independent as you you know they will need to be independent in any future studies and offering support/advice/nagging for GCSEs.

My parents weren’t around much when I sat my O levels so completely left to my own devices.. I didn’t do particularly well in my O levels, if my parents had taken more of an interest, would I have achieved more?

What is the “right” approach? Sit back and let them get on with it or be on their back 24/7, I think I’m somewhere in the middle though obviously DD would probably disagree!!

My DD has IT and Music exams lasted this month and next month, the real ones not mocks....... Not much revision done for these...

Thanks for the words of wisdom all.

DD's plans is to go to the local 6th form. She did want to originally go the selective and super academic one but has changed her mind and now wants to go to one that's a bit more nurturing, which I think is probably a good idea for her. She needs 5x level 4s to get into the college, but a level 6 in English language for one of the subjects she's chosen. I think she'll be fine getting these results whilst coasting and doing very little, which I guess is the main thing and the point I need to keep reminding myself when I'm getting frustrated.

We had a good talk last week which led to her choosing going to two revision classes at school on a FRIDAY! Small steps and all that!

I'm going to take her on a stationary shopping trip next week to see if that helps with motivation.

Hey - fellow parents of lazy teens/geniuses/skivers/head-in-the-sanders ... how are mocks going after no/minimal revision?? My ds says they are Ok, apart from French - which I think he has pretty much abandoned now anyway to concentrate on others . For Romeo and Juliet this week I warned him to look at last year's real GCSE question, which was on male aggression and took everyone by surprise. Lo and behold, that's the paper he got given this week. Me: 'Did you manage to write a reasonable amount on it??' Him: grunt ...

To be fair I never revised for GCSE and did well. If his grades are good he should do some but might be fine if he’s a lazy bugger like I was.

Just seen this was Dec - ignore me .

Yeah - interested to hear from parents whose DC are sitting mocks this month ...

Dd has done 6 so far. 7 more to go .

She hurt her wrist on Friday because her drunk friend fell on her at a party. She claims that if she's done badly it's because her wrist hurt.

The complete absence of any revision has nothing to do with it. Obviously!

Yesterday she was quite upset with how the day had gone. Particularly English where she got muddled up and misread the question. I think she realised she was starting to panic because she was so unprepared so she did actually do a couple of hours of revision for one of today's exams.

The magic wore off though because she's got German tomorrow and she's done absolutely nothing for that.

Fortunately maths has been going great. I think she's hoping she'll get an 8 overall. They are sitting all 3 papers.

I have completely left her to it apart from testing her when asked. I don't know if I've done the right thing or not. If she does nothing in the summer I will be removing all devices and chaining her to her desk. I think she'll be alright though. She just knows these ones don't count.

Mocks finished. All have been declared 'fine' or 'easy'. We don't know the results yet. Mind you, I have no idea how the teachers are judging the grade boundaries as they were rather low for the actual maths last year so hope they are not judging all subjects on those grade boundaries

My Ds has until Friday to go, then French oral next week. He's been finding the relentlessness to be quite tough - not quite sure how the actual papers have gone. He said they were 'ok'. He's mega-tired tho'

kitnkaboodle, warning it might not get any easier when it comes to the real thing. From what I could see DD probably did no more than a couple of hours revision for her mocks. The real thing was hit and miss, sometimes she'd be up late revising, other subjects (especially the sciences which came at the end), she did very little for. However, she did put a lot into her homework/coursework. Lucky for her mock results were pretty much as expected, about four subjects before predicted grades. She actually did slightly better than predicted/expected by her in the real thing, funnily enough she did better than predicted in two of her sciences - I guess at that point most of them had had enough of revising so were in the same boat.

Hope it goes okay for your DS. If results aren't what he'd expect, hopefully it'll encourage to do more revision nearer the time. You'll hear many tell you they're kids are revising in March, have to admit mine didn't start until a few days before the real things.