Advice for Y9

[PinkSunflower]

My DS is underperforming at school. His end of Y8 report was okay but he and we felt his results were lower than we expected especially given his glowing reports from parents evening. On restarting school in Y9 he has moved down in some subjects and initially was very demoralised. He then decided to see it as a challenge to improve. The problem is that the test results that are starting to come back are again middling, in the 60% region, which is again not as good as he and we think they should be from the levels of understanding he demonstrates at home. I’m feeling like I’m failing as a parent as this is clearly impacting his self confidence. I’m really not sure how best to proceed, the school are adamant everything is okay, but I feel either we need to manage his expectations differently or maybe it is an exam technique problem. I’m really worried that if I don’t get this right quickly it’s going to have a long term effect on his self belief and confidence to the extent that he may just stop trying. Any and all advice welcome. Thank you for reading.

I have a y9. (and one who has finished school).

The tests he gets, are these ones he knows about and is expected to revise for in advance?
Do you help him with revision or expect him to just 'know' how to revise and be able to do it by himself?

For DD we try to get tests back (especially for Maths and Science) and I look at them to see where marks have been lost - is it knowledge or understanding or applying or silly mistakes etc. That then helps for future revisions.

Do you help with revision for English/Humanities? e.g. By asking what answer structure he is mean to use etc. So e.g. If English asks for persuasive writing can he remember what sort of thing he is meant to include?

Thank you for replying teentimestwo
To answer your questions, this is for tests that he knows he has to revise for. I do try and help him revise, discuss the topic, review questions in his book, write some questions in the same format as his book, help with flash cards etc. However he is very independent and often when I try to help he is insist he wants to work out his own ways to revise which results in me having the please don’t reinvent the wheel discussion. I think that we haven’t yet really found a way that works for him and I’m very concerned that he will slide into lower sets until we can address this. Any suggestions welcome.

Wrt getting the tests back, where we can we do. In maths it’s almost always silly mistakes never concept problems, he does it in about 25% of the time given and is error blind when he checks it - I’ve never been successful in getting him to see mathematical errors. Science again the understanding is good but often he misinterprets the question and loses marks. Trying to address this with medium success.

English/humanities generally good start but then when he gets involved in a topic he loses coherence. I keep explaining planning the use of PEE etc, he understands but often doesn’t pick the best quotes and so loses marks. Again suggestions welcome

Thank you

The other thing is to know what is expected for his set.

So if set 1 and set 3 have the same paper, they might not be expecting set 3 to get more than 50%, so 60% would be ace iyswim?

maths silly mistakes.

• help him be aware of where he goes wrong eg 5^2 = 25 not 10
• encourage checking by using a different calculation order / method not just looking at what he did first time round

science

• just before next test go through last test, and show how reading the question helps and what key words mean

humanities

• planning answers?

Maybe it will just come with maturity?

Thank you.
It’s so hard when he comes home so demoralised, especially when he goes determined to do so well.

Maths yes we will actively practice looking at different ways to determine if wrong or right. We’ve often discussed it but I’ve never got him to actively practice - I think instead of marking his answers I will get him to mark his own using a difference calculation approach and then tell him if there are still some wrong answers that he needs to find and correct.

Science - what a good idea stupidly I hadn’t thought of that. His science teacher suggested the use of BUG. Which he thought was an excellent idea but again I’ve not seen evidence of him actively using it. So I will both go through his previous papers and instigate actually marking keywords etc.

Planning, with English etc. We don’t tend to get as much notice of tests with these so it’s harder. He does know all the techniques but they just seem to exit his head when he’s writing a piece. Partly he is an unusual thinker and doesn’t want to regurgitate what he has learnt he’d rather try and think of a new way to look at something or use a different quote to those they used heavily in class. This means it’s hard for him to access higher marks. I’m not too sure how best to manage this because I think in the long run actually generate your own thoughts and ideas rather than regurgitating shows true initiative unfortunately until he becomes better at it he’s not going to score well. He is resistant to regurgitating for the sake of getting better marks as he says it’s boring and means he’s just a robot. Maybe the best way for me to help is for us to unpick and rewrite a couple of pieces together and then maybe ask the teacher to have a look and give us some pointers so we know what we are aiming at.

Thank you so much for your help it’s helped me to find new approaches forward. I feel much more positive than I did yesterday where I just couldn’t see how I could constructively help.

👍😊

Is he starting his GCSE texts in Yr9 for English?
Could you encourage him to write one paragraph using quotes that the teacher has used in class and then use that as a framework for a quote of his own? I totally agree with you that it’s positive for him to be coming up with his own ideas. This will help him with gaining higher grades in his GCSEs

Thank you Selina.
Yes he is and that’s a great idea I’ll suggest that to him this morning.

It so so helpful to be able to share with other people as fresh eyes see new and better approaches. Thank you I feel much more positive.