How to motivate Ds re GCSE’s

[Jackjack]

DS1 due to take GCSE’s next summer but so laid back he’s almost in denial. Needs 5 in English & Maths with an overall score of 48 from 8 best subjects for his chosen 6 th form. Has mocks after Christmas and I feel panicky that by the time he’s gets a reality check from this it’ll be too late. Anyone else ??

Get out the prospectuses and application forms for second choice 6th form and for vocational courses. Make him sit down and have a discussion and decide what/where to apply and do it.

Hopefully he will be motivated enough to want his first choice and not the fallbacks he will put the effort in.

And/Or bribery? Say if he does 'X amount of revision before the end of term and Y over the holidays' you will do Z? (NB revision needs to be tangible - e.g. practice questions you can see, notes written, stuff learned you can test him on etc).

Unfortunately l have the same problem. Ds1 has no motivation to do well, complicated by his autism.

He should have easily got 5 and 6s in all subjects. He will barely scrape 1

same boat too.

DS knows it's vital to revise, take notes in class especially English for analysing (but doesn't). If he concentrates on one subject for more than 20mins a day it's a miracle.

We are currently going through prospectus' s of colleges, 6 forms and apprenticeships.

still hasn't got him to put time into getting good grades

Sure this isn't the done thing but my parents bribed me! So many £ for an A, B etc... Seemed to work!

I think bribing for exam results is too far in the future, small rewards often is better. (Plus rewarding on results is complicated if there is more than one DC in the family with differing ability).

So work for 1 hr each evening = Cinema trip at end of week.
(Define the work to be done in 30min slots. Not just 'quote bank' but 'find 15 quotes that show Macbeth's character' or whatever. Very specific with clear output.)

Some DC just don't know how to start / get going. My DD1 has dyspraxia and I needed to micromanage revision. I did most of her maths and science 1-1 with her. (But she was willing which makes a big difference. DD2, y9 may be a different matter.)

January isn't too late to get a shock from mocks and work harder, provided he's in the "coasting along" group rather than the "already way behind" group. That's why loads of schools do mocks in January. We have covered enough of the gcse to set realistic exams with realistic grade boundaries and there's still time for coasting (i.e. lazy) students to pull their socks up.

January isn't too late to get a shock from mocks and work harder

I wish it would work, but DS see it as conformation that's he's useless and can't do it.

he's always in the past has been predicted good grades, and was listed as gifted and talented in 2 of his subjects they where expecting 9s from him. but now we just hope he passes at all!

He looses confidence in himself the moment someone else gets a higher mark then him, believes he's useless from then on and disengages. which is what happened to his G&T subjects, the teachers are pulling their hair out at his loss of interest and lack of work from him. He's coasted so far on no imput from him. But end of year assessments show he won't be able to pull it out the bag for GCSEs.

I’ve helped him to make a revision plan and we’ve looked at which revision guides would be useful so I guess that’s a start. His Dad has suggested throwing his Xbox in the bin, not too helpful. He’s more than capable if he puts some effort in, which makes it so frustrating. Thank you for your comments. X