I want to help my sons, but I have NO IDEA what they're doing

[JustGettingStarted]

I'm so sorry - I don't really know where to begin.

I'm not from this country - my home country (USA) had a very different way of doing things, and that was decades ago. Also, I work away from home every other week, so I am not around as much as I should be. DH is the stay-at-home parent and I'm afraid he's not able to help much. He just says that everything was different when he was there and he left school right after his GCSE's or whatever they used to be called. He's not likely to be very engaged for a variety of reasons like depression and social anxiety.

So, I am trying to get my head around things. I am ashamed to say that I let things go their own course. I went to some parents nights and I read the school reports (I had to ask what the numbers meant.) But I am not here.

DS1, who is in year 10, has entered adolescence with a vengeance and retreats to his room. He is bright but a bit lazy. We got a call from his maths teacher saying that he has done NO WORK at all in weeks. No assignments completed and his exercise book is mostly blank. He's not paying attention.

There is no textbook. I have managed to log in to the VLE and the MathsWatch websites (DS didn't know how to log into MathsWatch!) I'm trying to get a grip on what he is supposed to be doing. If there were a textbook like I had at his age/level, I could flip through to see where the class is and flip back to the point where DS seems to have lost track and then we could work through the difference over the half term, or at least attempt to. There are five assignments on Mathswatch and that is all there is. I assume his exercise book is supposed to contain the notes of the daily lessons but it doesn't. What is there is illegible chicken scratches.

I have also tried to figure out what he's doing in other classes. I'm not sure what he is doing in Science or History or Literature or Spanish. Again, textbooks would be helpful. Like, if the current Spanish chapter was dealing with a particular verb tense or whatever.

There are "resources" on the VLE and they link to various pdf's and scans of revision material.

Obviously, DS1 isn't exactly keen to fill me in on everything. We want to tackled maths, first, but I need to know what he's supposed to be doing in all the subjects and try to keep an eye on what he is doing. There doesn't seem to be an awful lot of homework. He's not being sent home with a page of quadratic equations to factor or whatever.

DS7 is in year 7 and I gather he's a keen student who is applying himself diligently so there's probably nothing crucial with him but I still wish I knew what they were doing!

What do I do? Where do I start?

Why is he not interested? Perhaps you should sit down with him and have a conversation. Maybe he needs goals? How much homework does he have? If he is depressed I suggest finding a therapist or counsellor in the area who can help. What are his reports like? Are they a true reflection of his ability or not?
Has he always been like this? It might be a idea to see if you can find a tutor.
Have a word with the teacher too.

If the op just started at the beginning of the revision book her son would end up getting bogged down in some of the harder numerical and algebraic material (solving fractional equations with unknowns in the denominators anyone?) before any geometry. This just doesn't work.
And I hadn't suggested that.
Well, I'll agree that you've probably seen more varied examples of Sow than I have, it sounds as if I was quite lucky in being in departments which preferred detailed Sow and lesson plans (and I do know the difference).
I'd be very worried about DS engaging in lessons if he cannot describe anything he has done in class by the end of the day, or have even an aim/heading for the lessons. In those cases I'd be going in to see the HoY/HoD to ask why it hadn't been picked up during lessons at all. If DS can't be bothered to put that much effort in, I don't fancy OP's chances of catching him up, unfortunately. Sorry, OP.

Sorry that was a rushed, multi tasked reply and came out a bit rude.

Yes, educating, I think we were talking at cross purposes. I was specifically referring to my experience with science SoW, rather than maths, as ultimately OP needs to cover the whole range of subjects. I appreciate they will be shorter for some, ours were quite involved affairs linking parts of different units together, etc, so contained irrelevant info for parents. Maybe OP's school does it differently.

We are going through this with Year 10 DS.

The school have put in their maths intevention which is basically a 6th form helper - useless.

He is on course to get a 7 but needs an 8 to do A-Level maths.

I threatened him with tutoring but he has chosen instead to do 4-5 pages of the CGP revision book a weekend/holiday day and he writes it all down and teaches the topic to me if it is particularly difficult. Since we started that he has really improved and we have a really good parents evening.

To do it though I have had to give up a lot of my time - it wont work without support and someone needs to be doing that whether you, dh or a tutor -there's no way round that. 15 year olds in this position aren't going to self motivate no matter what some people say.

We're going to be getting him in with a tutor. I will be finding out what they've covered. And he's been sat down with the review book doing something every day. I'm willing to learn the stuff and help him. I think he can be caught up with the class by the end of the year. I think he's getting used to the idea.

Well done. Consistent behaviour change can't come about without their buy-in and we can't expect them to change their motivation etc if the adults in their lives aren't willing to change theirs at all.

I find it easier to think about a work situation with my dc and then apply what I would do there and it removes some of the emotion and I realize it is mostly to do with what I'm doing or not doing as much as it is them.