Any advice re screen time fir year 11s and how to keep the noses of lazy but bright kids to the grindstone without making them stressed about GCSEs? [Edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

[OneHamm3r]

Just that really. Dreading this year and could go with some advice on how to handle it all.

Assuming you mean Year 11, why not come and join us on the Year 11 support thread?

Title has been edited to year 11.

Ex teacher. Make sure all electronics are out the bedroom over night.

Come and join the year 11 thread. It's fab!

By year 11 I'd hope they were self regulating.

Phone etc outside of bedroom overnight and not used for a bit (half hour?) before bed to help to get ready for sleep
Desk/Workstation sorted with stationary /notes/ books for each subject easily accessible.
School work/ Notes sorted to find out missing bits of syllabus or weak spots
Family box set tv viewing
Family days out
Help with cooking in evening. Anything which (sometimes sneakily) upped contact also helped to settle/ de-stress .
Walks (if you can get them to do it )
Good luck!

I feel your pain. We have a rule about DS plugging in phone downstairs by 10pm on school nights, but it does cause arguments. The playstation/tv is downstairs so that's not an issue, and he plays a lot of sport, but when at home he spends most of his evening on the phone to his Girlfriend. He does all his homework with her on Facetime at the same time and says it helps him study (she goes to a different school so they're not doing the same homework). Fingers crossed he's right. He did one early and got a 9, so he has the upper hand on that argument for the moment.

How helpful Maiden,my parenting has clearly failed.

Never has electronics in bedroom overnight, although we just found out at beginning of hols he snuck an old iPad in. I limit to 2 hours a day but fed up of the rows and monitoring. Good idea re filling up time and organisation.

Problem is he’ll get 6 and 7s with zero effort but should be aiming for 8 and 9s( and needs them). He still isn’t getting the importance of GCSEs.
He daydreams too and isn’t that organised. Desk tidy at moment though.

Any other ideas? Will check out that thread.

Have you had discussion on what he wants to achieve after GCSEs, e.g. A levels, uni and beyond? If he has high aspirations, have you discussed how doing well on GCSEs will set him up for A levels, and/or that some unis will look at GCSE results when making offers? Or even that X school he wants for 6th form needs 7s&8s as entrance requirements.

Personally, I think that though many y11s will be self regulating re tech, many others won't, and y11 is not the year to take the risk if you are at all in doubt.

Surely if he's bright he should understand the importance of preparing for exams. If he can't be bothered, it might do him good to not get the grades he could have achieved.

Yes he knows the importance but is one of those kids that can get by with very little effort and pull out what is necessary at the 10th hour. I don’t want to risk. Ok will keep up the screen monitoring. Maybe I should get some uni visits in to encourage him but will that put too much pressure on him?

but will that put too much pressure on him?

Well, if you think he is lazy, a bit of pressure would be a good thing, wouldn't it?

Rows? If he argues he can lose all screens for a few days. Time to earn the privileges. Why does he”need” such high grades?

He has high aspirations of which he is capable.

I do nag and put pressure but how much is too much iykwim?

Who says he’s capable? Do staff agree? so He doesn’t “need” them?

The trouble is what works for one child will be ineffective for another. You can only provide the framework.

I failed miserably with first DC, did moderately well with the second and the third did very well.

However the first DC caught up massively when he spotted how others had done in comparison, went on to narrowly miss a First, and won prizes.
Lazy-but-able boys are crucifyingly annoying. Best of luck.

If he needs motivating consider taking a tour of a university - stuning frescos and marbled floors of Oxford really motivated me at 15 to bust a gut with my GCSE's.

Also contact school and make sure you know of all the after school revision sessions and make sure he attends

Op, no idea why you’re getting so many snide answers!

Watching with interest as my disinterested but bright son goes into y10

Depends what he wants to do if he "needs them".

But I think it's silly to say why does he "need" high grades. He might not "need" them but he will have better options if he gets them. Why does anyone need them? If we all race to the bottom then what good does that do anyone?
He may have ambitions now that don't need them, but later regret it. Far harder to go back. Ever heard someone saying "I regret working for my A in GCSE maths?" No, me neither.
Ever heard someone saying "I need to work and get my GCSE maths to do something I now really want to do, wish I hadn't messed around at school"? Yes, on here and in RL many times.

I remember a thread on another forum about learning a musical instrument and whether parents should encourage practice. It was full of people saying that they'd drifted along and stopped and wished they hadn't. The majority wished that their parents had nagged or insisted they practiced.
None of these people "needed" to play a musical instrument, but in a thread of into the hundreds of replies there were perhaps one or two saying that they hadn't appreciated their parents pushing them to practice.

OP, I agree. In my dc's case it isn't overnight that's any issue. It's the "rush through my homework to get back to my game" or "do my homework with minimal effort because I'm mostly concentrating on talking on Discord."
One of the issues is that such a large proportion of homework is on or needs the computer. It means they've got the temptation right in front of them. It's "just a quick game, only take 20 minutes" and three hours later, they realise they haven't gone back to the homework and it's bedtime. Done the equivalent myself on MN.
I've given dd a week to show me that she can work in her bedroom without me nagging. So far this evening I have a strong suspicion that she hasn't even done one, she was warned at 3:30, it's now over 2 hours later.

By next week I suspect she will be working where I can see her, as otherwise she never does anything she doesn't have to, and what she does do is with the minimum of effort.

Yes staff do agree and so do his grade aims.

Yes Witchend you so get it and the issue re work being done on laptops. He can shut down tabs so quick, can hear me creeping up the stairs. 😩 Dh is worried that if we pressure him too much he’ll it could blow up in our face.

Can anybody visit Oxford uni?He doesn’t go to a private school and we don’t get pp ie we don’t really fit their outreach criteria.

So he doesn’t use the laptop or he uses it in a shared space.
A nine is not an A @Witchend. It’s an incredibly high grade and the content of the new GCSEs is very different from the old courses.
My eldest has just finished GCSE courses. I expected him to work hard and meet deadlines. I didn’t expect him to flog himself to death in an attempt to meet the very highest grades.

Not worried about 9s but 8s yes.

He has his own laptop.

He has to do most of his homework on it, not got the best shared space.

I’m not expecting him to flog himself as I made quite clear. I do expect him to work hard which he isn’t doing.

8s are also A*s OP!