How to come back from disappointing mock GCSE results?

[BethT192]

My DC is bright but says he gets distracted when revising and can't seem to focus for any significant amount of time. He will sit in his room and say he is revising or doing his homework, but he never seems to have got through much when he comes downstairs.

His teachers tell me that he should be aiming for 7s and 8s (and maybe some 9s in the sciences) in his GCSEs coming up this summer but we got his mock results back last week and they were more around the 5s and 6s mark.

I can tell that he is upset and disappointed and I want to help him to revise better but I'm really not sure how. Has anyone been in a similar situation and found a good way to engage an easily distracted kid who could do really well? Would love some support.

Also, any ideas for how to bring this up with school would be appreciated.

Is he distracted by his phone?

My DS Y11 has just done his mocks and we've had parent evening with the teachers telling us that he could expect a grade higher than he achieved in most subjects. In your DS's case that would give him 6 and 7s.
At parents evening they all gave him pointers to focus on specific areas/questions to gain more points. This seems to have helped him to focus for revision going forward.
If you haven't had a parents evening I would ask to go in and see someone and ask for the specific questions where he lost points/could gain more.
I have found DSs teachers have been very helpful this year. Most have given their email addresses and encouraged him to send answers he's attempted for them to check over.
Do they have intervention classes he can attend?

My DD isn't at that stage yet but I know that her school do an evening meeting for parents called a revision evening, and they've had extra classes (interventions) this half-term week as well. I'd check what support the school suggest and/or provide and work with them. Do you think he'll be happy to study more?

If he is disappointed himself, hopefully this will be an impetus to work harder/better. (Although 5s and 6s, which as PP says are likely to go up by at least a grade between now and the real exams are good results!)

These are the strategies I'm using with my DS (he has particular difficulties with some aspects of learning, so I am more micro-managing than some will want to)

1. Go through his mock papers (they should do this at school anyway) and work out where he lost marks. Does he work slowly, does he not understand how to answer the question (Describe/Explain/Discuss etc type command words), is he not writing enough, are there gaps in his knowledge - and if so,where?

1. Work out how he learns best. My DS struggles to learn via traditional note making type methods, but gets on well with Seneca and finds answering lots of questions helpful. Your DS might prefer mind maps, or flashcards or watching YouTube videos.

1. Based on the answers to 1 and 2 (but also to ensure everything is adequately revised prior to May/June) make a revision timetable. Ideally he would do this himself, but might welcome some guidance :)

I'd suggest making it fairly specific - so you don't just write "Biology" but "Biology - plant cells" on the timetable. With my DS we would also agree that this would mean he spends this time answering the plant cell questions from his revision guide and he would write down any areas that he struggled with and (if time) review those areas. So the session is very focused. But your DS could decide his own focus. If my DS doesn't finish or finds things he needs to spend more time on, the timetable gets shuffled to allow for this (but with also an eye to a fixed end point). We've found that 30 minute sessions seem more manageable than longer ones; your DS may be different.

1. Check what they are doing at school. DS's school is offering 8 after school revision sessions a week but these are of varied help, so he goes to some and not others. They have also finished the syllabus in virtually every subject, so are doing a lot of revising at school. The home revision timetable gets tweaked to take this into account (so he's doing a lot more geography in which they will still be teaching new stuff up to April than computer science where every lesson since about November has been revision).

1. Come and join us on the GCSEs 2020 thread :) Lots more advice from others in a similar position!

My oldest child had very disappointing mock results and the shock was enough for him to get his arse in gear and study properly. He ended up getting better grades than anyone expected and I doubt that would have been the case if he had done well in his mocks.

Can he work at the kitchen table?

Went through this with DS who had a very late diagnosis of ADD and found it so hard to focus but is very capable. From about now to exams we worked our way through the board revision books - did mind maps, visual aids etc. I sat with him and did this, which was hard (I work f/t) but I knew it was for the short term

School organised some peer tutoring in maths, and I got a tutor for chemistry (I didn't have the brain capacity for that subject ). We abandoned French as there was no way he was going to pass it. Long story short, It worked. He passed with very respectable grades.

I think by me getting so involved, DS no longer felt he was sinking and not able to cope.

My dd got 1s and 2s and wants to do A levels I don't know how to help. She already has a GCSE 6 in Maths from last year that is the only one I can educate her with.
She just screams at me if I try to guide her.

I remember when I was revising our teacher shared some evidence that doing just 20 minutes at a time was best to get things to sink in.

Mocks are supposed to be disappointing! That's the point, to show the children that they need to get more work done and give them a kick up the backside.

He knows what he needs to do now but the only one who can do it is him. IME the more "managing" parents do for them the worse it gets. My lazy very easily distracted DS1 only started working when I gave up and decided he could mange it himself and take the consequences.

It might be an idea to look at which A levels and even potentially which degree he could fancy doing after GCSEs. If he then realises that this might not be possible if he doesn't stay a bit more focused then it might be an incentive?

DD's friend had disappointing mock results and it was enough of a shock to get her to knuckle down and then she did really well so it can be changed between mocks and the real thing.

Also as other posters have said, almost everyone at DD's school did better in their exams than they did in mocks.