GCSE revision without notes?!?

[MrsRabbitsCleaner]

My yr 11 DS has ADHD, just recently diagnosed after a hellish time in lockdown 1. He’s a bright kid at a selective grammar but has really struggled the last few years with lack of focus, concentration and motivation. As a result his foundation knowledge in his core subjects is poor and he’s currently got no revision notes for any subject. He’s looking at 4/5’s possibly some 6’s if he’s lucky.

The issue is he refuses to make any notes at all. He’s very reluctantly started some revision today for January mocks and has managed an hour on Seneca. He tells me making notes doesn’t help him at all and he prefers this interactive way of learning. I get that and am supportive but I worry he has nothing tangible to take forward as he gets nearer to exams and has limited time to revise each topic. My process was always long notes getting shorter and shorter until just a few words on flash cards etc. I appreciate he’s very different but can he really successfully revise with no notes at all?

Should I be worried? He won’t listen to me. It’s a major deal to get him to sit and work for an hour in a day.

I feel guilty that I haven’t pushed for an ADHD diagnosis until recently. I’ve known since year 7 that he’s been struggling and have been in contact with school regularly but because he’s not disruptive or badly behaved I think it’s gone under the radar. We now have limited time to support him prior to GCSEs.

Any experiences welcome. Either to reassure me this might be enough or experience with similar kids and what’s worked for them.

Thanks

My son wasn't keen on help either. He had resisted up until mocks but when that whe tits up, I had the ammunition to step in and go "well your way didn't work so now it's my way" He didn't like it at all at the time (it was hideous for me too tbh) and there were tears and complaining but I stuck to my guns and he thanked me afterwards and still talks about it now as if I am the best Mum for doing it! Sometimes you have to do what's best for them even if they hate it, and hope they appreciate it afterwards! Thankfully it paid off on this occasion.

My motivating factor was knowing how devastated he would be if he failed. And I also knew that it wasn't from lack of intellectual ability, just a lack of skills. That seemed a real shame to me.

I also only have the one child, which made it more doable - if I'd had little ones, it wouldn't have been possible.

Download past papers for him to do, then the mark scheme so he can grade himself and see where he could improve.

Ask him to teach you about what he's been learning (so he'll have to explain it, this helps retain the info).

Get him to draw some mind maps in various colours, with diagrams if he's arty, to represent the information he needs to remember.

Take it from someone who's just been there with DSS - the online learning sites are not enough to get good grades. He managed to convince us they were and that he was confident. He got very poor grades.

Oh one further thing that I did - people with ADHD tend to be poor at self reflection and they can tend to live in the moment and not think about consequences. They also don't have an internal clock so awareness of time is very poor. So I kept reminding him of two things - 1. that the revision would be over in x month/weeks, and he would get a big long holiday. We would tick off his schedule so he could see it passing. Having a schedule also meant he could visualise the revision with relevance to the exams 2. I made him think about how he would feel if he failed his exams - what that would feel like at the time opening the results, and how it would feel if he did well. Of course only works if they will be bothered!

@LindaEllen

Download past papers for him to do, then the mark scheme so he can grade himself and see where he could improve.

Ask him to teach you about what he's been learning (so he'll have to explain it, this helps retain the info).

Get him to draw some mind maps in various colours, with diagrams if he's arty, to represent the information he needs to remember.

Take it from someone who's just been there with DSS - the online learning sites are not enough to get good grades. He managed to convince us they were and that he was confident. He got very poor grades.

People with ADHD tend to be poor at self-evaluation so as a minimum, I would really recommend doing their marking - you will also then get a feel for how they are doing and they are progressing and where they are going wrong. I can imagine my son reading an answer that's vaguely like his and thinking, "well they are pretty similar" and not realising that he's only actually explained half of it for example. You can then nudge them back on track.

Second minimum would be putting together a schedule for them or with them as they will find this very difficult to do and it's the backbone of any revision.

Goodness so many more replies. Thanks so much. MiniMum your description of the help you gave your son is along the lines of what I’ve been thinking I might need to do and for the same reasons you describe - my DS doesn’t know what he needs to revise or how to get it done. My issue is that I work full time and my other child is severely learning disabled so takes a lot of my attention. I also strongly feel that his current inability is partly due to his ADHD and immaturity. I don’t believe he will always need so much support and direction. I’ve even thought of taking a sabbatical from work next year so I can help him but that just feels so OTT and I’m sure ridiculous to some people but I know he’s so much more able than he’s currently demonstrating.

LizzieLoops we went private for DS to get his diagnosis. We went to a psychologist first then had to go privately again to a psychiatrist for medication which we’re trialling at the moment. I’d really suggest you take a look at the online ADHD symptoms lists and quick tests if you haven’t already. When I read the description of inattentive adhd (add) it was all so so familiar.

crazycrofter I think Seneca is free. I’ve certainly not paid anything and DS has been using it. I think there might be paid options too. Also think there’s more threads on here about it if you search for Seneca. I first heard of it on here.