Year 10 revision hell!

[Manchestertimes]

My daughter has mocks coming up and will not revise. I have tried everything from revising with her, bribing,shouting, begging but she doesn't care. As soon as I leave the room she stops working. My husband says I should leave her to it but it is so hard as I don't want her to ruin her life. Does there ever come a time when you have to step away. Its really damaging my mental health and my marriage.

I think the time to step away is when it's damaging your mental health and your marriage - i.e. Now.

Does she really not care?
Or is she frightened / overwhelmed so has gone into fight or flight mode?

Maybe leave things be now, and see how she does.

Once you get results you can bring in discussions for 6th form - would she have qualified for what she wants to do, if she has aspirations for university, that kind of thing.

Leave her too it. You cannot force her to revise. Perversely if you actually stop pushing she might do some revision.
My DS did dreadfully in his Year 10 exams. He couldn't see the point as GCSEs were still a year away. He did up his game in Year 11 when it actually mattered.

Not revising won’t “ruin her life”. Revising is great but being forced by you won’t work.

How will doing badly in her year 10 exams ruin her life?
If anything doing badly will make her realise she needs to work more and so she will do better in future exams.

Not revising will not ruin her life. Getting one or two grades lower than she's capable of will not ruin her life.

One of the reasons for mocks is to give students a practice at revising and working under exam conditions. If she's disappointed with her results it might give her the kick up the bum she needs to knuckle down.

You need to lighten up a bit. Year 10s have missed so much school, lived though so much weirdness and been apart from their friends fat too much. Cut her some slack.

• far too much

Options: sit quietly in the room doing your own worky stuff (assuming it’s not her room)
Help her/make her do a timetable
Find out what school have advised and insist she sticks to that
Set out some actual tools to help her eg cgp guides
Turn off WiFi / remove allowance or whatever til she does an hour

Or leave her to it and hope she pulls round after the exams, which she probably will.
But keep the arguments short and don’t let it dominate your life. If you can!

Op seriously, in this situation I would make sure she has:

Materials to help - past papers through school, papers printed from website, revision guides
Plenty of nice food to eat available (revision = snacks in my house)
Something scheduled to do every so often as an outlet - sporting activity, Guides, dance class
Somewhere quiet to study - bedroom, dining table, study
All possible stationery - cards, post its, highlighters

Then I would leave her to it and let her get on. You cannot do it for her, you can provide the setting but that is all. If she does badly it may make her realise she needs to work. Even if her yr 10 mocks count for next year (who knows, they may) doing less well won't ruin her life. She has to learn and I feel now may be a good time.

I really appreciate everyones advice. She is really lazy and doesn't care if she does well or not. I have bought every revision book and have literally gone through it all with her. She always does well in tests as I am killing myself revising with her, but she is really arrogant.
I have taken a step back today and will try to let her learn from her mistakes. It's just so frustrating as she is bright but lazy.

Mine also has year 10 exams next week, very bright, but has done very little. I've provided revision guides. A friend asked to do some revision together online, so she's done a bit that way (I can hear them talking, and it does seem to be productive), but I'm not sure she's done anything on her own. We'll see how she does...
It is up to them, in the end of the day. My parents never said more than the odd "should you be doing some revision?"

If she is bright, does she have plans for after GCSEs?
Does she (and you) know what the entry criteria are?

It could be good leverage if eg she wants to do A levels, requirements are 6s/7s and she gets 4s/5s because of lack of revision. Or after mock results, if she is a bit disappointed less bright peers did better than her.

The only extra thing I would say is that friends might be claiming to not revise, but it probably isn't true.

I remember DD1's year group being advised to agree working times and break times with friends and they should then stay off phones during working times, so no 'fear of missing out' as they were all doing the same thing.

@Manchestertimes I would start a talk with her about what she wants to do after GCSEs. What is her plan B if she doesn't get the grades she needs?

Ds worked hard, did incredibly well, his mate got a grade 5 in maths which meant he couldn't do maths A level as he needed a grade 6. Cue GCSE results day and choosing a different A level subject than the one he wanted. Plus even a grade 6 for maths at GCSE will potentially see you with a low A level grade which will rule out university.

So even though she may go onto A levels that may be where it all stops. If she has any inkling about subjects she likes now look at the university admissions criteria and see what they are looking for, grades wise and subjects wise.

She needs to see the reality of choosing not to invest in herself. She also needs to look at what jobs pay what and what that will buy you house wise or renting locally to you, plus learning about all the other outgoings she will have when she no longer lives in your house.

Does she also realise she isn't just competing against her classmates for GCSE but against those children in schools where their parents have dropped tens of thousands on their child's education? She might want to look at this www.best-schools.co.uk/uk-school-league-tables/list-of-league-tables/top-100-schools-by-gcse