Can anyone give me any hope - Low mock grades

[Tupperwarelid]

DS is in Year 11 at a selective grammar school. He struggled with lock down education, found it hard to concentrate at home, missed classroom interaction and as a result got behind with his work, failed to hand in assignments etc.

They had exams at the end of Year 10 and if they had been his actual GCSE's he would have got 4s and 5s, not enough to get him into the 6th form.

They completed their mocks last week and I was honestly hopeful his grades would have improved as he appeared to be revising more, did himself a timetable that to stick to and was doing well in class.

However I have had emails from the school to say that he has got a level 4 in history, a subject he wants to do at A'Level and 3s in maths and biology. He actually appears to have dropped grades rather than improved them He got upset when he got in from school and says he just can't do exams and will try harder.

Is there any hope of him improving his grades? If he carries on like this he definitely won't get into the 6th form at his current school and probably won't get into 6th form at any of the secondarys either.

I don't know what to do so any advice is welcome.

You need to look at why he's done worse then expected. Did he not revise the right material? Did he not revise it well enough? Does he not understand how to answer the questions? Did he work too slowly and not finish half the paper? Has he stopped working because everyone else is doing better than him, and he can't really be said to have "failed" if he wasn't trying?

My DS went from a 3 at the end of Year 10 to a 7 at GCSE with the help of a tutor (in his case he just didn't understand how to answer the questions) so it's possible, but a big ask. What does the school say? It's really odd that a student who is considering A Level would only get a 3!

Plus, you probably should make a plan B. Or maybe even a different Plan B. Maybe somewhere other than a selective grammar school would suit him better.

They may be in the process of managing him out knowing that these grades may well count towards his actual A Levels.

You can put tutoring in place if you can but I would be investigating and getting a place at another school/college sorted if you need it.

I would look at getting a tutor for maths asap. He really needs to pass both maths and English. But look at other options for after GCSEs - college, apprenticeship etc.

It sounds like you need to start looking at options other than A-levels. Some students do much better studying things like BTECs, where the assessment is not all exams. Some colleges also offer a year of GCSEs to help bridge to level 3 courses, which can work for those who perhaps have fallen behind a bit at GCSE for some reason. Have a look at local FE colleges / non-grammar sixth forms and see what's on offer.

BTECs do tend to be more vocational subjects though - what is he interested in apart from history?

I agree with Red. Go through papers and identify where in the process he lost marks. You may find some 'quick wins' which once he is aware really pull up his marks.

Also agree, have a Plan B, and a Plan C.
e.g.
Plan A - stay at same school to do A levels
Plan B - move to X to do A levels (lower grade requirements)
Plan C - do a BTEC at Y in whatever

Look on the bright side- gaps in his learning have been caught now not next summer. This is the point of mock exams. He has 6 months to adjust his revision techniques and plug the holes in his subject knowledge. Elevate offer revision tutoring and you can get local subject tutors. As it’s an academic school lean on them for the support they owe your DS. Don’t give up, he has time to fix this.

Thanks everyone. We have been looking at other schools and colleges I he knows what his options are. He wants to do history. English and media so he could maybe get on a media Btec course and do 2 a levels as well. We have parents evening in a couple of weeks and ‘m on quite good terms with the head of year so once all the results are in I’ll arrange to speak to them.

Has her got his exam papers back? He needs to go through it, perhaps with a tutor to review the area of weakness.

It must be incredibly tough for him if he is in a higher performing school as his confidence will be dented.

How was he doing before lockdown, was he struggling then?

If he fell behind during lockdown, he will be struggling in subjects like maths and languages as they build on knowledge. He has probably missed out on exam technique, how to answer the questions and structure answers, in subjects like history.

Can you afford some tutoring or exam revision courses? Does he know how to revise? Can you help him find the best revision technique for him? If you look online, there are some great tutorials on how to answer history questions etc. The CGI revision guides are really good too.

He hasn’t got them back yet. They were shown them in class and the teachers took them back in. His history teacher emailed me with his result for that subject.

I think the key word in your OP is 'appeared to be revising more'. What homework is he actually doing? Many kids tell their parents they are revising while they actually text their friends, play games and watch you tube.

I'm absolutely shocked that a kid who got into grammar school is only getting 3s and 4s in his mocks. It seems like the school has really let him down. You must be screwing.

If you can afford it, then definitely a tutor in maths at least. A proper teacher tutor, rather than a sixth former /uni student (teaching a separate skill to maths!)

To answer the question : it's not so unusual for students to go up 2 grades from January mocks to summer exams. I guess 3 grades from now to June might be feasible, especially considering he's basically a very bright kid.

You have my sympathy - in a similar boat. DS is doing OK in most subjects but struggling in English and Maths. We have just hired an English tutor to do an hour a week 1 to 1 with him. I don't know if it's possible but we are waiting for parents' evening to ask if it's possible to drop his weakest subject (a MFL) so he can use that time to work on the essentials. It's really tough, and stressful when we're also trying to decide on 6th form options. All the ones round here want passes in English and maths but I am told they do allow resits, they just don't like to advertise the fact.

Echoing what @RedskyThisNight says, these are the questions I would consider:
Where and why did he drop marks?
Does he fully understand how to answer the questions?
Is he pacing himself? - so on a one-hour paper worth 60 marks, he should be spending 6 mins on a six-mark question.
Did he finish the papers?
Are his answers targeted? I have seen students moan "but I wrote loads" when what they wrote was not relevant - this is especially notable in English for example
Is it about his understanding of concepts?
Is the issue that he has missed work (during lockdown, when not focused) that he needs to catch up on?

If he is in a selective school he must be able; so a 3 in maths, even if it is not his subject, is surprising and surely can be improved. If you can answer some of the questions, and maybe work with him on past papers (for exam technique) or revision guides (to cover missing work) - or hire a tutor to do that - then I am sure he can improve on these marks.

I would focus on that for the moment and worry about post-16 later (though of course apply, to sixth form and to FE college, for A levels and Btecs) and have some thoughts about it - but don't focus on "you must get a 6 in history to do A level" as that IME may just be extra burden.

When I say "if you can answer some of the questions" I mean the questions I posed about what went wrong - don't mean you should sit his exam for him haha

I'm absolutely shocked that a kid who got into grammar school is only getting 3s and 4s in his mocks.

Trouble is that the pace can be fast in a grammar school and they might not go over things again. In a comp he could go down to a middle set or lower and get additional support. In a grammar most others will be on top of things either because they are naturally able or because the same parents who got a tutor for the 11 plus have found a maths tutor, probably started during yr9 in the first lockdown.

He will need to work hard and hopefully the mocks are graded harshly to get him working harder for the summer.

I'd get a maths tutor and then make sure he is revising properly. Ask him to explain things to you. Dd2 got 5s and 4s in most subjects in her mocks and then got all 7s and 8s in the actual exams (pre Covid so actual exams) apart from Spanish which she got a 6 (so 2 grades). It seemed to be 2 grades improvement apart from the two subjects that she got 7s in in the mocks which she got 8s in.

I would also ask how the class did generally. My Y11 D's did terribly in Maths end of Y10. We asked teacher how he did in relation to class and he was in the top half of the class. They had that teacher for 2 years and D's always moaned. This year they have a new teacher and he's doing a lot better. I would be worried about History but then again, ds1 has only covered a third of his history course as one of the topics they had already done got dumped by exam board. 😡

That should be DS. Not sure why it changed it to d's

Yes class level is relevant. Dd doing mocks atm was disappointed with 59% in physics but apparently that's a 7 and she was top of the class (middle set)

As an aside, Ds wants to do A levels but I'm really not sure they'll be great for him even if he does get the grades (will be tight). He's not a natural academically or with exams and I think he'd be better off getting excellent Btec grade than bad A level grades, not to mention just enjoy it a lot more.

How was he doing in school in year 8/ year 9 before lockdowns?

Given that he found things out now, if he has his heart set on A levels and was previously doing well, there is still hope. Plenty of time until his real exams.

I might ask for a meeting (or phonemail) with his his teachers and get their insight. Speak to the head of year quite soon - flag it as a problem you want to be involved in, it might take a while to arrange a meeting etc. See if you can get copies of his mock papers and go through them. See where he is losing marks - does he not know the material at all? Has he missed exam tricks - there is a specific technique to taking exams. Did he run out of time?

Maths in particular is a difficult subject - once someone is behind in maths this needs to be acknowledged and a catch up plan made. You cannot skip a few units in maths, they build on each other.

If you can afford it, tutoring may be a big help, but if that's not possible you can do a lot of it yourself if you are willing. First get in touch with the school, then get some workbooks/revision guides.

This is all assuming he does want to continue to A levels and will be motivated to work independently, with a tutor, or with you. But if he is, it is definitely possible to gain 3 (or even more!) grades between November and summer exams.

Phonemail? Phone call!

BTECs aren't an easy option unless he's very diligent. You have to hit the ground running - getting Distinctions in every piece of coursework right from the first term to have any chance of a Distinction overall. And there is still an exam element.

Up until lockdown so year 8 and half of year 9 he was doing fine. He was getting 6/7/8s and no issues in lessons. When lockdown started both my DH and I were working outside the house so he was left to get on with it. I took my eye off the ball and trusted he was doing the work but have since found out You Tube and gaming got in the way. I don’t honestly think he’s got back into school work properly since and just rushes through stuff so he can get onto more fun stuff.

We have parents evening in a couple of weeks and will have all his results by then so can have some proper conversations with his teachers and work out what to do going forward. There were some catch up sessions at the end of year 10 so I’m hoping these will start again. There is also the chance he can change from doing 3 separate science GCSEs to combined sciences which may help him.

It’s going to be a tough 6 months for all of us but I’m feeling more hopeful today that we can sort it out and get him on the right track now I know what sort of things to check with him. Thanks for all you replies.