Advice needed to help ADHD DD through GCSEs

[ovaltable]

Not medicated as not yet formally diagnosed but suspected in the past few months. I'd wondered for a while but covid and lockdown-learning interrupted normal routine and it was hard to point to anything concrete to start the diagnosis ball rolling.

Mock GCSE results were not good, and especially not good in her favourite and usually best subjects.

She doesn't have trouble with concepts. Content is at times sketchy. Sometimes she revises the wrong thing. Or spends most of her revision time finding her notes or locating what she is supposed to be revising. What has become apparent is that she struggles with exam technique and she misreads the question, or speeds on ahead and writes what she wants to without fully absorbing the instructions or the type of question she is meant to be answering. There were no gaps on her papers but she lost easy marks on most questions. She still doesn't know how best to revise. She has been resistant to help in the past but now framing things around suspected ADHD she feels less blame and is receptive to letting us help.

Has anyone coached their ADHD teen through GCSEs and can advise optimum methods, techniques, resources? Especially girls with inattentive type ADHD. Flash cards are totally overwhelming to her and get easily lost and disorganised. With past papers, she happily does them but is not motivated to do anything about the gaps they identify. She has every CGP revision book available to her but she doesn't open them.

Ds3 15 does not yet have a diagnosis (he got a diagnosis of development coordination disorder 3 weeks ago and we are meeting with his community paed next week for results of ADHD/ASD testing - but the school have no diagnosis for him yet). He got extra time and a separate room for several of his exams and has a designated member of staff to help him with revision plans etc. so it might be worth speaking to the school to see what they can come up with. He has found that his most effective study is done with his friends online - possibly because they have tutors and he doesn’t 😂)

….. and, if you want a success story. Ds1 has quite severe ADHD with autistic traits. He has been medicated since he was 7 (now 27). He is extremely bright but really struggled with revision or any sort of organisation. He has always loved science but struggled to get anything on paper for an exam. He managed to do reasonably well in his Standard grades then failed his Highers completely. Went to college and re-sat them. Then to uni to do science (took an extra year - but hey, who cares) and is now working in hospital labs doing a perfect sciency job.

I can’t think of any downsides of a diagnosis and whilst I don’t think you would have to disclose it on an application form, certainly, for ds1’s, it’s it his best interests that they know so that he is able to request adaptions to suit. This has not been a problem in any of his 3 jobs so far.

Sorry about the essay!

[quote Tomnooktoldmeto]@ovaltable our experience with meds in a girl with ADD is very positive, DD takes a long acting form of methylphenidate and has 5 mg short acting boosters in the afternoon. Without she is literally a Zombie

If you are assessed on the NHS they will always involve teachers who really aren’t the best at spotting inattentive ADHD multiple times they couldn’t see either of my DC who are classed as severe

Privately DS was assessed without schools input after I explained their inability to see his symptoms.

DS was assessed by one of the people who developed the computer assessment (gold standard) and he just laughed because it was so obvious during the assessment, his feet never stop moving when concentrating but a teacher may miss this under a desk in a busy class[/quote]
@Tomnooktoldmeto could you possibly DM me the name of your private dr who did the assessment for your DS. I need to find someone to assess DD3 but would prefer not to randomly pick off the internet! Many thanks

My Ds has adhd.
He went from below avarage to exceeding in half a term on meds..

I would definitely look.into a private assessment if you can afford it.

Thank you so much for this advice @TooManyPJs . I have looked everywhere for more than the usual vague 'use planners/ set timers/ do bitesize chunks' nonsense, hoping for a silver bullet, but i am sure you are right- full focus from me is the only way.
We've just been through mocks with lower than expected results. I am pretty sure that she is just not able to focus to do schoolwork or revision other than with the most urgent short term deadline (usually in the middle of the night). I think we will also have the stress and tears you mention as she is utterly resistant to me helping with anything related to school- however i think i will have to grit my teeth and put her first.

I would just add to other posters that a diagnosis is very helpful in terms of getting extra time for exams, so i would for sure recommend you go ahead with it- but I wouldn't pin too many hopes on it for practical help from school. We have a SEN teacher assigned, she has been nice but basically no help, and otherwise my experience is that teachers and schools make very very few concessions to kids with ADD.

It's my pleasure @SilverLiningMaybe I really hope it works for you!

It's hard going. Steel yourself!!! And best of luck!!!!

Following.

"I've read girls with inattentive adhd don't respond so well to medication and medication doesn't give as big an uplift in grades as thought"-

Who on earth told you this. My DD has ADD and meds have been transformational. Education aside, if your DD has untreated ADD she's a lot more likely to end up self medicating via alcohol, gambling, drugs, impulsive sexual behaviour etc. It's not just about the grades. Failing at everything because you can't concentrate tanks your confidence. She's probably not getting dopamine from anywhere.
I'd be getting a private assessment asap. I suggest your DH reads up on effects of untreated ADD in girls.
In the meantime, get rid of tiktok and get strict on internet time. Lots of exercise and active recall.

I second getting a private assessment ASAP if you can afford it. Medication was a gamechanger for our teen.

Interesting what pp say about teachers not spotting inattentive symptoms. I was given the teacher scores when we went through the assessment process and they were a lot lower than the parental ones. I guess even the best teachers won't know how often a quiet child is not paying attention.

I agree with you @Nappyvalley15

In my Dd's case when we sent the questionnaires to the teachers, they actually asked the senco if they have the right child as she's as good as gold in lessons. There is a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to girls with ADHD and the wrong assumption that ADHD= naughty boy.
The additional problem is the vast majority of diagnostic tools available across the board in psychiatry are centered around male symptoms. This is very evident in the old belief that girls can't have autism.

Dear MrsSnoops
my son is about to start his first lots of GCSE mocks, and I just wondered how your son got on with the revision? I was thinking of doing something similar to support him. Any tips would be very welcome.

Another with a DD with inattentive ADHD. This will echo what many on here have already said, but medication for her made a big difference. She was high achieving at primary, did well at the start of secondary and in Year 10 hit a brick wall. She started Year 11 behind in a lot of her subjects and was being predicted 5/6s. She started medication in December and I noticed a huge change in her focus. She achieved really good grades, mainly 8/9s and the rest were 7s.

The tips I would share are:
English Literature - I read the books, poems, watched the play and we listened to podcasts (check out GCSE English RevisionPod - brilliant) so that we could discuss the texts together. My DD also looked at examiner reports to get a good idea of what they were looking for. For example, they don't really want students to learn great long quotes, or even to rely too heavily at quotes at all.

Science/Maths - just loads and loads of past papers (Science and Maths tutor, Savemyexams was also good). For Biology AQA, 'Biology with Olivia' was really helpful as she focusses very much on how to write a model answer using the specific terms etc. Olivia is on TikTok and although you probably don't want to encourage TikTok use, her short videos on how to answer 6 markers are brilliant!
For maths my DD also watched lots youtube videos where they take you through an exam paper and found these really helpful. She went from a 4 at the end of Year 10 to an 8 in the actual exam.

For science, don't forget to learn the required practicals as these can account for quite a few marks, and once learnt they are relatively easy. Freesciencelessons on you tube is good for this (and all the other content) as they didn't seem to have covered them all in class, or if they did my DD didn't seem to have a clue what the point of the practical actually was.

Geography - she seemed to mainly use workbooks to practice 6 and 8 marker answers.

So overall, it was an understanding of the sort of questions that would come up and the sort of answers that the examiners are after that got her through. She also made lots of flashcards, mindmaps etc but it was the exam practice that held her attention the most.

We also convinced the school (finally!) to drop a GCSE from 10 to 9 as she did have difficulty in remembering all the content and doing 10 was just too overwhelming, especially as she started the year with shaky foundations.

Good luck!

Have you tried colourful mind maps instead of flash cards? So get nice A3 writing pad and colourful felts and pens and highlighters and for each question she does a Mindmap. As someone with ADHD who did well in school, this worked well for my brain and was lots of fun! https://www.mindmaps.com/build-better-study-habits-with-mind-mapping-for-students/

Once you’ve gone through the mind mapping of topics then practice mock exams. Teach your DD how to write out the plan for her essays in bullets right after reading the question - 15% of the answer time should be answer planning. Then you write the answer without having to hold all the points you need to cover in your head.

I havent RTFT so apologies if I repeat other peoples suggestions. My dd is also in y11, actually having ADHD assessment this afternoon. I have ADHD so do have a bit of an advantage about what could help.

Obviously, not all of these will work, but just my thoughts:

• Seneca, Seneca, Seneca! This has been huge for dd. She’s also rubbish with paper and organisation, but this allows her to just sit down and start. It’s also really effective and the subjects dd uses Seneca for she performs best in. There is a free version, middle ground (£15 pm?) and one with tutors on hand. I recommend the middle version.
• We have set homework times - so dd is expected to work by time rather than task. Really important as tasks can feel really overwhelming. These are fixed every day. This helps her stay on top of stuff. Mon-Thu she has to do 1x45m and 1x60m block. Obvs you will need to be there to help make that happen. I bring her cups of tea, toast, whatever and am generally very nice to her.
• This year she will also need to study on Sundays too, but we really value her downtime and let her veg as much as she needs to. If that’s phone/tv etc then there’s no judgement from us.
• Paper, school bag, books etc is a huge problem for dd. I try to help her as much as she lets me. Often that’s just clearing out her bag. Stray bits of paper get bunged in boxes.
• I put clean vegging out pjs etc on her bed for when she gets home. I also clean and tidy her room for her a lot as this really helps her well being.
• I’ve found that my dd can be really motivated by a bit of time to reflect with me. So after mocks etc, she’s talked through her exams and I’ve made notes on computer as she speaks. I don’t give advice. I make the notes look nice, she tells me what she could have done better. Next steps etc, we colour code it and I print off. She really responds well to that - finds it really stimulating.
• My dd loves to plan which subjects she will do at what time, but then won’t stick to it. That’s fine! I’m the same. Planning is like a stimulation thing to get me started. Not executing the plan is not a failure. That’s worth talking to her about.
• People with Adhd sometime do better without breaks. When my dd is really into something, I will let her carry on as long as she wants. So last Easter she got really into some English revision. She’d started at 10pm and then worked til gone midnight. I didn’t stop it - that’s might work with a subject she’s really into.
• As exams get closer, it can be worth suggesting really small revision chunks. Even 15/20 minutes. I did my degree like that and got a first.

Good luck!

Medication. Medication. Medication.

i have a daughter with ADHD,achieved poor mocks- given a purchased interactive computer program called TASSOMAI. Worth every penny it cost- not cheap but certainly not out of question for ordinary folk ( like me). It gives instant feedback, keeps records of what child has made progress in and what topics need more work on. Parent and child have access to feedback, so you can monitor how long they have been on it. It is specifically for GCSE so it covers the syllabus. Only worth having if you know your child is the kind who will use it, otherwise it will be a complete waste of money and you should not buy it. I used it years ago, so things may have changed.

It pushed every subject 1-3 grades up, even though child only used it from Jan until June. Used it every day in that time- often for hours - typical hyper focus. I would often send her off to do it for 30 mins whilst waiting for food to cook, TV prog to start etc.

Absolutely no point in her reading notes, making prompt cards, brainstorming as they simply did not work. Did use child teaching me, as this allowed me to access how well they knew a topic.

I also suggested topics for her to do next, so that I could ensure full coverage of syllabus. Remember that kids with ADHD may be less emotionally mature and may need a bit more support to organise themselves.

I would echo people saying lots of coffee while waiting for diagnosis - and even once on meds! DS has been on strong morning coffees since about yr5 and luckily his secondary school have coffee in the canteen (something which apparently a lot of secondaries don't do) so he can top up at break and unchtime. He's medicated now but coffee still really helps, especially in the morning as it is much quicker acting than slow release methylphenidate.

Ah, sorry, just realised this was a zombie thread.

@Katesboys Funny to look at this thread as my son is in his last year of college and looking at going to university.
My son did really well in the end. From February to June I revised with him, doing much the same as @TooManyPJs did for her son. Like her I just couldn't bear to see him fail GCSE's when I knew he was bright and could do it, he had just never been helped or given any meaningful support. Through trial and error we found youtube videos that he liked and I made notes from them for testing later. Lots of past papers, often done verbally rather than written and then talking through the answers together. Maths and English were out sourced to tutors, but he passed all of them, some better than others, but got 7's, 8's and 9 for the subjects he likes and is good at.
Medication was also vitally important and he would not have got what he did without it.
He then chose to stop medication and the first two terms of year 12 were a bit dicey, but he now takes his medication when he needs to work and is completely independent of me with his college work.

It is so worth remembering that the issue is not with intelligence, but with executive functioning skills which are so far behind with kids with ADHD and they need some time to catch up with their peers.

I have a dd with inattentive adhd and a boy with the classic presentation. DD was actually diagnosed first due to her brilliant school and SENCO and we refused meds for a year. DS then diagnosed and went on meds because his symptoms were much worse and frankly, much more inconvenient and disruptive to the family. The change in him has been so immense we have realised that we were doing dd a diservice by not giving meds a try. Just because she is not hyper doesn't mean she faces the same struggles with a messy brain and the subsequent drop in self esteem.

DS went from unable to read, poor emotional regulation, hugely disruptive and argumentative at home and school so achieving really well and being so much happier. He says he cant believe it is possible to feel this good at school. He is part of a football team and since he started meds, has lasted a whole training session (he used to storm off about 3/4/ times a session) and won man of the match this weekend. You can see the effect on his self esteem.

I think its really scary to be told you need meds especially as there is so much nonsense about 'giving your kids speed.' I certainly needed some time to get my head around it.