GCSE supporting - to half term, and beyond!

[SheilaFentiman]

Making a new thread to support half term revision and the set of GCSEs afterwards!

Hope everyone had a good bank holiday. Ds could go into school this week but has work and will revise better at home I think. He seems to have forgotten he still has quite a few ti sit!!!

Motivation has definitely waned now. She was in a good rhythm before half term but now there's a lot of "I've got ages!"

Did stumble across her doing a Biology past paper last night so all is not lost ...

I think there is a History revision session (bloody good thing too considering they didn't even finish the course 😡). But otherwise no school. This is a private school...

To be fair, all the teachers going in for revision sessions at DS school are doing it voluntarily.

Oh I hear you. "It's half term!" Is what I got last night. Bare minimum from him forever - just like DH was, apparently. Kills me as I worked really hard as I'm not naturally very clever (but also was scared of failing - but that's my issue!)

DD managed about 6 hrs yesterday (although she wasn't as focussed as she normally is as she kept coming out to chat). Then after dinner she went on a 7k run which took far longer than normal as she kept stopping to watch the bunnies and the deer as she was out at 8pm.

Ds was always Mr Minimum Required. Just scraped through everything with the fewest lines possible. No expansion. Average to below average. So really sped up the last year and has surprised himself and us. Which is a great change. But falls back into that minimum required every now and then and then panics and revises so badly. I have really tried to help him plan his time better, and get out of this unhealthy ‘must stay up all night to revise but rewatch Harry Potter for the 8th time all day’.

What is going on? I am an overplanner. I have tried to not dictate his revising style. Do I just let him do it his way? Also whenever he gets good grades, next term he gets terrible.( I don’t mean terrible like it’s the end of the world but not what he is capable of. ) He’s missed out questions and made silly mistakes he knew immediately were mistakes. Hubris! And he won’t be told either. It’s like a conformation bias and blasé attitude and he’ll do it and won’t be told. He has sometimes been really upset and asked me to help him and motivate him when he got bad (grade 6) grades. Maybe he is just going to get a grade 6. (Part of me thinks this might help him in life tbh)
It’s his pattern. Grade 9. Then grade 6. Then grade 9. Then grade 6. This time is supposed to be 6, because last time he got a 9. He is predicted all 8,9s. (Though in my mind I see the pattern as a yo-yo)

Me, I worked really hard always and loved studying. Was always on top of things since I had that rep too. Not a nerd but a large family with older brothers and sisters who had already got brilliant grades and so that was my goal too.

Ds style of studying gives me massive anxiety. Yes he has got ill now but he can be in bed reading? What’s with watching Harry Potter and eating pancakes and just complaining? Draw some mindmaps fgs! Manflu teenager level

• Nowhere else to vent. Please don’t judge me for thinking grade 6 is bad. I just mean that since he is capable of getting 9, why not? He always gets frustrated afterwards and is so upset.

I should have cancelled Netflix lol

Didn't realise we had a new thread. DS has gone in for half term revision as he won't revise at home.

DD was doing brilliantly during the exams and had a total meltdown at the weekend. I have banned her watching people online talking about their answers to the papers she has already say as it was making her anxious and doubting herself.
Calmer now and back to a steady pace of revising. She's doing a few hours every day - either notes, quizlets, watching little teaching videos etc. The range of revision materials available to students now is brilliant.

@Polkadottyas - I'm like you. Always had to work! And DS takes after my DH.

Oh Lord @Beamur is that a thing? It was bad enough coming out of the actual exam and hearing what other students had written never mind seeing it on social media ad infinitum.

DS is back to it today after taking the weekend off.

@Beamur it was bad enough when it was just their friends talking about the stuff! Dd is under instructions to steer well clear of the rest. She is revising a bit - I have had to go to the intermarche for more flash cards. She did go through a maths past paper with her grandmother yesterday too. Trying not to nag. It’s hard!

Tik Tok is full of videos commenting on the exams!

Managed to get doctors appointment and antibiotics for DS. And he is up and studying today. No more Harry Potter at last hooray.

Friend’s son who barely passed last year blames it on tiktok videos and said he wished he had just sat down and revised better. Listening to kids who got lower than predicted grades actually is such an eye opener. Who can learn from tiktok? Just revise! Duh 🙄

I don't think they teach them revision techniques well - though I don't think they did for us either - it was more odd teacher giving advise.

I also think lack of text books and move away from them doing notes in class to being given booklets -doesn't help especially when DS has been told of for making his own notes in some of the booklets given to them.

I used to make notes - write the notes up as my handwriting was so bad then summarize the notes - as diagram where ever possible - which is three interactions with the material - instead of being given a booklet to passively absorb.

I do think it's good they are many revision resources but I think it can also make it feel even more overwhelming to some kids - and DS can see that and ask for help DD1 buries her head in the sand and hopes for the best.

Then their phones are a distraction - why I think DS work best downstairs supervised or semi and DD1 in college library.

DontForgetToBreathe
Your DS sounds very similar to mine.
I’ve stressed so much in weeks past due to his lack of studying.
What I’ve found helpful, and allows me to keep my sanity, is to take a step back.
Probably like you, I’ve always been a helicopter mother and it proved positive in the past. But now, I find the less I get involved/encourage/nag, the more he puts in.

All I do is take up tea, snacks and when I see him revising, tell him how proud I am of him.
Equally, when he comes in from school after an exam and I get a one word answer about his exam I don’t press any further.

He is currently at his school for an English Language booster. To get him there, I told him he’d be mad to pass up the opportunity and that the teachers had all take time out of their half term break.
I’m actually quite shocked that he’s gone, especially as it started at 9:30 this morning.

DD is busy revising today and also some of yesterday.

I sowed the seeds a while ago of how I liked to study and she's following that process ie writing notes in exercise books and writing out flash cards and completing past papers.
Not sure if she's watching the videos recommended esp for science but at least she's revising in a way that suits her. And revising at all.

My son has had the weekend off and started back revising yesterday. Today he's revising maths by doing past papers. He seems to revise by watching videos, BBC bite size and taking quiz's/past papers.

I got DS to do a English past paper - went okay but he did say he has quotes to learn for RS which he hasn't even made a start on.

Maths is also fine - he wants to focus on the Geography and History - which I can understand but need some focus on RS and especially English.

I wish they still had text books. Revision technique is not what I'd recognise here as revision. He does past papers but doesn't then look up the answers where he's stuck. I mean why?

DD has written out notes for most things. I pointed out to her that just the act of writing things down helps you to remember it a bit. Plus you are forced to put things into sentences/phrases so have to formulate what you are actually trying to say. She does have textbooks, but relies far more on the class One Note stuff which has the stuff the teacher has written on whiteboards etc during the lessons and notes on worked problems etc. It's far harder to find anything than in a book because no index, messy handwriting etc but it's what seems to work for her.

She also took the weekend off but today has been practising French writing.

DD is lazy as hell about revision, they're so chilled out they're almost horizontal, a position they have inherited from DH.

I've bought every revision guide book and not one spine has been cracked, DS will inherit them for his exams next year instead (she wanted to burn her English poetry book and I banned her, because I felt it was tempting resit fate).

I've told them now, no revision then no BGT. It monopolises the downstairs TV until 10pm and neither DH or I want to watch so they have agreed or it's banned.

DD1 does that - won't look at why her answer is wrong ended in rows with DH and then me when I tried to help.

In end we found an on-line website -fairly pricy for just one subject and not her board- she'd tolerate and according to chemistry teacher the AS bit has improved and hope she does enough with other subjects.

DS does look at the answers and seems to remember the mistakes which make thing so much easier. I'm worried DD2 will be more like DD1 .

My ds doesn't write notes, he doesn't do past revision papers. The only time I can get revision out of him is when I read stuff to him and test him. I give up really.....