'A' levels mocks shock

[Alevelsmockshock]

Household is in a bit of a state of shock. DD predicted A, B, B and got C, E, U in her February mocks, real thing this summer.

She focused on the subject that she got a C in, but had major problems with time management in all of them. She's currently blaming everyone else but herself (a defence - she's humiliated and shocked). But still going from an A to a U in her 'best' subject was a shocker.

We've had a couple of talks and I'm giving her a bit of space to process things at the moment. She's applied to universities and has some offers based on her previous predicted grades, which now look very unlikely.

I don't care about getting the grades for uni - I just want her to be happy, but never thought I'd see her struggling with academics.

Any chance that focused revision from here on in will help her pull it out of the bag? Not to achieve the offers she has, but just to make her feel reasonably proud of herself.

TIA.

If it's exam technique she's lacking, she needs to start doing timed practise (past papers) at home (where there is no external pressure) to get used to the routine and structure of the papers. Ideally, her teacher would mark them for her, but if not, sometimes tutors will mark practise papers for a smaller fee than a tutoring session.

I agree that it's immature behaviour - the blaming everyone is particularly irritating for someone who is going to be 18 next month.

She has said a couple of times recently that she doesn't want to go to university. Fine by me as long as she has a plan for something to occupy her. But I think she feels like she'd be letting herself/the school down if she didn't go. She's certainly not ready to go this year (in my opinion).

She might change her mind about parents' evening (possibly to keep an eye on me!) and I shall definitely go.

She said this evening about her mind going blank in exams or, as she described it, it's like a load of letters being thrown up in the air in her head. She doesn't feel consciously stressed so much, but it does sound like an anxiety-driven, quiet panic/blanking out.

She's never coped well with transitions, and she had a very traumatic experience at end of Y9/beg of Y10 at her old school which she's never really processed properly (always refused to see a counsellor/therapist) and took a long time to settle into a new school. She struggled with the end of Y11 and bottled out of going to a better sixth form, which was the right thing for her to do as she clearly wasn't ready.

My sense is that there's going to be (a few more) years of high drama as she works things through.

My maths GCSE teacher did this to me. I had a fairly laissez-faire attitude to school work at that age, I was able to put in very little effort, do my homework on the school bus and get very good marks. I didn't really revise. I did my maths mock and got an E. I was shaken to my very core and my teenage ego was more than dented, I didn't fail, I rarely got a B. My maths teacher was brutal, told me I might be able to swan into other lessons cobble something together and walk out with a top grade, but his subject took work. He gave me extra work to do and helped me set up a revision plan. On results day I opened that little paper envelope and I got an A* , I burst into tears and my mum thought I'd failed.
I'm pretty sure now that exam was never an E, maybe a B, but he thought I was a cocky little shit who could do better if I actually worked hard. He wasn't wrong.
I didn't think teachers would still get away with that kind of thing now though!

What subject are her university offers for? There is always Clearing. Or taking a year out and applying with results in hand.

I will always remember my a level maths mock. Top set, all predicted As. Only two people passed (one C (me) and one E). It shocked everyone to do more revision and take it more seriously. Tell her there is still time and to make a revision plan together. Remember she is still learning how to revise and what is best for her for each subject

In GCSE I had a subject that should have been really easy for me, but I didn’t enjoy the class or other people in that class so my coursework ways really poor. I think E. I was embarrassed but deep inside knew I hadn’t tried. I BEGGED to still be able to sit this exam and promised I would revise which I did maybe twice. I got a B overall as my exam results were so good they averaged out. It sounds like your daughter is intelligent if she was predicted these grades…. But also my son’s grades were predicted off his year 6 mock SATS as they were the year that missed the genuine SATS. It could be that your daughter couldn’t achieve these grades even if she tried her very hardest.

Dd didn't get Sats results - her whole year groups' were annulled. This caused problems in her old school as she was predicted to fail everything.

Her old school hadn't bothered keeping assessment data on her (a whole other story) as so her predictions have been based on what she's done in her current school.

Ah, I just had to reset my password as on my phone and this username is automatically generated.

If there hasn't been an "outside " reason (ie family death, bad break up, pregnancy) then I would be strongly discouraging universitiy for the time being.
It is self led and if she doesn't have that under control it's pointless and she's unlikely to get offers anyway.
A year working may bring maturity or a year at college at an access course as an option.
There's no wrong way round, every kid is different and exams are a skill in and of themselves and not one everyone masters whilst young x

OP, I think exam stress is a huge thing. My DS has this and just got worse and worse in exams as Y13 progressed. In the end it was a matter of endurance to just pass everything but he was still so disappointed. Interestingly, the exam he didn't far the best in was his very last one (also his worst subject). I think he was just so happy to be at end. He refused uni because he "never wants to sit another exam in his life." The subject he did worst in was the one he had tutoring for 2 years, spent by far the most time revising for and was most stressed about.

Exams is about way more than knowledge. All I could do was take the pressure off. We didn't talk about grades or uni or what comes after,

Should say 'the exam he did by far the best in'.

@RIPVPROG

Weren't you given your Maths mock paper back.
Surely if it was a B rather than an E you would be able to tell by adding up the marks?

In maths you can't really mark harshly. If it is right it is right.
You can penalise for not showing working or rounding errors more than would happen in the real thing but that is about it.

@Alevelsmockshock

Yes, she did miss out whole questions.

This is the problem.

A tutor won't help with this.

In the subjects she is doing she needs to get something down for every question.

Why did she miss whole questions?
Were they printed on the back of the paper?

Or was she unable to work quickly through questions based on tables or graphs and ended up running out of time?

One reason for a student to stumble through exams is lack of subject knowledge or practice in certain types of questions.

Has she been studying in her room or where you can see her?

A U grade means she really bombed that subject, suggesting lack of knowledge as a contributory cause.

All of this really needs addressing.

Did she actually do any studying or just sit with her material and zone out?

Have you reviewed her revision techniques with her as well as her exam technique? Is she actively reading and making notes and then condensing those down to bullet points? Is she closing all the books and actually trying to write an answer to a question?

I suspect these are y13 mocks - my dd has just had another round of mocks 3 months before the real exams. They're 2 or 3 weeks away from completing the learning of the subject, from them on its revision and exam prep.

The whole point of mocks is to see what you don't know, not what you do. As a teacher I can confidently say that our mock results are often dire, but our final results are amongst some of the best in the country.

Don't panic. Encourage your daughter to look dispassionatelynand honestly at what went wrong, speak to whoever needs spoken to, and learn from it. Tutoring at this stage is probably unnecessary and I've found can often muddy the waters. Tutors aren't some sort of panacea and can sometimes tell you different things from the class teacher, which is not what you want.

She definitely has problems with time management - she's more of a ponderer than a fast thinker and that doesn't work in exams if you don't know the material inside out.

As far as revision goes, I know she does practice questions, past papers, notes, mind maps and flash cards. Not with the intensity of someone set to get all As or A*s but sufficient to do herself justice with the right exam technique.

She studies in her room, usually with her phone downstairs, but is completely resistent from any help from me (we tried this last summer with English and it was not successful).

Yes, I agree all the issues she has around anxiety, transitions and trauma need addressing and I'm waiting for her to develop the maturity to really understand that tbh.

She must have managed all of these things in order to pass her GCSE's though and the trauma was more recent and she was less mature at that stage.

I wonder although have no experience in this if resitting year 13 rather than attempting to fix everything in a few months might be a better strategy.

I think the thing is that teachers have to set predicted grades. And they're less likely to be held to account if students earn higher than a prediction. But if a student under achieves a predicted grade they face a grilling from school as to why, and often from disgruntled parents too. So it behoves teachers to under predict.

Littletreefrog yes, the trauma was more recent but she could mitigate against leaving school by staying at her sixth form. We had a whole year of high stress about her wanting to move to another sixth form but feeling too anxious during Y11. It was awful.

Interesting that you should mention resitting Y13. There's a cohort of 'Y14s' at her school - students who are doing exactly that. She's mentioned them quite a lot, and I've wondered if (possibly unconsciously) she's setting herself up to do this to avoid leaving school.

Some of the students did get into university, but decided that they wanted to improve their grades. I think it's probably a covid legacy of some teens just not being ready to move on.

I just want her to be occupied and have some sort of structure to her days and weeks tbh, whatever that is.

She did mention seeing a therapist or counsellor recently having been completely resistant to it before. I didn't jump into 'let's contact the GP' or anything, as it needs to be something that she's fully committed to not just a passing thought.

Thanks everyone for your input - it's really helpful.

Firstly this about the mark given in an exam not a predicted grade.
Secondly an under prediction is not seen in a good light. Predicted grades get students onto the next stage, an under prediction is likely to prevent that. If teachers are going to deliberately predict wrongly they are more likely to over predict.

I'm talking about predicted grades which are then considered after the GCSEs/A Levels are over. Teachers predicted grades are compared to actual GCSE/A Level grades. Possibly some teachers do over predict. But they'll be hauled up in front of SLT (or their HoD will) and asked why their students are consistently under achieving. Woe betide any teacher who makes a habit of over predicting.

Predicted grades are different than aspirational grades.
Predicted grade is what the teacher assumes will be the final GCSE/A Level result.
Aspirational grade is what they hope the student will achieve.

Woe betide any teacher who makes a habit of over predicting.

Tbf @TheAmusedQuail lots of teachers are under pressure to over predict for A level, or rather the predict the PGs that students need in order to get the offer they want. A lot of students in DD's year IIRC begged for higher PGs for this reason. It didn't end well in most cases Icl.