Year 11 - 2024/2025 - Support Thread - the final stretch

[QueenMabby]

A new thread to take is to exams and beyond! All welcome.

Awww that is a shame not to get an award in Y11 @icanbewhatiwant after being so successful in previous years. I can imagine how fed up he is if his pals have all got one too.

Joining this as stressed - son has been coasting for years, on foundation papers for both maths and science. totally chilled about the whole thing, barely any revision had been done so Easter he needs to really get his head down.

he wants to go to sixth form but there isn't much hope of that currently - said he found the mocks easy but only really got 3/4/5

any advice for getting a very chilled out boy to revise? I suspect he has adhd/add as really struggles concentrate.

in his own words he said he is trying to care about his exams but doesn't! I keep saying he will care one day!

thanks x

That’s really tough. I also have one who never got any awards (ds) and one who always wins them (dd).
It must be especially hard for ds not getting one in gcse year. It’s no good us saying they don’t matter as they do set such store by them! I used to tell ds that getting an award didn’t negate his achievements and that no-one outside of school would ever know or care but sometimes it’s not enough.
We have ours in September and subject prizes are based on GCSE performance which helps to spur on the revision!

Welcome to the thread. Sounds tough. Are there particular subjects he can focus on that would give him enough for further study? Has he got an idea what he wants to do?

@Hollyhedge I recommend bribery. I managed to get my DS to do a LOT more revision than he had planned for his first lot of mocks by incentivising it - a certain amount of money per revision slot. It worked! I personally think offering rewards for revision is more effective than offering rewards for results. Obviously it does need some monitoring!

Argh I atted the wrong person, sorry Hollyhedge - that was meant for @Remmy123

Ds has heard from school that he does have an award...but we haven't had the letter in the post. So hopefully will find out soon.

No worries. If bribery works am all for it!

Good luck @Remmy123 hopefully he can get these grades over the line

@icanbewhatiwant that's nice that he gets one. Hopefully he'll feel better now. How weird that they are still sending letters in the post. Seems a very inefficient (and expensive) way of doing things!

Well done @icanbewhatiwantds!

@Remmy123, I've got one of those. I know not what to suggest I'm afraid, I'm trying to gee him up and get him going. In 2nd set of mocks a couple of weeks ago, He got a 5 in Spanish, a 6 in English. He's capable of more, but not driven. He needs 7's in subjects he wants to do at A'level, to stay at his school 6th form, so he knows what's needed. He keeps assuring me it's ok.....

We always get any awards letters by post. Also any letters that say they've done well like Ds had the exceptional box ticked by every teacher in his last report, so we had a letter telling us that we should be proud. It's a great keepsake. School trips are often on paper too.

@icanbewhatiwant Never thought of it that way - I guess you're right that it's a nice thing to keep. DD2's school is very techy, which as a parent who is far away I am grateful for. Everything is on a 'portal'.

@Remmy123 agh that’s tough! My DD has ADHD (medicated, which helps). What seems to be working for her is being more task orientated around revision. So rather than say she’s going to spend 50 mins revising history; she says she’s going to spend 50 mins making notes from pages 4-30 from Vietnam war history book, for example. And will stop after 50 mins but has something to show for it. This approach was her idea and seems to be working. Albeit I went in her room with a snack earlier and she was making a TikTok! Apparently making up a song to help with physics. 🤔🤔🤔 Honest mum!!

@icanbewhatiwant I think having an award every year since yr7 means he’s bound to expect one this year. So that’s going to be hard. I know school have said the letter is in the post, but still.

Hi thanks - I do strongly suspect it son has adhd

I think they is the approach we will take over Easter if I tell him what to do specifically and break it in to chunks

I got mocks back and he got one 5!
the rest all 4's / some 3's

My DD wants to do well, but doesn’t really have any urgency if you know what I mean?

She’ll work with me sitting beside her doing past exam questions and then she’s ok…

@Remmy123 the other thing I’ve been told is for them to ‘traffic light’ what they need to learn - do green for got it, amber for not quite sure and red for no clue. Apparently parents push them to learn red stuff which puts them off and kids focus on green stuff bc it’s easy! So the focus should be on Amber. Apparently that often has a side effect of turning some red topics into amber by default as they’ve learnt something related. Not sure I’m making sense. Also, given he could do with those 3’s turning into 4’s he may be well served to focus on the amber topics for those subjects rather than anything tricky that’s set to get 7/8’s etc.
DD has been doing this with chemistry where she got 3 at November mocks and predicted a 4. She’s focussing on memorising topics that she understands rather than more complicated things. It seems to be working as she’s been doing much better in classroom tests recently. She’s totally ignoring anything complex. She only needs a 4 to pass as will not be doing chemistry ever again! But she wants to make sure she does actually pass the damn thing! And isn’t a borderline 3-4.

DD2 is finding working through 'save my exams' really helpful now she's back - you can print out what look like past papers, but related to certain topics and then mark them yourself - and later see which ones you've done and how you did. It is giving her structure, which is good as I think just being told to revise is very daunting!

Already discovered a chemistry practical she seems to have unaccountably missed so she's now got that in her head, so that's a win.

It's so hard to know what to advise them to do for the best isn't it?
Amber for most things, is it worth focusing on red things if you just don't get them and never will?

Just got ds's report. It's ok, just!
A 3 in RE, what is about this kid and RE?
5,6,7's.

@Oblomov25 DS never got higher than a 3 in any exam or report in RS and got an 8 in the real thing last year so have faith-no pun intended!

My DS is also on a 3 for RE. He doesn't have time or the inclination to do any revision for it so it's not going to improve.
We don't know anything about study leave, when or if, nothing has been communicated to us yet. Not even a timetable of the actual exams has been shared.
We are all getting a bit worried in this house as I'm not sure how on track DS is as it's been Nov since there was a mock exam and his end of topic tests recently has been hit and miss. Yesterday he attempted a chemistry past paper 1 and did not do well at all, whereas he got nearly an 8 in the mocks on the paper 1. He is tired and worn out these days. Yesterday he had to run in school for PE gcse moderation for a couple of lessons, plus he's had lunchtime interventions, and after school intervention on tuesday so he's pretty knackered. Most subjects seem to be still covering curriculum and homework too (but revision related), so difficult to put any timetable into place.

He's probably got ADHD (we are in the midst of diagnosis) and finds it so difficult to organise himself and he's still playing flippin video games a lot in the evenings. He does revise but not without constant nagging or getting him off the PC. Argh, I don't know how we are going to survive the next couple of months.
I'll be glad when it's all over. I am booking a beach holiday for me and DS after he's done with his prom. Can't wait!

@DataColour
My ds2 sounds very similar indeed, in many ways. Not adhd, he's so laid back it's scarey. But he is knackered and has been late to school 3 times in the last couple of weeks due to oversleeping. Here's hoping both boys up their game, get what they need to get to the next place.

@SB1971
I hope you are right! Re RE.
Ds1 was predicted an 8, and only got a 5, his lowest mark by far. I told Catholic school I was unimpressed.
Ds2 hates it, he still assures me he'll get at least a 6. We'll see.

The letter from school arrived. Apparently posted 1st class early last week. Ds has won the award he wanted, it's a special award for the sciences. Plus he won achievement awards for French and biology. Though apparently he doesn't care anyway. I know he does care really.
I feel silly complaining now. But I did think he deserved an award. But I guess lots of dc's miss out too.

Well done ds icanbe!