Help! How do you help Year 12s take A-levels seriously?

[EekArghEurgh]

DD is 16 and in Year12 and doing three A levels. She got great GCSE results and is predicted three A* - but as her teacher pointed out this is based on her GCSE results and while she could/should be getting around that, her recent exams and class work aren't really heading in that direction.

She is bright and articulate but the transfer from Year 11 to Year 12, and the difference in the work needed seems to be proving difficult for her. At parents evening they love her but kept saying she is unfocused and were begging her to take part in the discussion more as she makes great points when she does. We have tried to suggest that the more she puts in the more she will get out of classes.

Realistically she hasn't really been putting the hours in, nor does she really understand how to do self-guided work. She has the next round of exams coming up in April/May and is now very anxious with self-study and homework and revision to do.

It's hard to work out what is excuses (or even laziness), what is simply not getting it - yet (she is really struggling with Hamlet for example), what is a cycle of anxiety, overwhelm and fear of failure and what is maturity and needing to learn how to study. The thing is she is simply not doing the things that would make a difference like reading - regular fiction for English and fiction, radio, newspapers and magazines etc for French.

We are trying to encourage consistency and staying engaged, but she has that classic teen resistence and keeps saying she "can't focus" and she claims will definately do badly. These next exam results I guess will inform her predictions for her UCAS application, so looking at even ABB requirements is making me worried. She wouldn't do the EPQ and any thing that requires "extra" is roundly rejected.

Part of me feels this will all come as she grows up, but we have also read advice that if she doesn't nail the Year 12 work, there is not time to catch up in Year 13. But also this year is about learning how to study (again).

Any tips or magic to help her understand that waiting to be motivated is not going to work? I know what successful kids do and there are many accounts on here of mums whose kids do that, but how do you get there at this stage? And yes I suspect many things have come more easily to her, so making an effort feels uncomfortable - but she also had to work hard (in the end) for her GCSEs.

My DS had a progress check a few weeks ago and the results weren’t great. He said he didn’t revise much but definitely would for the ones coming up in May.

He’s been playing his Xbox since about 3pm.

Of course I don’t expect him not to do other things but he’s just not putting in the effort required. If we say anything there’s lots of huffing and puffing (and still no work) and he claims he doesn’t need any of our help as he knows what to do.

It’s really frustrating when you can see them wasting this opportunity.

Hi OP. I remember studying Shakespeare plays at A level and finding the jump quite tough. It’s so difficult to decipher the old English language and get to grips with what’s actually happening.

Has DD got a study guide specifically for the play (I think you said Hamlet)? When I got a study guide specific to the play I was learning in class and read it, plus used a highlighter pen to mark out particular bits that helped it made a massive difference to my understanding of the play. I’d recommend DD takes a similar approach.

Have you considered a study coach or a study partner?

It’s quite a change from the structure and full timetable of GCSEs to A levels and free study time. She might want to study and do well but just can’t get herself to do it and it’s a tricky age to take advice and close support from parents. Would a few sessions with an organisation like this help? They aren’t tutors but you have a weekly session where you agree how you are going to study and then you report in the following week and see what has worked. Obviously £ but if she is anxious it may be better for her to get support from an independent adult as it’s sooooo difficult not to get emotional about revision as a parent. (At least I find that!)
https://connectionsinmind.com/

Also has she been screened for any SEN? She may be masking something and has coped so far but is now finding things too overwhelming.

There’s also an app where you book in to study for a certain length of time and you do a sort of zoom study group with other people. You don’t engage with them but you just see everyone else studying. I thought it sounded really weird but apparently some people find it really helpful to book in study time and see other people working at the same time.

Honestly? Bribery. At this age they don't understand the implications of their actions on their future, or feel like it's too much pressure and freeze.

My parents offered me £50 for every A I got, £20 for every B and £100 if I managed an A*

I found this extremely motivational as a teenager without an income and only sporadic pocket money!

So we are going to probably try and find a bit of targeted tuition - she responds so well to 1-2-1 (well who doesn't), but @EveryonesTalkingRubbish that coaching looks really interesting - just exploring their pages in now - a bit daunted by the £££ though!

We are going to work on a Hamlet specific revision plan this weekend and try and map out the other subjects too. I am praying for a brief receptive period - I may use bribery for these results too.....

Year 12s are often like this. They struggle to actually bother doing work that doesn't have an immediate or obvious deadline and often take with a pinch of salt warnings about the fact that it's inevitably mostly their performance in Y12, not Y13 that will inform their UCAS predicted grades. Then when it's UCAS time, they come asking us to put up their grade to what they need!

I'm an MFL teacher. Yes, extra reading and listening are really great and important. Is her grammar solid though? So many students get by and manage a fairly good grade at GCSE without really properly knowing their tenses, but that won't wash at A Level. Also, exam technique is really important. The summary questions in particular are challenging and need lots of practice. She could ask for a past paper to do at home.

Is her grammar solid though? So many students get by and manage a fairly good grade at GCSE without really properly knowing their tenses, but that won't wash at A Level. Also, exam technique is really important. The summary questions in particular are challenging and need lots of practice.

Yy to this especially the summaries. Together they are worth more than the essay on the book but you always spend way more time on the book!

I think you need to find out exactly what your daughter actually wants as opposed to what you want for your daughter.
The old saying about leading a horse to water was never more true than when it comes to a situation such as this. Not all lessons come with an exam at the end and maybe she needs to experience failure to truly want to succeed.
I often worried about my daughters and neither did particularly well in their A levels but they both got into university, worked very hard there and are now working happily in their chosen careers, so my advice is to stop micromanaging your daughter and allow her to find her own path.

Some of mine who can’t focus have done better with YouTube ‘study with me’ sessions.

hamlet is hard - she needs to understand the plot. A production (or several) or massolit subscription) in n would help

did she revise for her GCSEs? Or is she finding it hard because she doesn’t know how to independently learn?

I've never really thought about it like that @clary but you're right of course!

@AllProperTeaIsTheft - I think this my issue. - the not getting that this year is important. She is still talking about "catching up", which makes me a bit anxious as she is talking about catching up from not really having made the effort previously - she hasn't missed school for any period.

@claryher grammar is getting there and it is actually one of the things she knows to work on. Helpful about the summary questions, I don't actually know what that means but I will try and gently investigate with her.

@LottieMary you tube was definitely useful in GCSEs and she was pretty discerning, I am not clear that she has put the time in to find out who is goo at A-level. And yes, eventually she did work for her GCSEs - though she has said herself she could have done more!

@MandyFriend I don't think we are micro-managing or inflicting what we want particularly. We do want her to want to fulfil her potential and not limit herself through lack of effort - to help her get to where she wants to be and happily.

My eldest was better at getting on with stuff on her own, and we were only really involved when she asked, though ironically she puts herself under too much pressure, which we were constantly trying to allay. With DD2, she very much wants to go to university and has career (and money!) ambitions, but she hasn't quite worked out that in order to do well and get to where she wants to be she needs to put in a bit more effort. She also gets very upset, so as parents we are bound to be involved to help her find solutions - or rather ways to find her ouwn solutions.

I suspect these are all issues of maturity in the end, and I know she will get there. This thread has been useful to work it through and there are loads of good insights, which I am grateful for.

Sorry OP my message was a bit cryptic!

So on the reading and listening paper there are two summary questions – she has to listen to or read a text and then summarise it in her own words, including certain points that are flagged in the instructions. It’s a tricky task IMHO and one that is not in any way practised at GCSE (whereas translation is, for example) so it needs a good deal of practice. Past papers or tasks from the textbook will be useful here. One error often made is writing too much – only the first 90 words will be marked. Also candidates sometimes copy too much from the original rather than summarising in their own words.

The flag about the marks is bc the two summary tasks carry 12 marks each, total of 24, but the marks for that paper are doubled, so the two tasks are worth 48 marks (out of the 240 total). The essay on the book, meanwhile, is worth a straight 40 marks and marks for that paper are not doubled – hence summaries being really valuable markwise, and yet inevitably a good chunk of time will be spent on teaching the book (and rightly so) while there may be less focus on the summaries.

@clary that's SO helpful thank you. I did have a brief chat about it with her and I got a very breezy and positive response - she is apparently v good at those! Worth getting clear about the mark scheme though and us just being aware to reinforce. I feel like MFL are well structured and pretty clear about exam requirements (and possible she has teachers who are very on it in French). I also know that the A-Level is hard to achive good grades in.