How to motivate in yr 11

[Spottyblobby]

15 yo son is in yr 11, been looking around local colleges & sixth forms for post 16 options. The majority are asking for grade 4/5 or above in English, Maths & at least 2/3 other subjects. Thing is, he achieved more than this in yr 10 mocks. He is now really deflated that this year means nothing, the work he has been doing means nothing, and he is wasting a year when he could have just done GCSEs last year & got on with life because nobody really cares if you get a 4 or a 9. He’s completely lost motivation to keep learning as he can’t see the benefit. I’ve been trying to reassure him that he’s still learning & developing skills which he will need at college/sixth form but you can tell his attitude has totally changed. How to get him out of this slump.

Surely y11 is for improving the grades and getting on a better course? Tell him a better paid job depends on it!

What a bizarre attitude to have ( teacher of y10-13 for many many years) and unusual.
His grades will determine what courses he has access to at the college ( For example i will eat my hat if they let them do A level maths with a 4/5) , they will determine what courses he can apply to at uni, they will determine whether an employer even looks at him for an apprenticeship. Surely you have been telling him this?

This is what he was doing, really driving for higher grades, really focused going for 9s. Then when we started looking at the local colleges, none are super competitive so if you have 4s or above you can do Alevels/ level 3 Btech/ TLevels. So his thought process is, why am I working hard to get 9s when I’m going to end up on the same courses as those doing nothing. And I just don’t know how to get him to see the bigger picture.

Surely he hadn’t covered all the course content by May last year!

He doesn't sound very bright.

Does he not realise that his CV will show his grades - and that if he is intending to go on to higher education or apply for jobs that he is in competition with other people who have applied? And that it may well come down to the person with a handful of 4/5 grades versus the one who got mostly 7s and 8s?

Settling for the bare minimum is silly. And he's not 'wasting a year' at 15.

At college he wants to do A level maths, physics, chemistry, he was all up for doing a 4th A-level in Business then we went to an open evening at a local college & they told him that uni’s don’t care if you do a 4th A-level so stick with 3, so now he doesn’t have that to work towards (I was encouraging saying that if he didn’t get 9s they wouldn’t let him do a 4th but after being told that it doesn’t matter he doesn’t even want to do a 4th). He got 6 in maths last year & 778 across triple science so hardly exceptional but “good enough” in his thoughts. I don’t get him either, I’m super competitive so want to excel to just be better than others (I know I have my own issues!) so I just can’t understand not wanting to be excellent. He wants to do pharmacy at uni so he’s ambitious, he just keeps hearing about the importance of getting a “pass” from school/colleges & I can’t get him to see beyond that.

The grades he got last year were based on the part of the course covered at that point, unlikely the actual grades he would get in the GCSEs if he had sat them then.
I know what you are saying though, DS also wanted to do a college course where he only needed 4s and so the drive to get higher grades faded for him.
He got middling grades and is now really enjoying his course and working with a lot more drive than he did in Y11.
Getting to the next stage is the main thing, they all find their inner motivation at different stages.

He’s definitely very immature (August baby) and things are very black & white to him. All he can see is, they are telling me I need to achieve x,y,z. I’ve been doing that for ages, what’s the point in attempting to do more/going above & beyond. We’ve looked at uni courses, what you need to get into uni, discussed how competitive is, that got him back on track for a bit, then they will have an assembly at school about the importance of getting 5 in English & maths & he checks out again.

I will be honest and tell you that if a college is only wanting grade 4/5 on entry then you have to know that they are dealing with a wide range of ability in their cohort. My own children went to a place like this but they really push each child to improve their outcome. However mine went in with mostly grade 9s and some 8s.

For things like science you usually need at least a grade 6, a well respected maths teacher on here will tell you that you need a grade 8 to do maths A level and perform well. A 7 at GCSE will typically result in a D or C at A level. A massive drop.

Factually, a low percentage of students do 4 A levels, around 5%, 67% ish do 3 A levels. If he is thinking of uni then it puts him in a more competitive category of candidates. Most students doing a 4th A level do further maths, needed for things like Econ at Warwick, Computer Science at the top unis.

Mocks are not the real thing and he needs to aim as high as he can. GCSE results are a predictor of future A level grades, there are charts tracking students on this sort of thing, it isn't an unknown. The question to ask is if a child comes in on a grade 5 what A level grade do they typically get? Not every child is heading to uni. Plus what do you expect them to say in assembly? The grade curve is applied so some students no matter how hard they try will get a grade 3 or 2 because they don't perform as well as their cohort.

Uni entry grades are the lowest they will take an applicant in on. If he is looking at an oversubscribed course at a top uni and their entry grade is A star AA then just know they statistically they take the applicants predicted 3 A stars or more, then the A star A star A and then the entry grade applicants. Again, this information can be found to show the grades of those on the course.

Also this isn't a level playing field either, he is competing in his GCSE against kids at Eton, Westminster, St Pauls etc all the children whose parents have paid a lot of money to see their child do well. The grade curve applies to all of them.

4s or 5s wouldn't get you onto A levels here. Even if they let him on the course he will find A levels very difficult if he is only getting 4s or 5s at GCSE. Surely the motivation is doing as well as he can and being proud of himself.

It’s fine and completely normal not to take a fourth A level, unless he was planning on doing further maths.
I understand your frustration about the lower entry grades. My DS is planning on doing a BTEC (which I fully support) so needs 5 grade 4s. He got the potential to do far better than that, but is also saying “what’s the point” if he just needs to scrape a pass to get to the next level.
Its really frustrating!

He may be mistaking the entry requirements for getting into college with the entry requirements for specific courses? No way should he be getting onto an A-level maths course with a grade 4/5 maths and if he did, he would fail.

If he wants to do A-level maths then he should know that his GCSE grade will directly influence his A-level grade. If he does nothing this year and gets a 6 in maths and then goes on to do A-level, the most likely outcome if he actually manages to stick out the course for two years is an E. If he wants a grade A*/A at A-level, he needs to be working towards those 8/9s.

The talks he is going to about the importance of getting grade 4/5s is for the people who may be trundling on on a grade 3 now. He should be listening to people telling him that if he doesn't pull his finger out in maths right now, he will struggle with A-level, and the same for his other A-level choices.

Yes noble knows the score here. To do well in A level maths, he needs to be secure in the GCSE content – and that will be reflected in his GCSE mark. If he gains a 5 that shows he doesn't know enough to take the A level.

I’d be surprised if any post-16 setting let him take maths and physics A level with a 4 or 5. These are minimum grades as a rule for most courses. But for science and maths he needs to be gaining higher grades. I would suggest a 7 ideally an 8 in maths and 7 at least in science. If A levels and pharmacy at uni are his goal, get him to look at the kinds of A level grades needed – if it' As or A stars then he needs the best grades at GCSE.

The motivation has got to come from him tho for sure.

I would dig a little deeper as to why he's having this loss of motivation. Is he starting to struggle? Does he need a tutor in some subjects. And tbh this sort of unrealistic and inflexible thinking is very similar to an autistic person I know. Are you sure he doesn’t have an undiagnosed SEN? Probably not, but might be worth pondering.

Need a 7 at all our local colleges to do maths. 6 for your A level choices

I would continue to discuss the competitiveness of uni, or better yet, find a competitive grammar school and look at their required GCSEs. Does he know what he wants to study for A level?

Our local college has raised the bar for A levels, so just passing would not get him on any of his chosen subjects, the fear being he couldn't cope with higher level study.

@Spottyblobby The school is right about 3 A levels. Plenty of schools don’t start at 4 and drop one. The grammars near me generally don’t. Only 4 with FM. Universities don’t want 4. He’s not an Oxbridge super-bright type is he? So I don’t see why 3 demotivates. It’s standard for the vast majority of DC. Why business anyway? Pharmacy doesn’t need business A level.

Usually dc with a career goal do work out how to get it. The 5 grade the school
is talking about is to explain how not getting it reduces choice. For him, it takes away his career aspiration. I’m sure he’s worked that out!

The other suggestion - take 3 years with the A levels if he’s immature. This is possible. I’m not sure how competitive pharmacy is - maybe in certain cultures from what I observe.

Also look at a plan B. What else might he like? He’s got time left to get it together though and to realise his grades open up, or close down, career options.

My DS(17) did his GCSEs last summer and is at college in his first year of A levels - Biology, Chemistry, History and AS Core Maths. He had 3 offers, none of which was less than 5 passes at Grade 5 including his A level subjects, Eng Lang and Maths, but most places wanted 6s for his A Level subjects and Maths (to support his sciences).

Your DS is being very naïve if he thinks Y11 is a waste of time/for cruising. GCSE passes at 5, 6 or above will open a lot of doors for him, and will be essential if he wants to do A levels.

Not SEN, we were a bit worried early doors but he grew out of the odd behaviour, has labels in all his clothes, even wears a shirt & tie to school, has happy birthday sung to him every birthday now, has more than 1 friend, plays sport. Only real lingering quirks are picky eating & mad ability to recall information he choses to remember (champions league winners in order/every country in the world). Good shout on the tutor though, he gets really annoyed if he doesn’t pick something up first time, especially in what he perceives as “his” subjects so tutoring could be helpful to build confidence.

I wish our local ones would! Every open evening, all they ask is “are you on for 5 passes or more, fab, then you can do one of our level 3 courses/A level courses”. I totally get why, my son’s school doesn’t get a huge amount of passes (attainment 8 score of 32 ish) so the local colleges need to fit the kids in the local area & not exclude them by setting the bar too high. But he can’t seem to see outside of this bubble, that in the big wide world life is competitive & you need to do your best.

Remind him that those are the minimum requirements.

Whatever grades he gets he will to declare those grades for life, so wouldnt he rather have 8's and 9's?

Incentivise him, £100 for every grade 9 that he gets. He could get £900 (in theory!).

If you get 5 passes or more then you can do one of our level 3 courses doesn't mean you'll be allowed to do any of them. Getting into sixth form isn't the same thing as getting onto Maths A-level.

Check the entry requirements for the specific A-levels he wants to do, they are likely to be much higher than a 4.

I think you and he must have misunderstood and he does sound very immature in his approach to his education. I also have a summer born DS whose approach is the polar opposite to yours.

What you’ve quoted must be the minimum needed to get a place at the college, for certain (perhaps more vocational or BTec) course. Other courses (eg A level maths, sciences and MFL) will need a minimum grade, (often a 6 or 7). at GCSE to be accepted onto those courses.

He also needs to consider that some universities will look at GCSE grades alongside predicted A level grades when deciding whether or not to make an offer.

His motivation to achieve his full potential at GCSE will need to come from within and that is going to depend on him properly understanding how these results will directly affect his options after year 11 and beyond.

What about telling the school and asking them to talk to him? A serious interview with the headteacher might make him see sense. After all, the school aren't going to want him underachieving and affecting their statistics either.