15 year old son gone from an A* to a C grade student

[NeverLoseHope]

My 15 year old son who was only last year an A* student seems to want to throw his education away, nothing I do punishment or reward has made any difference. All he wants to do is spend time with his friends and his girlfriend and doesn't seem to be able to balance his social life and his school work. Over the past few weeks I have found out that he has smoked some kind of drug at his friends house (he denied it), although I am sure this is the first and hopefully the last time he has done it as he isn't allowed to go to this friends house again. He is desperate to have sex with a girl and get drunk, I know this from reading his texts when I had access to his phone

I feel broken hearted knowing what an intelligent boy he is and knowing that he is going to do really badly in his upcoming GCSE exams. At the minute I am in daily email contact with his school and have organised fortnightly meetings with his head of year to keep him focused, but it isn't helping he just says we are all picking on him and being over protective, he says he doesn't need to revise as it's not a problem. He had detention last week for not handing homework in and his teachers say he just doesn't want to be in class and makes no contribution in lessons. If he wasn't throwing away his education I might be able to ease up on him but I just don't know what to do anymore!. We have taken his phone and laptop off him but he finds ways around it to organise meeting up.

Tonight I know that he has organised to be picked up from school and go straight to his girlfriends house (she is a nice girl) but he has lots of homework that needs to be done tonight and he has been warned if he does he will be completely grounded and I am pretty sure he will go anyway. I didn't want to have to involve his girlfriends family as they are nice people and don't know how badly he is behaving but I will have to call them tonight once I know he is there.

He was such a lovely boy and still can be lovely. We used to love parents evening as we would come out feeling so proud we come out now and feel battered and bruised!!

Would really appreciate any advice as I feel lost and helpless!

He's having a bit of a teenage rebellion, having been an angel child! You probably need to loosen up a bit.

Where is he getting the money for drugs?

Seriously - this will not be the fist time he has smoked cannabis - this will be what it is - and you need to find out what else is going on.

Lots of people on here will tell you that cannabis is harmless and you should not interfere etc etc, but believe me, this is the peak age for this sort of behaviour.

Some kids go through this phase and pull themselves together, others go through it and go into a downward spiral from which they never recover. I can think of 5 boys who were at school with mine who are now in their 20s and cannot hold down a job, dropped out of school, and are still smoking dope. It is really sad.

I have personal experience of this, and I would urge you to take it very seriously.

How well do you know his peer group?

We live next door to his best friend from school who also took part in the drug smoking but the week after, again he is a good kid and is a prefect at school It's one boy who seems to be the bad influence and it was at his house that they were smoking it. His parents have their own business and he will work for them when he leaves school so he isn't interested in school and I think that's wher my sons attitude is coming from, his parents let him do what he wants he goes drinking in pubs and has "sleep over" parties each weekend. He thinks it's cool to go wandering around the town centre at 2 in the morning taking whoever is staying over with him, they don't understand how dangerous it is with drunks about.

You have to separate him from this boy. Whatever it takes, it will be easier to do it now than when he is 17 or 18.

Ds had a friend like that. He is 21 now and spends his life in his bedroom smoking

weed. His parents continue to support him.

What advice does the school have?