Son ase 13 doing badly in school

[Emmy02]

any advice appreciated. My son is 13, in S2. He will be picking his subjects to study for next year in the next couple of weeks. His French teacher (and guidance teacher) has just phoned me to say she is really worried about him as he is not doing any work or making effort. I know he doesn't like French, but it is compulsory to take. He is capable but just wont make any effort. I have spoken to him again and again, and he agrees he needs to improve. He was in trouble as well for laughing in another class and got put out the room. He told me about this , as I said to him I would find out everything at parents night. I have told him to behave, get on with his work and stop acting the clown. He has a few friends but most nights hes on xbox. I do not allow him to use until all homework is done and only for an hour. I also offer to help with anything hes not sure about. Not sure what else I can do to encourage him to improve his school work.

How is he doing in other subjects other than French (grades, effort and homework)?

just getting by. I will find out more at parents night next week. The school he is in , is 2 high schools that merged last year. The school was built for 700, but has 1200 pupils in it. I feel hes just been eaten up. However I need to make him understand its important to do well now, or he will be in bottom classes in 3rd year and will not get good qualifications in the long term. Hes good at tech drawing and wants to take that.

He sounds very similar to my youngest son, Emmy. (He's 14 so year 10 - first year of GCSEs.) I have two older boys (17 year old twins) and I think I've been incredibly lucky with them in that they have been very motivated, high achieving and required minimal/zero input with studying.

My youngest sounds just like your son.

It looks like parents night has come at the right time for you. It was my son's last week. I heard a lot of positive feedback on him (his confidence has improved, he has good presentation skills, offers opinions in class, is friendly, respectful etc although his concentration can tend to wander from time to time - none of which would have been said a few years ago so this is all good stuff). 'Points for improvement' include more attention to detail in his classwork and homework and better preparation for tests/exams. His predicted grades are not high but I have always stressed that I am more concerned with effort.

Anyway, I've taken the feedback from parents night as a call to action and this weekend have helped him to get a bit more organised. First of all, I concentrated on all the positive feedback I got from parents night and explained how the negative points could be turned round eg going into more detail in answers; giving me more notice of forthcoming tests so we can prepare together; making sure his concentration does not waiver in class.

For example, he has a science test today so I've helped him over the weekend to revise - got him to make a page of notes on each topic, tested him etc. Tomorrow he has a history test so tonight I will give him a bit of help on that. On a weekly basis he knows he has to tell me when tests/assessments are coming up so I can help him prepare better for them.

It's good that you will get the full picture next week, let us know how he gets on and if there's anything we can suggest after that.

Thanks Numberlock. I do the same, help him revise before a test and read over any work and ask questions on it. I have also advised him to pay attention to detail and make his work clearer (eg. workings for maths and putting in £ signs or kg etc). I will wait and see the outcome from parents evening but as you said , try and help him turn round the negatives and praise for the positives. Thanks again

My 13 year son old has gone through a 'mr.minimum' stage - i.e. doing the minimum of work with the minimum of effort. Its really hard to keep him focussed without being overbearing. I recently had parents evening and teachers conformed my concerns - however, I wish I had emailed teachers before with my concerns so that they were prepared with some constructive advice.

I have an agreement with him since he is into golf that if he does work of a good standard and is more organised I will take him to the driving range once a week. He shows me his homework once its done and we discuss what might be done better and I also help him with revising although I don't want him to become reliant on me so I am trying to teach him how to revise on his own and then I test him afterwards. Its tiring and its really hard when you know they are capable of more. I just hope he doesn't wake up too late.

Thanks, from the comments, I need to keep him focused and not assume he is doing it himself. I will keep a close eye on him.

Thanks for starting the thread, Emmy. The timing was good for me too to put my thoughts down, I'd been thinking of starting something similar.

Will look forward to hearing how parents night goes for you both and your son.

Hi again. Well, parents night went better than expected! Most of the teachers said he was capable and just needs more focus and effort. So another long "chat" was had. Hopefully it will do some good, just need to keep reminding him. Next step is to make his 'choices' for next year and stay positive.

Hi Emmy. Thanks for the update, hope you feel a bit better now!

Hi Emmy, sorry, this is a bit off topic but I was drwan to this thread as I have a 12 year old in S1 who I perceive as doing the bare minimum but just got his report and 6 (Excellent) for effort in 9 of his 11 subjects and 5 (very good) in the other two - one of which was PE.

We were obviously delighted but a bit bemused, I guess maybe their view is different from ours - this is a very academic school btw.

So maybe your boy is not doing so badly after all?

Anyway, what I wanted to ask was about the choosing subjects at end of 2nd year. I thought that with the CfE they now didn't choose until the end of S3 and what they are doing now will be the same for the 3 years of Broad General Educucation? That's what I have been told anyway but are other schools doing things differently?

amck5700 I have a DS in S2 and he is about to choose his subjects for S3. I'm in Edinburgh and both the independent and state sector are doing the same.

Thanks kaumana - I've taken another look at our schools CfE info - they are definitely doing something different from other school and the common CfE model. They are doing 12 subjects for S1-3 and they expect by the end of S3 that they will award 10+ @ National 4. Then students will select 7 subjects to take at National 5 (or 4 for less able students) in 4th year. Then moving on to Highers/Advanced Highers in 5th and 6th.

They are saying that the standard model is 10-15 subjects in 1st year and then choosing 8 in 2nd/3rd year and then 5 in S4 to study at National 4/5 with Highers etc as normal in 5th & 6th.

Although they have said what they were doing, I didn't realise how far it was from the norm.

amck5700 That is interesting. DS will choose 8 subjects for S3, he has been set for English and Maths N5 and is expected to do the N5 for the others and pick 5 to do highers in S5, which all going well could either leave or stay on to crash a couple of highers or do advanced.

At his school they cover the full range of subjects but for example did history & chemistry last year and geography & biology this year.

It's strange how they are all doing different things isn't it? - even the schools in our council are not all doing the same thing. Some schools are restricting the choice to 5 subjects in S4 so they are effectively choosing their Highers in S3. My son's school is very academic and used to do early presentations in S3 for Maths and English Standard grade. They feel they are stretching it by offering the 7 in S4 and hoping that with the addition of the level 4s the kids achieve at the end of S3, that they will have 10+ subjects at National 5/4 by the end of 4th year........we'll see how that goes!

Hi there, I am on the west coast side of Glasgow. DS is to pick 8 subjects for study for S3 & S4. The CfE information has been very vague, dont think even the teachers are that sure of what will happen. I am going to an 'options' info evening this week, so may find out more. It is strange who it seems to be differing from region to region, I assumed it would be much the same across Scotland.