Monthly school reports are depressing us

[uiopw]

DS 15 is in year ten and school is sending monthly reports, which are so depressing.
Teacher after teacher are saying that he is intelligent and could do so well but he is so unfocussed, distracted, silly, chatty and slow to get down to work.
We make him work here at home and have put everything into action to support him, including revision skills etc. etc.

There is just not anything more we can (and want to) do.

We feel he is now at an age that parental control needs to be withdrawn bit by bit, so that he can take on responsibility for himself. But these monthly reports send us all into some sort of depression and tears.

DS is tearful and upset as he always thinks that he is improving and DH and me are depressed as we have done so so much for him in the past to support him and can not do much more.

We are tempted not to look at these reports any more because there is nothing we can do anyway and it is all so depressing but on the other hand it feels slightly irresponsible.

On the positive side DS is a loving, very humorous, kind and helpful boy. We feel we cannot really enjoy these beautiful sides of him because of his depressing under-achievement at school that gets rubbed into our faces every four weeks.

DS has high ambitions and wants to study some scientific topic like physics or chemistry at university but from how he is at school at the moment there is nowhere in the world he could get there. He will be lucky if he gets into sixth form at all.

What do you think? Shall we look at these reports or give him the responsibility to get on with it himself.

[saintlyjimjams]

How many subjects is he doing?

[Cerisier]

I agree with the others saying 1 hour a night isn't enough. My DD15 is in Y10 and does 2 to 3 hours a night. Tonight she has done 3 hours of chemistry revision for a test tomorrow.

She is set a great deal of homework, so doesn't really do extra work at the moment. Could you ask for more work from the teachers at school? Also, as others have suggested, you could get the syllabus and revision books and work through topics at home.

[cory]

uiopw Tue 11-Feb-14 15:39:36
"2 to 3 hours homework after an 8 hour school day (leaves at 8 and is home at 4)???? I have never worked so hard in my whole life. (honestly!) "

If he leaves at 8 and gets back home at 4, he can't possibly be working an 8 hour day unless he disapparates to and from school and has no lunch break. The time he spends travelling or walking to school is time spent relaxing his brain.

My dh leaves home at 5.45 in the morning and gets home at 7 at night. That doesn't mean he works a 13 hour day.

Dd leaves at 7 in the morning and gets home from school at 5 in the afternoon. Again, that does not represent a 10 hour school day.

[mrsminiverscharlady]

Thing is there's a big difference between doing an hour a night if you're actively participating in class and are on track to get good grades and doing an hour a night when you're behind and are mucking about in class. If you're bright then that might be enough. I probably only did an hour a night when I was doing A Levels (teacher parents were very disapproving!) and got straight As across the board. However I was highly motivated and organised and was using my study periods effectively at school.

If your ds is not learning properly in class and is effectively behind then he will need to do far more than the bare minimum to achieve what you think he is capable of. I can't help thinking the school is not helping matters are perhaps not pushing him as much as they could do if they're telling you that an hour a night is enough to catch up!

I also agree with others who say your perception of hard work might be a little, um, wide of the mark .

[yourlittlesecret]

Can I just put in a different view? I have two DSs. One is 18 and doing A levels and the other is almost 16 and doing GCSEs this summer.
I think at this stage of year 10 that an hour a night is not necessarily too little. Both of mine would get wildly varying amounts of homework at this stage in Y10, sometimes it would be 2 hours sometimes none at all.
In a years time approaching GCSE then a couple of hours a day might be more appropriate.

I also think it's a high risk strategy to back off and leave them to fail. I couldn't bear to do that. I don't hang over my 15 year old but I take an interest in all his work and give gentle reminders if I think he needs it.
Having said all that it seems the problem lies at school not at home.Your DS sounds lovely. It's hard to see why a child who is clearly interested in stuff is finding it so hard to make the connection between his behaviour and those reports. I suspect he is immature and will change a lot in the next year.

[saintlyjimjams]

Oh yes - some nights there might be less. I just think that treating more than an hour as too much isn't helpful. But OP seems to have taken than on board.

[uiopw]

"I also agree with others who say your perception of hard work might be a little, um, wide of the mark grin."

What can I say? Learning always came easily to me. Before my A-levels I learnt every day 1 hour and got A* across the board. My DH did no studying at all and was always in the top set of his grammar school. At university I studied 4 hours a day before the exams. I never had to work hard for anything.

HOWEVER...before you all crucify me...I had to work extremely hard with my DS...much much harder than any other parent I have known in my wider family or friends.

Anyway, I am grateful you have opened my eyes to the fact that DS has to work much more at home. I'll break the news to him when he comes home in a minute. (You probably hear his screaming all over England - lol)

[cory]

I don't think it's about the hours he works, OP: it's about the fact that, as you freely admit, he is not concentrating. There is no point in upping his hours if he is not even making the most of the hours he does work. The fact that his teachers agree that he is unfocussed and distracted shows that this is not the case.

I would try to get hold of his teachers and ask if they would agree to keep a very strict eye on him for a short period, for instance by putting him on report so that he can see exactly where he is going wrong.

If he is distracting others by talking he should also be getting detentions, but that is up to the discretion of the school.

Also, I think you are going to have to get rid of this conception that it is terribly unfair on your son if he needs to work harder than you do because he is less gifted. The point is- it doesn't matter in life if things are unfair, if you want to reach a certain goal you do what it takes in your particular case. Your son won't be able to take your brains with him to university: either he does what it takes to get there with his brains or he doesn't go.

My dd is chronically disabled with a joint disorder. She is going to have to work many times as hard as I have ever had to if she is going to be able to lead any kind of normal life. Yes, it is unfair. But as a parent, there are things you cannot do for your children, decisions you cannot make for them. They have to decide what they want out of life, using the bodies and brains they have been given.

[TheHappyCamper]

This may not be a popular option, but have you considered a financial incentive?

If you offered say £30 per A*, £25 per A, £20 per B grade etc (or however much you think appropriate) it might stir him into action. My SIL did this with DN as he was bright-ish but not too well motivated but likes having plenty of cash! It really worked! DH says it would definitely have worked on him as a lazy teenager.

In the grand scheme of how much we spend on our DCs it's not going to be a huge amount is it? It's worth a thought anyway

[uiopw]

Happy,
yes, we had this idea ourselves yesterday. We'll give some money for 'proper' revising which will be tripled if he achieves a b or a. But if he gets a bad mark for learning attitudes there will be a fine.

We'll see what effect that will have.

[WorrySighWorrySigh]

uiopw a thought which comes to me is that your DS has learned to behave academically through modelling you and your DH. He reads about 'difficult' subjects, he has academic ambitions.

The thing is that while he probably looks academic, he isnt academic. His results, his approach to study isnt academic.

I wonder if this has been the source of his 'bright but lazy' image. He looks academic, he sounds academic but he isnt academic.

So what to do if this is the case?

You need to revise your expectations of him. He needs to revise expectations of himself (far harder).

In the old days he might have muddled through to A level with everybody expecting him to come good soon. Problem is that places on A level courses are competitive. He may get onto courses with Bs at FE college but then really struggle. A levels demand a lot more graft than they did when I was studying them.

The alternative would be to look at the BTEC diploma courses. Not what he wants but the discipline of having to deliver coursework or be chucked off might be what he needs.

[cory]

I'd second Happy's idea about the money. It might just take the emotion out of it for both of you. I'd be tempted just to give money for actual grades though. I know it sounds immoral, but otherwise you will end up constantly hovering over him to see if he is doing "proper" revision and the whole emotional thing will start all over again.

[uiopw]

worry, you might be right but I am not totally convinced.

DS is very interested in physics and other scientific studies like astronomy and engineering. DH and me are not interested in these things AT ALL. DS 'pesters' us with hours of lecturing about the periodic table and we are positively stunned by all this knowledge that we have no interest in at all. We never talk about things like that at the dinner table - we talk about philosophy, relationships, psychology and religion.

DH and I are also very tidy and organised and DS is utterly utterly chaotic.

However, you may be right that he is not academic - I simply don't know what he can and can't achieve.

I very much believe in the motto of 'where there is a will there is a way'. And at the moment DS very much wants to go to uni and be a scientist.

I just told him that he needs to do more homework if he wants to have better grades and he was totally accepting. No screaming - what a surprise!

[uiopw]

Cory, 'proper' revision is defined by seeing 1 to 3 pages revision script - twice (second time to test himself) and the ability to talk about his subject for a number of minutes and - most importantly - a positive attitude. Stroppy attitude - no money! We'll see if this works.

[cory]

"I very much believe in the motto of 'where there is a will there is a way'"

I kind of believe in it. But I think it will depend on how you define "will" and how you define "way".

for a "will" to work miracles it needs to be anything more than a strong desire: it needs to be something that actually drives you. Is his will the kind that climbs the mountain or the kind that sits at the foot sighing "oh, I really want to go there"? He probably doesn't know yet, but the next few years are about him finding out.

the other thing is what the way is going to look like if he pushes himself there

as a university teacher I see students who achieve miracles totally against the odds and a wonderful thing it is to see

but I also see students who drive themselves into a breakdown because they have been taught that where there is a will there is a way, and if they fail they blame themselves for not having a strong enough will

I believe in a middle way: work hard but be flexible, have a plan B

[WorrySighWorrySigh]

uiopw I wasnt meaning that he was parroting you and your DH but that he had learnt his academic demeanor from you and your DH.

When he talks about being a scientist what does he mean? A career in science will almost certainly demand a masters degree at the minimum and more likely a PhD. There is a huge gulf between being interested in sciences and studying them.

[uiopw]

I just had an epiphany: I had talked to DS what he would like to study if he had free choice for sixth form and he said:

physics
maths
ICT
chemistry

For that he needs:
a B in physic or ideally an A - he already is almost a B
a B in chemistry or ideally an A - he is an A
a B in math or ideally an A - he is a C at the moment but had the occasional As in the past - so he has in principal the ability. At the moment he constantly chats in class and pays no attention but last year at the end of year nine he was an A.
a C in English - he has that and he tries really hard in english
a C in a foreign language - he already passed his language GCSE with an A* last year because he is bi-lingual

So, I think what is happening is that he tries in all the subjects that he 'needs' and in all other subjects he is at a D-level at the moment.

My DS 'can' do everything he wants to do virtually without being taught, e.g. everything to do with the computer (he also could read at the age of four without really being taught) but it seems IMPOSSIBLE to teach him anything that he is not interested in and he seems virtually stupid in these areas.

Now, I have always assumed that it is somehow important to be good at everything and try hard to get good grades in all your GCSEs but now I am wondering is that really true? Does he really need more than those 3 As and 2 Cs?

Shall I give up the battle to make him have better marks in geography, electronics and all the other subjects where he is rather bad at the moment? Shall I just be pragmatic and say, 'simply concentrate on these 3 As and 2 Cs and forget about the rest?

What are the arguments against that?

[nooka]

I think you need to look further ahead than just A levels. If you want your ds to go to university then you need to look at where he might like to go and what grades he might need to get here. Universities often use GCSEs as predictors of A level results, so whilst getting good grades in his core subjects is most important a bunch of Ds are probably not really a good idea, especially if he wants to go anywhere competitive.

Given what you've said about your son and your comment about your sister I wonder if your ds does have some specific learning difficulties, my ds is both dyslexic and gifted (apparently - his grades are much worse than his more 'normal' but much harder working sister). It might be worth talking to her about what she struggled with to see if there is anything you can learn, or if she might be a good person for your son to talk to.

[FlirtingFail]

I think he would be unlikely to get into a RG university or equivalent with 3As and 2Cs at GCSE (espcially if he is going to a reasonably good school) - and in fact at the moment those 3 As are an A, a B and a C.

If he wants to go on to do a degree he will have to learn to work hard at things he is not interested in/has less aptitude for.

I'd also point out that if he wants to be a scientist, the ones I know work extremely hard - 50-60 hour weeks as a matter of course. How much does he know about the world of work? Has he ever done any paid work? Does he see people working long hours - which is pretty much the norm these days?

I also wondered reading this thread if the problem is that he is not academic - and the chatting and failure to concentrate is a way of masking that he actually finds things really quite hard.

[LIZS]

I'm not sure many 6th form/colleges would take him for A levels on that basis, 5 A-C is the minimum. If he can't pass electronics then I'd question his commitment to science and ICT longer term, physics in particular.

[juneau]

I agree - he needs to be focusing on getting ALL his GCSEs at grades A-C and with as many at A*, A or B as possible. Universities, particularly the top ones, can pick and choose who they take and anyone who isn't getting all their GCSEs at good grades isn't even going to get an offer. You used to be able to be reasonably mediocre and still get into a top university (I did it myself with a bunch of less-than-stellar results), but nowadays that's not good enough.

To be honest, I'd be going berserk if he came home every month with the same complaints about chatting and pissing about in class. There is absolutely no reason for this and it's totally within his control to stop it. Perhaps he really isn't that bright? If he just doesn't 'get it' that he's sabotaging his own future by messing around like he is and not putting in the necessary hours (I'm baffled that between the three of you no one made the connection between his lack of homework and poor results), then I would be questioning his intelligence.

[MissScatterbrain]

Most 6th forms/colleges request an A in Maths GCSE if he is to do it at A level - otherwise he will just struggle as there is a huge leap between GCSE and A level Maths.

He still has another year to go so all is not lost - however he does need to stop mucking around in class NOW if he is to get back on track.

[cory]

when he applies to university he will not have the A-level results, so he will be applying on AS-levels and a prediction of A-levels

some universities, particularly at the top range, may well look closely at his GCSE's; or at the very least they will want to know why this capable young man has such unexpectedly low results; they will be looking for attitude and grit as much as anything else

if he will only work at what he finds interesting and doesn't have to be taught, that is going to make life very difficult at A-level, not to mention university

there is a big difference between reading around a subject that interests you at home and actually getting down to doing the reading you are told to do and working with it in the way you are told to work

to study science he will need to be teachable- and as Flirting says, prepared to work extremely long hours

he is young yet and there is still time for his attitude to change

as I said, I think it is important to explain these things calmly and unemotionally - don't get terribly upset with him for not doing what he is expected but otoh don't let yourself be led to feel sorry for him either

make it clear to him that there is a big step between GCSE and A-level these days even for straight A students

many colleges will not let you do maths or physics unless you get an A at GCSE because they think it will be so difficult that there is no point

on a more positive note I would try to fire him with enthusiasm for the idea of working very hard at college and pursuing a specific path

I would encourage him to contact some sixth form colleges now, have a look at their proscectuses and find out what their requirements are for various A-levels he might be interested in

[uiopw]

thanks guys, I do appreciate all your valuable input.

About the 1 hour homework.
Well, we were told that this is what the teachers think our DS specifically needs to do to achieve Bs (obviously, given he is focussing in school)

I also read on other threads here on mumsnet, where several teachers posted that most teens do not revise AT ALL. (I was feeling rather smug then - lol)

Thirdly, I believe in a life-style where we have a bit of time for our hobbies, self-expression and sheer leisure. DH and me are living like this ourselves (and doing rather well financially if I may say) and it feels kind of weird that our DS should have to work so much harder, when we are having a great time in the garden or lounge.

But I obviously I see the point now. On the other hand, I honestly wonder if I should accept DS more as he is and go more with the flow, so to speak.

Anyway, I will try to get that report thing rolling and I also will put our monetary incentives for better marks into action and fines for bad learning attitudes.
The hours of homework I think I will leave to DS decision. He has already said that he will work harder and more.

About my sister with her bad school work and great career and phd. I have talked to her at lenght and she said it was sheer arrogance and obstinence, believing that she really knew everything already. I can see this in DS as well. I really think a big part is that he is not teachable. He is so prideful, bossy and impatient. I have been teaching him all his life and the sheer defiance and big-headedness were driving me mad. There is no humility or submissiveness. (but he is really so funny and kind - he makes me laugh so much :))

[cory]

Hard to tell whether you should go with the flow. Maybe he just needs to mature a bit. But it is only fair to point out to him that with his present atttiude he will not walk into a good A-level programmeor a good university or a good job.

to meet your specific points:

"Well, we were told that this is what the teachers think our DS specifically needs to do to achieve Bs (obviously, given he is focussing in school)"

This will depend entirely on how he does it; just copying out pages of revision without thinking about them won't get them into his head; he needs to accept that 1 hr homework means 1 hr concentrating as hard as he possibly can

"I also read on other threads here on mumsnet, where several teachers posted that most teens do not revise AT ALL. (I was feeling rather smug then - lol)"

They may have exceptionally bright children, they almost certainly have children who concentrate at school and work efficiently; they won't have children who are already behind due to a prolonged period of not concentrating; your ds is not in the position of keeping up with the field- he is somebody who has stumbled and needs to catch up, that is harder work and he has to accept that

"Thirdly, I believe in a life-style where we have a bit of time for our hobbies, self-expression and sheer leisure. DH and me are living like this ourselves (and doing rather well financially if I may say) and it feels kind of weird that our DS should have to work so much harder, when we are having a great time in the garden or lounge. "

You are already established in your careers and are getting to the time of life where it is normal to want to relax a little, he is a young man setting out and by the sounds of it wants to try an extremely competitive career. These days, careers come with hard work. He will have to decide whether he wants this or whether he'd rather lounge in the garden. What won't happen is that they will give it to him because it is so unfair that his parents have never had to work hard. He will be competing against thousands of other youngsters whose parents have not had an easy life and who don't expect an easy life for themselves either.

Besides, if he wants to be a scientist, that means a PhD. I did mine 20 years ago, and even then it wasn't something you did by having a great time in the garden.

Nobody has to go the academic route and have a successful careers- there are other ways to be happy in life. But he has to decide whether he wants to pay the price or decide it is not worth it. If he wanted to compete as an athlete, you wouldn't feel sorry for him because he had to run faster than people did in the past, would you? You wouldn't tell him it was unfair that he couldn't both be an athlete and spend hours in front of the computer? You'd tell him he either does the training or gives up his plans of running. Wouldn't you?

It does sound like he is spending a lot of time feeling sorry for himself at the moment and that you get sucked into this. Be brisk and cheerful.