What do you do if they fail their GCSEs?

[ilovecornwall]

HELP. My son is rapidly heading towards complete school meltdown, he is quite bright but doesn't want to work, is putting in less than no effort and if the school don't find a reason to get rid of him before GCSEs he looks like he is going to fail most of them quite spectacularly. Does anyone have any experience of this? Are there any interventions I can make? I have considered sending him to boarding school, the army, my parents to live....I am at my wits end....I just don't know what to do. Its not just the school work, he is rude, arrogant disruptive and has started smoking weed. He thinks everything is someone else's fault and that the whole world is against him. He sits through my lectures but he isn't really listening. I have lost him. Quite often I am quite frightened of him. Its so miserable.

Work - low paid job, no prospects with no qualifications

Apprenticeship? Though whether anyone would want to take on someone with a can't be bothered attitude is another matter

6th Form college to retake maths, English and do some BTEC L2 qualification, then being able to progress to a L3 qualification.

Can he talk with someone at school? What aspirations does he have? Does he realise how hard /impossible they will be to achieve without qualifications.

Have you explained to him how you won't be funding him if he drops out?

Is he 'bright' enough to scrape the passes anyway? e.g. Someone with enough intrinsic aptitude could get their maths without having to put effort in, possibly also some of the other subjects.

Sorry, no bright suggestions.

Wish I could give you some advice but unfortunately I'm in the same boat, minus the weed but plus a gaming addiction. Do you think your ds might come to his senses when the school asks him to leave after results? Mine is adept at burying his head in the sand. As ds attends a high achieving school setting work above level, I'm expecting him to get B's with a couple of C's. As he'd need 5 A's to stay, sixth form college here we come.

Possibly he could scrape a C in English and Maths?
My DD16 actually didn't turn up for her exams!! All she got was a BTEC double Science award and a D in Art!
OK so she can retake them this year and is doing a 'Work based Diploma' in Equine Studies.
Son scraped C in two Englishes but got an E in Maths..so he is doing a L3 BTEC type course, as part of which he can re-sit Maths.
Things will work out for him.
Is there anything he is particularly interested in?
FWIW I had a charming MNer tell me that this was more or less the end of their lives. And guess what it isn't !!

I don't think it is ever the end, but as I say to my DDs, getting your qualifications now gives you more immediate choices, and is easier as it's all laid on for you. Studying later in life whilst holding down a job, maybe raising a family is just much harder.

The other thing you could consider, is identifying those he is most likely to put some work into and pass, and ask him to focus on them, with the deal that you won't nag at all on the other subjects.

I reckon it's probably better to get 5Cs and 5Es than to get 10Ds. However that could be a very high risk strategy. And it would be a shame for an able kid to 'give up' when if only he could be switched on he could do well.

Could the weed be driving a lot of the other behaviours?

Is there anything he enjoys, even out of school? Does he see friends and what are they like?

We went through something like this (not weed but MH issues) and found the best strategy was to focus on strengths and outside interests to start, and this gave us something for us to talk about in a positive way, and helped to build up our relationship. We backed right off school work tbh, until everything else improved.

SIl went through this with my nephew
he just scraped enough GCSEs to go to college (school 6th form wouldn't have him), but bombed spectacularly there, and left with no qualifications.

what got him to focus was his friends all leaving for Uni/good jobs, and realising that it was just him left in the village with his x-box.

he went back to a different college (first one wouldn't have him back), did a BTEC, and did sufficiently well at that to get a university place, although he was 21 by the time he went.

One of mine ended up with one GCSE (the only one they sat). Left school before 16 and got into a specialised job related to something they were passionate about via an internship. Works long hours but travels internationally and (at 19) has picked up loads of transferable skills. TBH school isn't for everyone. Sometimes they just need to find their 'thing'.

This could be my DS, although without the weed. Utterly ignored his GCSE's even though he'd been offered a place on a Level 3 (and Level 2) Art & Design course. Is now on a Level 1 course and it turns out he's putting that in jeopardy too by not engaging and not talking to anyone in his class. It turns out this is all (including the GCSE fuckup) because of some girl who probably doesn't even know he exists. The Level 1 course is hanging by a thread and if they throw him off that I don't know what's next. What does a 16 year old do instead? No one will employ him, no one will take him as an apprentice as he doesn't have anything he's passionate about, and presumably the state won't just let him stay at home (neither will I).

OP I sympathise. It's so painful to watch them do this to themselves. I've just about got him to agree that messing up his course just piles more shit on the situation so if he can turn it round before half term we might have a chance of getting back on track. Some people will say I should just let him fuck it up and deal with the consequences but IMO I'm supposed to be the grownup here so I can't just give up on him.