15 yr old DD overwhelmed by homework/revision

[supersop60]

My DD is in year 10 at her secondary school, and has recently become overwhelmed by the amount of homework she has - Art, in particular, and the amount of revision she needs to do for her mocks in December. She is conscientious, wants to do well, in top sets for Maths English and Science, and I'm afraid she's not coping. She is tearful, exhausted and tonight she said she didn't want to do anything, just go to bed and not wake up. This broke my heart. Any suggestions???

First, y10 December exams are not mocks, she has only just started the courses.

When she is not tired, can you spend some time with her going through each subject and discussing how much revision she needs to do for them? So write a list as to what revision and an estimate of time required. By seeing it written down it hopefully won't seem so bad.

Art is the one subject that keeps coming up as being time consuming, especially for a perfectionist. So maybe she needs to limit time spent on it with a bit more of a 'good enough attitude, at least if she has other work outstanding.

Writing revision cards / mind maps for things like history and science is a good way of revising, and it gets the cards written ready for next time.

With homework, maybe again she needs help on the time management. Is she spending longer than she needs to, or not prioritising correctly?

You do need to sort this somehow, otherwise she won't cope with y11.

My yr9 is doing similar stuff. Doing my head in. Too perfectionist.

My DD is similar, although she hasn't reached the point of being overwhelmed yet. She is working very hard. I feel she needs to rest and have fun more, but on the other hand, I'm proud of her for putting in so much effort. I really wish she hadn't chosen art though, she seems to spend more time on that than all the other subjects put together.

Have you got parents' evening coming up? Ours is at the end of November, and I want to talk to the art teacher because she really cannot let the other subjects suffer just for art. If not, perhaps you could make an appointment with her form tutor and see what they suggest.

How keen is your DD to do art. Would she drop it, and take up an 'easy' subject instead?

oh Art, sigh, DD will do Art in yr10. Sigh. They have 6 GCSE options at her school & she can't think of one she likes better than art, struggled to come up with as many as 6. Argh.

DS1 (Y11) finds the following strategy helpful:

1.Make a list of the topics that have been covered in each subject.

1. Rate each topic green (confident) yellow (have some understanding) or red (have no clue). Resist the temptation to rate them all green or all red; try to have an even spread.

1. Revise the red topics.

1. If you have time, revise a few yellow topics.

teen - yes, she IS doing mocks. At her school they start GCSEs in yr 9; she already has her first Science GCSE. This year she is taking Art, further science(or whatever it's called), French and IT. In yr 11 she will take English and Maths plus 2 other subjects which she hasn't chosen yet.
So she already has experience of revising - she uses the traffic light system the second
She feels she has no time to do anything properly and she was so upset and tired tonight that she couldn't do anything at all.
I'm going to arrange a meeting with her form tutor - he thinks she's wonderful and he'd be gutted to know that she's struggling.
Thanks for your thoughts so far.

Do talk to the school, they will be well experienced in dealing with stressed KS4 students and will be able to arrange someone to talk to about it all.

Oh wow super what a stressful way of doing things the school has chosen.

Sounds like my DD re art -she's good, and wants to take it for gcse but I can already forsee the stress over time it takes up. Def talk to school if she's struggling.