Not like her- GCSEs

[stringmealong]

I think the whole GCSEs will rule my life thing is getting to DD. She has always been very studious but in recent weeks has started doing anything she can to put off doing any work. It started around mocks & is now at the point where she has done every other piece of homework this week except the English coursework due in today which she crammed in at 11pm last night & it's 40% of her mark! I know it's stress related but how do I get her to see that doing anything but the needed homework or revision is not going to get her anywhere? She'll say she's doing it, then find anything else to do she can whether it's reading books or watching videos! She's always been very organised before now 😞

I feel sorry for teens today I really do. I hope someone will come along g with good advise My dd is 12 so this is looming.

My dh said to me once the only thing about his parents that he disagreed with is they never taught him to study properly.

I just had my lad in here 'revising'; what he actually does is read the book outloud & puzzle out loud & I thrown in an occasional "Oh..." or "right", "ok" or "I see what you mean". I'm keeping him company (was half-listening, reading a Michael Morpugo book I picked up for 40p).

Point is, I make the revision a bit more appealing, by keeping DS company.

My teen is only in Y9 but will do very little or no revision for his tests unless we’re with him. It’s far from ideal but otherwise he watches YouTube and messes about.

There’s no coursework for GCSEs now except in drama/art/practical subjects. Certainly not in English so I’d be checking that.

Maybe not next year, but they haven't changed the English syllabus yet at her school!
She seems better this week, has an audition on Saturday so been focusing on her music which has helped. She had a good cry the other night about missing her old music teacher so wrote her an email. She just needs to try to focus when she needs to in the coming weeks. Knowing she can drop the subjects she doesn't like for a level seems to have disengaged her in some subjects which is such a shame as I know she's intelligent enough to do well in them all!

Perhaps she is doing an igcse?

Can you help her by encouraging her to plan a revision timetable? With scheduled breaks in and in manageable chunks. Get her to tick it off as she goes.

Eg:
Subject 1 - 15 mins
Break 5 mins
Subject 2 - 15 mins
Break 5 mins
Subject 3 - 15 mins

Get her to make revision interactive or as interesting as it can be - go shopping for some stationary together and some coloured pens. Teach her to make mind maps. Get her to stick post it's up round the house and ask her to talk them through with you. Get her to write questions on card for you to quiz her, or she can do her own "tap and turn" cards (question on top, answer on bottom).

Presumably this is course work for a mock? There isn’t any course work in the real exams any more.

Revise for 15 minutes at a time? I wish- despite my best efforts when she does revise she wants to do a good half a day on a subject before she will move onto anything different! 🙄. Sounds like I need to work on her whole outlook to it - I'm sure school are saying the same, but whether she's listening is another matter!

Ahh @stringmealong I'd misunderstood, sorry! I thought you couldn't get her to actually revise. I was a bit like her, I do still recommend focused bursts rather than sitting staring at the books for hours but more in chunks of 45 min to an hour! Good luck whatever strategy works best.

No - the revision is the easy bit for her, it's coursework she hates & gets stressed about!

cant be a normal gcse as no coursework at all. See attachment.

Igcse I think

Yes I was surprised to hear that my year 10 daughter is working on a piece of coursework for English too.

I'm pretty sure the revision advice I've seen suggests 40 mins to 1 hour maximum before a break and total change of subject. Hope things settle down a bit for you both...

IGCSE English has an option of 40% coursework ...60% exam - so Op is correct.

Yy re coursework for IGCSE - my dd has had history coursework as well as English coursework

I don't know what to suggest OP but yes this does seem to be a stress response. I think all you can do is be as supportive as possible (I am sure you are) and try to encourage your dd to talk about her GCSEs, how she feels etc