DS 14 (year 9 ) ridiculously laid back re school work/revision

[Blueisblue2]

At breakfast he informed me that he has a Chemistry exam today. This follows a weekend of me forcing him to do revision for 2 other exams he has today and tomorrow. When I say force I mean it and he has a sort of toddler tantrum then reluctantly does the bare minimum. He wants to study a very academic subject at University (life long love), but this involves him getting As at A level and ideally GCSE. He is definitely capable and so far he has got away with this lack of work, always does above average in everything and teachers all think he's great. He works hard at school and is never in trouble. He starts GCSEs next year and needs to apply himself but I am at a loss as to how to approach this.

At 14 it has to be up to him. You can give him the means and the opportunity, but motive is his job.

If he is bright enough, he will wing it, if not, you won't be doing him any favours getting him onto a tough course under your steam, because he will fail the minute you leave him at Uni.

See how these tests go, and if his grades aren't strong enough, time for the chat.

Actual exams - or end of topic test etc?

If he his bright, and has just finished a topic that he has been working on for the last month or so, probably doesn't really need to do much revision.
Don't force the issue now - if you are expecting hours of work for each test at this stage, he will be completely burnt out come the actual GCSE exams. It is a long, hard slog.

Y9 is a bit of a shit year. You haven’t started your GCSEs and you are still plodding on with subjects that you know you will be dropping in a few months. I agree that end of topic tests for a child who is bright and has understood the work in class don’t take much revision. My ds really ramped up the effort in y10 when, in his opinion, it ‘counts’ but was very ‘meh’ during y9

Thanks for replies. They have main 3 exams a year, doing the second lot currently. He is just so infuriating when it comes to revision off his own steam. His younger year 7 dd is much more self motivated. I'm not expecting him to do hours but just a bit without any fuss would be lovely.

@JamAtkins. I have thought/hoped he might start to take it a bit more seriously when doing actual exams that he feels count. (He said to me nobody in the future will care about what he got for year 9 mid year exam)