Gcse struggles

[Woowoorocks1969]

Really struggling with ds and revision. Everyday is a battle to get him to study and he's saying that he has anxiety and wishes he was dead as he hates his life right now. How many hours of study should he be doing and did anyone offer financial incentives for good grades and if so how much. Would appreciate advice as our home is miserable right now 😭

Sounds like you battling with him is making him mentally ill.

That's hardly helpful advice is it and to be really honest has made me feel 100% worse than I already did so if that's what you were trying to do, congrats you've succeeded.

Woo
It sounds like his stress has overloaded him to the point of paralysis?

This is what I would do.

Say to him he is to have 4 days completely empty at the start of the holidays. No revision. No talk of revision. Go out and 'do fun stuff'. Preferably some of it with you.

Then on the 5th day you sit down and agree some ground rules.

1. He does his best
2. You will reward hard work, not the end results (so e.g. every week/day he sticks to his revision schedule you'll give him £X)
3. If you do 1&2 then the results will be what they will be. But he doesn't want to be saying 'if only I'd worked harder' come results day.
4. What is a reasonable, achievable, amount of hours to do per day. Over Easter y11 my DD1 did 3hrs in the morning between 9&1, had the afternoon off, then 2 hrs 4-6:15, and then the evening off.
5. Does he need help breaking it down? How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Talk about what he thinks are the priorities, help him schedule it. You need a schedule that takes him up to the start of exams, then a schedule that goes from exam start to end. He can't expect to do much 'new' once exams start, more keep things ticking over, except in half term, when he will need a short break but then will have 5-6 days to do some solid work.
6. He hates his life, but all the other y11s are going through it too. As have countless generations before him. It's only what 10 weeks from now? Then he has the whole summer to relax.
7. If he doesn't do as well as he hopes, well, that's life. Better grades will give him more options, but it's not the end of the world and there will be routes through.
8. He will be less stressed if he does some work.
9. You will encourage & remind but won't nag. They are his results, it is his future. He needs to own it.

So by the end of day 5 you have an agreed revision schedule.

Then each day you chat what he is doing today (or chat the night before). make sure he has specific goals (eg be able to talk about the characters in his set book, including quotes), not just 'revise An Inspector Calls'. At the end of the day ask him how each session went. Keep telling him how well he is doing if he does any work at all.

Might not work for your DC though!

I agree with everything Teen has suggested.
My DS did GSCEs last year and TBH didn't really start doing any work until the Easter holidays started. It's such a long slog through to the end of exams! I know it's not approved of on MN, but we really had to sit on DS to get any work done - spoon feeding and supervising each session. It worked for us.

Does your DS get study leave? We found that really helped as he wasn't trying to fit stuff round school hours, or having to do homework set by helpful teachers!
Has he got plans for next year? What grades does he need? It's worth reminding him every now and again of what the end goal actually is.
Have you got anything planned for the summer - holiday etc. Talk about that - there is life after exams!

Thank you seeline and teenstimestwo. I appreciate the advice. The problem as I see it is that he was always a high achiever and was very willing to let me help him during revision time to structure notes and test him. In this last year or so, he is like a different boy. He is refusing any help and he did REALLY badly in his mock GCSE's so he has a lot of catching up to do. I am trying to work with him to ensure that his revision is structured and that he is making helpful notes but he sees this as more pressure. At present he is doing an hour revision class after school. He comes home and has down time and then does a 90 minute revision session in the evening which I think is acceptable. However, if he is feeling so stressed already, I worry about what he will be like once he has to increase the study time. He wants to go back to his current school to do AS exams and requires a total of 14 points from his GCSE grades. In his mocks, he got 7 points so you can see how much improvement there needs to be. I agree that he needs a complete break at Easter and I will be doing that for definite but I feel that it will be really tough to try and get him to accept that he needs to study during his easter break.

It is hard.

I think mock results are often low because the children haven't quite got the hang of how to answer GCSE questions - the mark schemes are so prescriptive that unless the key words are used, they won't get the full marks. Hopefully the school have been doing a lot of work on exam technique, as well as finalising the courses.

Has he actually drawn up a revision time table for the Easter break yet? Refer to specific topics, rather than just general subjects, and make the breaks just as prominent in the layout. It's not so daunting then!

Could he possibly vary the type of revision - just making notes doesn't work for all. Eg BBC bitesize, You Tube videos, language web sites etc Loads of past papers are helpful as they actually test what has gone in!

Yes we are using bitesize and trying to source past papers at the minute. I plan to site sit down with him tonight to put together a timetable for easter. What is hard is that when he is asked to leave his phone outside and turn off his xbox to do revision, he keeps putting off saying he wants to finish a programme on Netflix and then drags it out so that it ends up in an argument as it gets later and I think it's not good to be revising too late at night as he's tired then.

Did he revise for the mocks though?

If yes, then you have an issue.

If not, then there is room for massive improvement.

If he revised for the mocks then you need to go over his revision technique and gaps in his knowledge.

If he didn't then there's your answer.

Tbh I think 90 mins each night is perhaps too much for him after 60 mins revision class?

Maybe take it down to 60 mins each night?

Also would suggest a few days at Easter doing fun stuff or just chilling out.

Were his mocks results shock to him?

90 mins per night is too much if he is staying behind after school.

I have two bright kids at the opposite end of the study spectrum. dd is highly motivated and did brilliantly in her GCSe's despite also taking part in elite dance training (2 hours every weeknight plus 3 hours on a Saturday.

She did about 40-60 mins of study/revision each night up until Easter. Over the Easter holidays she had few days off then did a couple of hours each day. Her school didn't have study leave so she would do revision sessions at school from after Easter then another hour a night increasing to about 90 mins during the exam period itself.

She found Tassomai very useful but also used traditional revision methods of note taking and practice questions.

Ds is in year 10 and find study very difficult. He gets stressed and anxious easily. The only thing that works for him is getting him to do half an hour of Tassomai and/or Senecca each night. Any more and he would crumple. He needs huge amounts of help to organise himself.

My son is the same in many ways. Predicted top grades since year 7 and has always done OK with very little work. He's had 2 sets of mocks. The first in November he got reasonable but not great results. The last mocks in February were much worse and included a 1 and a 3- ! He is doing virtually no revision but gets furious when questioned about it. He insists he's working really hard but as far as I can tell he's not even doing his homework.
He has become a very angry, rude and volatile individual and has, with really bad timing, turned into a stereotypical stroppy teenager.
He needs 6 6's (well below his predicted grades) to stay at current school (which he really wants to do) and he going to Reading festival, if he gets them, so I have resorted to offering him £100 for each 6 and £150 for anything above.
After another row last night I have decided that I'm not doing any good and I am going to have to let him get on with it when he is ready.

I like the look of Tassomai. Is it too late to try that? I wonder if you can subscribe just for 2 months? It looks like it would suit his learning style and I could back off.

Anyway, Good Luck to everyones dc's. I can't wait for it to be over!

90 mins is too long in one go. It would be much better at 45 mins, break and another 45 mins, preferably a different subject.

If you and he understand the flashpoints / difficulties, then agree a structure that helps avoid them.

If he gets absorbed in Netflix / Xbox then setting study sessions after meals might help, when he will have stopped anyway. so e.g. Up in morning 8:30, then 3 x 45 mins with 15 mins (9am-12:45) between each, ^no touching electronics in the breaks. Then lunch, then another 45 mins.
Then a break with activity, Netflix whatever. Evening meal at ?6pm? Followed straight away by 2x45 mins. Then back to electronics.

If he can't go back to current school then it's not the end of the world. Another school might take him, or there's college. There will be options. But he will have more options if he works of course.

He should also be having breaks

20 mins study and 20 min break

I don't think he was shocked by his mock results. I think he had convinced himself that he was revising but had his phone in the room with him so the quality of his revision was likely to be the problem. I am insisting on his phone being out of the room this time round. Yes I think I will look at shorter periods of revision and definitely a break at easter.

Phone and x-box out of room. It's too tempting otherwise.

And personally I'd aim for as much as possible of the revision to be done 'offline' so the PC doesn't beckon either...

Every session should have a tangible output. e.g notes, or online questions answered, or practice questions done. If the 'output' is learning, then a later session that day or the next could be 'be tested by Mum' or 'do practice questions on X topic'.

We are in the middle of GCSEs revision too and it's horrible!
My DD has a meltdown if I push too hard about revision.
I've found the best way is to let her decide. She's now doing 2 hours after school revision sessions and wants to go in for whole days revision over the Easter holidays. But she won't really do anything at home.
She had a counsellor for anxiety previously but hasn't needed her for 2 years but I've just signed her up for some sessions to help with the stress of exams!
Bribery. We're going to get another dog if she does well . Her boyfriend also year 11 is on track for £1k towards a car fund if he gets 8's and 9's!! My DD said she wouldn't want that because it would make her even more stressed!! ( not on offer anyway)
School are making a massive thing about GCSEs being the most important thing ever. They are important but I've also told DD do your best, but you will still be ok if you don't get the grades. There's other routes to jobs, happiness and being a good adult.

Just let them be. It's not worth the extra aggravation for anyone. Schools push results for their outcomes and data - Progress 8 and Attainment 8. The targets your child has been given are down to a computer looking at how students in the same type of school with the same KS2 results have achieved in the past. It's a farce.
The poor students are getting it from everywhere and something has to give. Just see what they need to get to do their A levels and go from there. Ask him what he wants to get/need/feels can do. Once they start their A levels GCSEs do become a thing of the past.
It's horrible seeing students going through all this upset and strain, and the impact in families. Their emotional health, and yours is far more important than some exam.
Remember too that the new exams are in their infancy too.
...seeing what exams did to students was one of the reasons I resigned from teaching after 25 years.

My DS was a high achiever at KS2 dipped and dipped at KS3 & $ because he couldn't keep up the momentum and pressure on him, did little revision, grades were varied, yet he went on to do the A levels he wanted and is now at uni.
My DD was very motivated at KS4 (though shocking at KS2 and 3) and is loving her A levels getting good grades on tracker assessments ….

Just go with the flow … they all come out ok in the end with support and love

Sounds like there's been a lot of good advice re studying but in terms of the anxiety and saying he wishes he was dead, have you been to the GP, what did they suggest? I think it's really difficult and I have really struggled with my oldest ds but to the point where the more I go on about studying the more annoyed he gets and we end up arguing which isn't productive and is very stressful. I wonder if taking the pressure off and saying his mental health is more important and just to do what he can would end up being the best strategy in the long run rather than getting caught up in how many hours he is doing (easier said than done I know!)

Really, his mental health is more important.

I understand as parents we all want our children to achieve their best, but pushing them beyond their limits (whatever they are, it will vary from child to child) doesn't really help anyone.

I'd rather my son got grade 4, 5 or 6 and enjoyed his final year and the experience of learning and revising, than was stressed and depressed and got a grade 7, 8 or 9.

Some gentle encouragement can be good of course. But anything more than that and I think is on dangerous territory. (What difference does a grade make in the end? unless you are on some kind of important cusp its virtually irrelevant in the bigger picture).

What does a C in Biolgy ordinary in the scores 1-9 I am from republic of Ireland and don't understand the marking scheme. She is in year 11 so first test in Science. She done Junior cert in roi and moved to Northern Ireland school this year. so I am totally confused, She told me a C is the highest mark you can get in ordinary. She won't be doing it for A levels as she wants to do drama art Spanish.