Y10 son dropping behind/ won't engage with schoolwork

[ConnellWaldronsChain]

I am at my wit's end with my 15yo Y10 DS

He has no SEN that we are aware of and is well above average intelligence but is pathologically lazy and just can't be arsed with anything. We have had issues with his behavior at school (underachieving, not doing work set in class, rolling his eyes at teachers etc) since about Y6 and he is almost permanently 'on report' but it has little effect. He isn't directly rude to teachers but clearly gets their backs up with his attitude and indifference.

We was just about been getting by til lockdown, I've always managed to get him to school (bloody difficult getting him out of bed but we have always made it clear that school attendance is not negotiable) but now he is supposedly 'home schooling' things have really gone to shit. I WFH so have limited capacity to support him but am trying my best. He will be returning to school for 1 day a week from w/c 15th June til the end of summer term. His teachers are setting work (via email and Microsoft teams) which I am printing out etc to try to make things easy for him but he just can't be arsed and does less than the bear minimum.

He does not seem depressed or anxious and denies any problems if we ask. He will promise to improve if we sit him don't and give him a lecture about the likely impact of this on his future but nothing ever changes.

Myself and his Dad and DD who is Y12 are all hardworking, energetic types so really struggle to relate to his laziness and lack of get up and go.

Any advice??

Your brother sounds a lot like my DS @lynettescavo, that tends to be his response when DH gets angry and takes things off him

Yes I suspect there is an element of him thinking he will do OK anyway but I don't share his confidence! he may be able to wing it and get a grade 5/6 with minimal work in a few subjects but not many

Oh this is timely. Mine is driving me insane. I got a voicemail from a teacher today about him missing English deadlines and being behind. I had similar regarding another subject around Easter. After the first call we moved him to work in the study alongside his dad, who is currently WFH full time so he was supervised, and we agreed times he would be expected to the there doing work.

After the voicemail today we’ve made him log into team and show us all the outstanding tasks. I’ve created a timetable for next week with him and sat with him while he emailed all his subject teachers to explain why work is/is going to be late. None of this happened without an almighty argument and me removing his gaming computer keyboard from his room.

It’s draining, and soul destroying. Honestly I don’t know why he can’t just get on with it. I feel (a lot more than I should I’m sure) at the moment like he exists to ensure my life is even more difficult and stressful than it needs to be right now.

So this is my last ditch attempt to support - he has the timetable and he has direct supervision. He NEEDS to do the work and catch himself up. We said if he puts the effort in and does it then he can have his gaming computer back in the evenings after dinner to ‘socialise’ with his friends, if he doesn’t I keep the keyboard until he does. There isn’t much else I can do, we haven’t heard from school what they will offer in terms of face to face teaching yet, but I’ll snatch their hand off for anything he can have.

My final threat is that I have key worker school provision for my youngest, and that I’ll talk to his school about sending him in there FT to work if he doesn’t get it together. Which frankly is a pain for me too because I wouldn’t want him on the bus so then we’d be factoring 2 school runs into the day, but as the idea appals him so much maybe he will sort himself out.

Urgh. If you get a magic cure OP please do share.

It's not about a battle of wills @LynetteScavo. There needs to be a culture in the household where education where education is prioritised and DC know from a young age that hard work and good grades are what is expected from them.

I agree that you can't just let a child do nothing for years and then expect them to do well in GCSE year. Certainly from year 7 (but really from year 6 SATs), there needs to be a clear study timetable in place so that DC know what they are expected to do and the level of effort they are expected to make.

After they do their homework and revision, they should then be asking to watch Netflix or play a game or whatever- this free time should be earned and DC should not assume they are allowed to watch a TV show etc without asking.

In terms of fairness, I absolutely agree that the expectations should be the same for all of your DC according to age group, so no child feels singled out. I'd say the following is a good guideline and these are what we have used and are using with our 4 DC:

Year 7 and 8- 1.5 hours work per weeknight, 2 hours over the weekend

Year 9 and 10- 2 hours work per weeknight, 4 hours over the weekend

Year 11- 3 hours work per weeknight, 10 hours over the weekend (with more around exam period- 4 hours per night and 8 hours per day)

Year 12 and 13- 3.5 hours per weeknight, 22 hours over the weekend (with exam period basically being non-stop revision- around 10 hours per day).

Year

Sounds a bit extreme to me @FrenchSeal. When do your DC in Y12/13 find time for sport, church, practicing their instrument, visiting grandparents, helping with cooking, being creative and reading for pleasure?

I expect my DC to do their best. It's so frustrating when they don't, but it's not for lack of expectations from me or the OP.

@LynetteScavo

That was a typo- 12 hours over a weekend is the expectation rather than 22 for year 12 and 13. So there is still downtime there.

Those two years are really the building blocks for higher education and career, so we feel as a family that it is very important to get them right.

Blimey, I never expected anything like that level of homework from mine. Dd2 did ballet, sang in a choir, did debating and had a social life. Dd3 does four sports to a high standard. They both work diligently and dd2 got a 6 then nothing lower than a 7 at gcse.

I'd be mortified if they felt they had to ask to watch tv. They watch tv when they've got time and done everything for the day. I never even ask or check that they've done their schoolwork!

Sorry OP off topic. My dsis is having trouble with her year 10 as well. It's bloody stressful.

@frenchseal I don’t think that would work for us. I have 3 children and we both work FT, in high pressured jobs that don’t necessarily end at 5pm.

While in ‘normal’ times we can keep track of the DC doing homework and support as needed, now it’s much harder because it’s all self directed study for the secondary age kids, and whilst my daughter (y8) is coping brilliantly and getting on with it with minimal input, my y10 is not.

The key differences are that they attend different schools and she is being set far less work than him (2-3 hours/day) versus 5 hours plus h/w that he gets. I’m not particularly happy with our choice of secondary for her but that’s another story.

So we are expecting 15 y/o children to be able to self direct and motivate themselves to study all day. That’s HARD. It’s hard for adults who are used to WFH sometimes to get used to doing it all the time and keep the same motivation and productivity as they do at work. It’s a big expectation for a teenager. It’s even harder when we aren’t able to be ‘present’ enough to help. Also, we aren’t teachers and have never wanted to be, we don’t always know how best to help.

After work/study time we need to eat a family meal and the kids need some downtime, I do believe that this is taking its toll on mental health (not seeing friends etc) so I don’t want them to ask me if they can watch something, I’m not going to police their free time.

With my y8 as an example, she’s often finished her work by lunchtime. DH and DS will still be working in another room. I’m either working at home or out at work. Younger sibling is at school. She needs to entertain herself for the rest of the day, she can use Netflix, Disney plus, chat to friends, I don’t mind and I don’t expect her to call me and ask if she can.

I think to be fair to French they are right that expectations for education need to be set early. The number of children who didn't knwo in primary school that you will be taking maths until you are 16 and that if you fail you will need to resit it might make them take maths more seriously when learning times tables etc.

We set the expectation up young, we explained to our sons that we didn't live with our parents and that if they wanted to be able to afford game consoles, computer games, holidays, nice cars, good food and a nice home that they would have to get a good job for that.

I distinctly remember DS1 coming home in year 7 and one of his new friends was saying he couldn't wait to leave school and get a job, his sister worked in Debenhams and she was earning a whopping £600 a month! That seems like a lot of money, and it is when you live at home but £600 in the real world doesn't get you much.

Gaming, TV anything like that has to be earned in this house, whether that is from homework, attitude to learning (which school marks you on) grades, chores and attitude toward being asked to do something.

For the OP I would ask him what his plan A is, and if he doesn't get the grades plan B. You need to tell him you are only willing to financially support him for so long before he needs to support himself and at some point find a place to live. You only want the best for him. This is your way of showing him that when his mates all go out for the night or arrange a lads' holiday in future how is he going to fund that? You want him to have a great life.

Does he know how much his clothes cost, his footwear? Does he know how much minimum wage is for someone his age? His phone and contract? This is a discussion to get him to see what he wants and how will he pay for it.

What if you've done all that from an early age and talked about all that stuff with them and they still won't work though?

What if your child has severe mental health issues , was already behind, and now can't access therapy due to the current situation. Oh and thinks that lockdown is some form of other reality and now won't leave the house?

There's so many variables - if you are lucky to have children who engage from a young age and grow up without SEN or rebelling against the education culture in your house or finding more fun activities then yes, punishment and a 9-3 timetable might work. That's kind of the first thing though and when it goes wrong you need alternatives.

I am a secondary maths teacher so am coming from a school perspective rather than a parental perspective (one of mine is off at uni, and the other is still in primary).

In my slightly above average year 10 maths class I have 5 pupils who are doing much the same as your ds. They aren't responding to school emails, aren't engaging with the work, and are by all accounts being very difficult for their parents. Honestly, at school I go for gentle cajoling and bribery, backed up with detentions and extra work, for these kids. I can't use any of that while they're at home, I'm restricted to email and asking the hoy to phone home and talk to them. Typically, they are the ones who are not coming in for the time year 10 are invited in, which I'm disappointed about as I think they might listen to me if I could speak to them.

Does your ds's school have some time for him to have face to face contact? Is he going in for that? Would it be possible to get someone from school to speak to him on the phone? Does he ever respond positively to bribery? Is there anything he really wants that he can have as a reward for engaging with school work? I'm sure you've tried removing devices and switching off the WiFi.

Whatever you try you have my sympathy. Good luck!

I hear you op my year 10 son is the same dh works night Iam working ft from home and I am sick of nagging talking about and thinking about his school work. They have this week done a time table of online lessons so he now as 4 of those a day

Thank you @MsAwesomeDragon and @Noeuf

My DD was perfectly fine, coasting along with predicted GCSEs to scrape into 6th form, despite being severely dyslexic and leaving primary school barely able to read and right. Because we had high expectations and routines in place. Then lockdown came and she was so angry she decided if she couldn't do what she wanted, she would do nothing at all. As I wasn't working, I did 6 hours a day of school work with her. She started to tic so violently I was advised, by all the psychologists I could access, to stop the school work. I was told to just focus on just being a mum and to not encourage her to work.
School have been incredibly supportive, and have put no pressure on her. Once she's back in school teachers will know how to get the best from her. Meanwhile they are reassuring me she was ahead anyway, and will be able to catch up.

I have routines and high expectations in place, and always have had, but if your DC doesn't want to play ball, is on the autistic spectrum or is struggling for any reason then I say: step back, be glad for the things they can do and the skills they have. Look at the whole child. Education is more than exam results. Children need to learn how to communicate, how to socialise, they need to keep fit and be creative.

DH and in both dropped out of 6th form while our siblings attended Russell Group Unis. At the time we would have been told we were lazy if our parents had been crap enough to say what they thought However, we've done perfectly well, and actually far better than our siblings through hard work in areas we love. Only time will tell how much lockdown affects Y10s. I'm sure in years to come we'll learn that DC from affluent homes with fuel owed parents faired best, and those from once parent families where the parent was a key worker and they were left supervising younger siblings fair the worst when it to GCSE results.

Actually, if I am recruiting people in 10 years time, I might ask them what lockdown was like for them during the interview.

right = write obviously.

I'll let you all figure from where DD inherited her dyslexia!