Does anyone teach GCSE resits?

[bookworm93]

So I teach GCSE Maths resits in an FE college. I've just finished marking the last set of Mocks and only a handful of my students have passed or are near passing. I've been trying to motivate them to make more effort in class and to revise but a lot of them either don't care or don't seem to have much of a feeling of urgency to get their grades up. I try to make my lessons as engaging as possible, but some of them still use their phones/ chat/ mess around/ refuse to work etc during class. How can I make them understand that these exams are important and they need to step up their effort now? Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the rant.

Hey!
I have taught English in FE before and sadly it is nearly impossible to motivate them. I tried every trick in the book but these students are very disillusioned.
I used to focus on the ones who want to learn- others will come join eventually.
What is the colleges policy on phones?

Thanks for the tip, Belulah, I'll try that. In answer to your question, we can ask them to put away their phones or offer to take them, but we can't make them give us their phones. Some of them will put away their phones when asked but get them out again as soon as I move away and others will flatly refuse to put them away.

Me! I do, and I teach GCSE Maths as a resit subject, also in FE, so I have found a kindred spirit on Mumsnet.

Is this your first year of teaching GCSE in FE? You may find that the results for FE are nowhere near the national average for secondary.

There are some students who will make the effort, especially if they need it for university, but otherwise, you will find that most of them will have lost motivation and enthusiasm because they failed the first time round.

What does your HOD/ lead practitioner advise on how to motivate your learners?

Given how little time we have in FE for teaching a resit programme, I try to concentrate on the topics that they absolutely must know and are good at and leave out the grade 5 material.

The phone culture is very difficult to discipline and from experience, the rules are simply not consistent enough. Usually I tell them that I am giving them a minute to finish a phone update and then they put it in their bag or pocket. Try to incorporate using a phone in your lesson perhaps. In some lessons, I have got them to do a maths quiz on them or got them to use padlet to post contributions to a discussion.

If possible, try to get the program tutors involved, by adding them to your VLE groups so that they get the updates on homework and what they are doing in the lesson. I set plenty of work on MyMaths and the VLE and tutors know this. Sometimes when they are in tutorials with nothing to do, the tutor will suggest that they revise for maths and they are encouraged to log on to MyMaths or download something from the VLE.

Sorry for epic post. You're not alone in getting down when the students just don't care. You have done what you can to help them pass and in the end they will get the grade that they work for.

I’ve not taught maths resit in an FE college but I have taught it in a school sixth form.

The pass rate for maths GCSE resit last November was just over 25%. There are reasons for the incredibly poor pass rate including lack of resources and qualified teachers and minimal timetable allocation. But a key one is that many students don’t give an arse about it.

These are the ones doing it because they have to, not because they want to, meaning that they have absolutely zero motivation. Put them in a class together and there can often be a critical mass that drag down other students who might otherwise put a bit more effort in.

I’d concentrate your efforts now in these last few lessons on the ones who passed or near passed the mocks. Those are ones you can still make a difference with.

I teach re sit Enish in a school. It's mostly motivation as Noble says. Once they get into Y13 (or closer to leaving) it might improve. Can you incorporate phone use into a lesson? I use dictionary.com or Thesaurus. Or I get them to use GCSE Bitesize as part of a task.

Thanks for the advice guys!
Glad I'm not the only one who has this problem

I teach FE but not resit but just wanted to reiterate that this is a common problem across the board. Pass rate for maths at our college last year was 21%. Sadly majority of our students just don't want to go, don't care, don't see the importance of it and therefore put no effort in. I was invigilating one of the main halls for the calculator paper and in a group of approx 100 students we had to hand out over 50 calculators with at least 20 no shows.....A very depressing site for the maths teachers also invigilating as they knew the chance of many of those passing was very low