How to make it cool to achieve at school

make_me_wise

spadoosh wrote: »

You really want your child to build lego as an adult?!?! And have sent him to a private school to achieve this?! I would imagine there are cheaper ways of getting into that career?

Are you deliberately trying to miss the point and mock? At 12 years old the child is working hard and aiming towards one day taking a maths or engineering degree. Of course doing something at legoland appeals to a 12 year old. Whatever it takes to keep him on course and being able to get into uni one day and achieve a good degree.

Focus on lego now, in 10+ years he could be working as an architect. In 20 years he may be running his own firm. From small acorns huge oak trees grow.

somethingsgottogive

...AND by the way, Lego is frickin' AWESOME so :P

System

In my opinion, don't worry, its just something that happens at school because I was very similar myself. He will definitely do well, I wouldn't take it so serious.

victor2

I'd also go with the bribery approach. Find out what he really wants to be "cool" and promise it as a reward for good results/reports.
When I was at school many years ago, I was good at some subjects and useless at others. Had a friend who was the opposite, so we used to regularly swap homework! Not terribly ethical, but it worked and maintained a friendship. Not suggesting you propose that, but maybe you could ask him if he knows someone who might be able to help him out in exchange for him helping them out.

split_second

i went to a normal inner city secondary, and like lots of others learned smart isnt cool, at 4 and a bit feet tall year 8 was about survival, working out who to hang out with and what your place was in the grand scheme, i fell somewhere in the middle, if i was working to full potential then teachers would suspect some degree of cheating. i wanted to be a bank manager (i know, i know) but in reality wanted to do something cooler and decided that music was the way forward and tried to learn how to produce dance music (this was early to mid 90s) but apparently that wasnt cool either, tried to play basketball but alas my height got the better of me, so i decided quiet and average was the way forward. i agree that someone cool with a good, well paid and i woud add cool to a teenager type job would be an ideal role model, i know people that have cool jobs but they arent well paid, or well paid but not cool. another thing i noticed is grades in high school mean little in adult life, a load of us from high school added eachother (to be nosey more than anything) there isnt much to distinguish one high flyer from an average one, only exception is one of the high flyers from school is on my facebook and absolutely loaded after making a fortune from fitness supplements, had i had money when i was about 17 i could probably have invested with him- shame i had a £40 a week job then or i would have been loaded.

fast forward to the present day, the quiet not very popular kid is marrying a languages graduate, nice enough house and i start a new job next week in medical insurance, my parents probably expected me to achieve loads more but hey thats life isnt it

TooSad

In the secondary school I work in we talk to the students about aspirations from the day they come up for their induction while still Y6. In Y7 big school is all weird and they are finding their feet, but they still need to value why they are there. Y8 they are no longer the youngest, hormones are beginning to race and a general sense of malaise sets in - particularly with the boys, not sure why they become silly and lazy but in my experience it tends to happen, again we still talk to them about aspirations and dreams as they still need to know why they are there.
We start gcse in Y9 at the moment so the students tend to perk up when they have made some choices of their own about what they want to do, but again we talk about future plans.

In KS3 they don't tend to see the end goal it's just another day at school, why, because mum and dad said I had to go! But by talking to them about dreams and aspirations we know what they want to be, ok it changes for most of them, but as a teacher I can have some pretty powerful conversations with the child and parents if warranted about attitude to work etc and how current slackness wint enable them to achieve it.

We also ask the students in September what does success look like to them as in when they leave school what will they have that will mean to them they have made it, it can be material things but it can also mean families, or higher education, whatever they think it looks like in their mind. They create an image of their success criteria which we also refer back to.

We also get the students from y7 upwards to research jobs they are interested in, so they know what they need to achieve and it's not just Miss saying it. We use a web based careers advice package I'm sure your sons school will have one.

I guess in a nutshell after all my waffling, he needs to know why he is there, what he wants to do, what he needs to do to achieve it and what him taking his foot of the gas will do to his goals & ambitions. However what your experiencing is very very common. Wait til Y9 when it's all girls girls girls!!!

TooSad

I should also say that our relentless drive on aspirations, dreams & goals has seen my school go from one of the worst in England in 2004, to the most improved in England in 2010 for GCSE results. This didn't happen by chance, we're talking a ten fold increase, this happened because the students knew why they were there, they wanted a better life for themselves and they knew what they needed to achieve it.

<<stepping off soapbox>>

AlternateMe

Hi, I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but it's worth popping in to the school and making an appointment with his head of year or similar and asking about a mentoring scheme. I'm a university student and our county runs a mentoring program where we go into local schools on 12 week placements and work 1-to-1 with students who sound like your son- academically able but underperforming or unmotivated. All of the schools in our county participate and so it might be worth seeing if there's something similar at his. Our role as mentors is to inspire and show the future is within reach... basically we're supposed to show them that dreams can be reality. Our uni also has events where local schools visit us throughout the year so that younger students get an opportunity to see what life at university could be like, if they aim for it.

BitterAndTwisted

I dunno if anyone had mentioned this but just wait until he's old enough to get a part-time job. One hopes a job with lots of running around on his feet all day and no breaks add on lousy pay.

When I was 15 and hanging about with the "trendy" low achievers at my new school I got a Saturday job in Woolies. Absolutely exhausting it was. When I complained my Mum she said to me "If you don't buck your ideas up at school my girl, that's the only kind of job you will ever get for the rest of your life when you leave. Think about that." I paid attention and buckled down. I was terrified to not have it come true.

rca779

Had a great 1-1 chat with my Son last night and used lots of the tips I received from this thread and I feel much more positive today.

I pinched Peater's line (post #41) and told a small white lie about the coolest & trendiest lad I knew at school who went on to be a grounds man at a school - thanks!

Discussed being called a nerd for working hard and he didn't seem as worried as before. I explained my theory about this just being a protective shield put up by friends who aren't as clever and motivated and that it is probably driven by envy. He seemed to accept this without any problems and shrugged it off as not a problem. We spoke about how important it is to still be friends though.

Spoke about GCSE options and he actually seems have spent some time thinking about these already and has made some decisions already (German & Chemistry). He said that he wants to go to University (and that was without me even mentioning fresher’s week ).

Then spoke about what sort of job he is going to want to do and the type of lifestyle he wants. He said wants a largish house and a nice car and I pointed out how much these will cost and how hard he will need to work to achieve these goals.

I finished the conversation, emphasising how proud I am of him, how lucky he is to be pretty bright and encouraging him to grasp all the opportunities that lie ahead of him.

Many thanks to all the kind posters on here who have helped and I will try and keep this thread up to date with any progress.