GCSE Revision is hard work!

suki1964

How the flip did I pass my cse's and o levels when I had no parents taking care of our daily needs let alone educational needs I never know

I knew I had to study if I wanted to pass and get a job, so I did. Same as both my sisters. Certainly never had parents sorting out timetables and study periods for us

missbiggles1

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

What? When I did my O levels (and A levels) I just got on with my revision. I made my own timetables, my parents had no involvement, they weren't sitting the exams and didn't know any of the subjects to O level standard anyway.

It's up to your children to sort this out for themselves, not up to you.

Oh, and when I was 15/16 doing O levels, I knew exactly what I wanted to do, contrary to what has been asserted on here (I'm male).

I didn't start revision until the Easter holidays though, in January you're still learning the subjects.

I had no idea that some parents got so involved with revision at this level - I really don't think that it's helpful in either the short or long term.

barnaclebill

I wish I had been pushed when at school, after a lot of school changes early on I missed certain important steps. My mother had taught me to read before I went to school so I lost myself in books, did not do homework and got poor GCE results.
Lucky I got an engineering apprenticeship (5 years in those days) and got day release to go to college 1 day a week, suddenly some of the maths and science I had struggled with became clear and I did well unfortunately at age 19 I discovered the pleasures of going out (late starter) and again stopped study.
At age 23 married and at sea I found out that by law my company had to give me 3 months extra leave after 12 months served to go to college to take marine engineering and needing the extra money that could be gained by passing I finally studied hard, passing all the exams over 7 years.
I now realize that it was my lack of hard work when young and lack of understanding what study could achieve and the job options that would be open to you.
I hope your son does realize in time the value of your help and get his head down before the exams.

enthusiasticsaver

Encouraging your children to study for exams is one thing but doing revision schedules and setting them mock exams is a step too far for parents I think. That is a lot of pressure on you and on him. If he is not prepared to put the effort in to doing well in exams lay out the consequences for him but I do not think either of your sons doing badly in exams is your fault so there is absolutely no need to feel guilty. They are almost adults and need to realise their actions have consequences. If DS 2 does not want to study what does he want to do? Does he want to go to Uni or is he not bothered either way?

Wilma33

onlyroz wrote: »

Have you tried bribery? Something substantial like £100 for every A grade, £50 for every B grade, and zip for anything lower.

This. I know it's not ideal, but it does seem to work!

Savvy_Sue

elise, I feel your pain ...

For English, DS3 got a D at the end of year 10 and an E in his mocks, purely because he couldn't be bothered to answer the exam questions properly, because it was 'boring'. We were in despair.

heuchera wrote: »

What did get through to me was a throw-away comment by a friend which went something along the lines of "do what you want.. if you want to f... up your exams it's up to you, innit"

And for DS3, it was the teacher responsible for trying to get everyone through with at least 5 Cs including Maths and English, who said "Well, if you DON'T get a C, we will let you into the 6th form, but you'll have to resit English. If you fail to get a C again, we WILL ask you to leave."

heuchera wrote: »

If you want to spend the rest of your life working in McDonalds you can do that.. :whistle: and then take a step back.

I always threatened mine with re-arranging the underwear in Primark - or a Christmas shop, after we once walked past one selling tinsel and stuff, with a singing Christmas Tree in the doorway.

To be fair, I think it only really got through to DS3 what the impact of only working on the subjects which interested him was once he was in 6th form, and was rejected by Oxford. One of his teachers contacted the college to ask why, they wouldn't give individual feedback but gave a list of what they were looking for. This teacher went down the list mentally ticking it all off: yup, excellent A level grades predicted; yup, good supporting statement from school; yup, engaged in other activities etc. And then came to 'excellent grades at GCSE': yup, excellent in any subject he cared about, adequate in English. Although he's VERY articulate (another one who'd have got an A* in arguing!), he hates having to write it down!

See what they're offering at the intervention meeting next week. It may be that someone there can get through to him.

culpepper

Your older son is blaming you for his own laziness then which is very unfair!

How about finding some other material covering the same subjects your son is needing to revise so he isn't just drearily reading through the same work all over again. It would be reinforcing rather than repetitive.

FBaby

Person_one wrote: »

Amazing, and they call me the man-hater on here!

Ha ha, definitely not a man-hater here, I'm not the one who wrote that Men are from Mars.

In any case, my comment comes what my teacher's friends have said to me. Their experience is that boys are indeed much more immature when it comes to looking into their future than girls, so girls are naturally more incline to start preparing for exams earlier in the year in a planned way, whereas boys tend to cram the studies a couple of weeks before. It certainly is also what I am seeing amongst DD's friends and discussing the matter with my friends who have boys that age.

Maybe could have left out the comment for the sensitive souls about the wives though

Jagraf

FBaby wrote: »

Ha ha, definitely not a man-hater here, I'm not the one who wrote that Men are from Mars.

In any case, my comment comes what my teacher's friends have said to me. Their experience is that boys are indeed much more immature when it comes to looking into their future than girls, so girls are naturally more incline to start preparing for exams earlier in the year in a planned way, whereas boys tend to cram the studies a couple of weeks before. It certainly is also what I am seeing amongst DD's friends and discussing the matter with my friends who have boys that age.

Maybe could have left out the comment for the sensitive souls about the wives though

To be fair that's hardly scientific research. I would almost say the opposite based on the same criteria as yours - I would say it's more down to the individual and what is going on in their life at 15-16 which can be anything!

missbiggles1

I also think it's quite shocking that so many people (and so many schools) should be worrying about formal revision when students are really only 3/4 of the way through a 2 year GCSE course.It shows how much education in this country has become geared to passing exams and teaching to the test rather than on real learning and broadening students' educational experience.

I think normal classes should go on until shortly before the exams with a maximum of a week spent on revision or else such a lot of teaching time is lost.