Stress our young teens are under at school

[kerrycat]

I'm really interested if other parents are having the same issues with their teens at the moment.

My daughter (July baby) in year 10 is really struggling and it's getting to her and upsetting me to see her like it.

She's not academic and struggles with the sciences and maths a lot. She is having booster science sessions but only 1 lesson per fortnight. She has been in tears this afternoon as she is revising for a biology test and just doesn't understand a word of it. Her dream is to go to dance college and she is good at that but that doesn't help her now. She doesn't want me to contact the school as in her words (they make a fuss and it'll stress me out even more)

I guess in my day if you weren't academic you did CSE but nowadays there are only GSCE's and if you don't get a level 5 or above you think you have failed,even when you have tried your hardest.

I work in a primary school (yr6) and see the pressure at that young age.

Any other parents going through the same problems?
Any secondary school teachers have any advice?
xx

[joanna23]

Could you help her with some revision techniques? Often children today don’t know how to revise as they never had to memorise things as we may have done learning times tables etc.
If you could look through the work with her work out what needs to actually be remembered. Sometimes you don’t always have to understand something to be able to answer the question particularly with Science as the actual concepts behind things are way beyond GCSE level. If you could break it down with her and then help her to learn it by maybe a cover and check method it might boost her confidence when she sees that she can remember things.
There are also lots of other apps and websites with ways to revise specifically for the topic she’s doing so again you could work through that with her.
This is just the stepping stone to her dream and she’s getting closer to the stage when she can specialise. I can see what you mean about pressure but expectations haven’t changed that much. There’s just so many more distractions now that it’s hard for young people to focus. The pressures come from trying to help more children to achieve. When I was in school the people who were good at recall were then considered to be academic and everyone was categorised by that. Today more work is done to try and unlock potential but that makes things much more of a struggle when it doesn’t come naturally. I bet she can dance way better than I could ever dream!

[macadoo]

Not sure if it's in all subjects but they do have foundation papers in GCSE which I suppose is similar to cse, a paper that's apparently not as hard with the top grade being a C so it isn't always a case of everyone sits the same exam.

[skalexander]

If she's struggling with sciences in particular and the booster classes aren't regular enough, can you pay for a tutor for her? She's stuck at school for the best part of another 2 years, so it's finding a way to help her through that.

[roxie2001]

Try you tube channels, dd watched teachers and students and they really helped her. She practically taught herself chemistry from them.
It is a lot of pressure, dd finally relaxed a little when she went to the college open day, and saw that re taking if she had to wouldn't be the end of the world.
Luckily, all her hard work paid off and she achieved all b grades and above, she struggled with maths and chemistry, but used to stay after school with her old maths teacher which also helped.

[snowbelle]

I also second You Tube channels, Im re training in a job due to an enforced move and Im 49 so its a bit harder for my old brain to be taking it in, plus I was also never very academic.
You may have to persevere to find the right channel but they are helpful.

[missdopey]

Check out primrose kitten on YouTube. She does some fantastic revision videos of different concepts and science units.

[Mexy02]

You tube all the way for us as well especially for maths .

[Sandra & co]

My dd is in year 11 and is stressed out, she has always been very academic but all if a sudden she is rubbish at everything. In year 9 before she choose options she was brilliant at everything, the teachers talked about Cambridge uni and talked her into doing french. She is now failing French, the only thing she wants to do is drama which my son did and wasnt academic but always had a flair for Drama. We have told her she can do it but she has to choose to other subjects that will help her get a job eventually. She was 15 in August and its very hard asking her what job she would like to do after uni at age 21, she
hasnt a clue what she wants to do. As long as she trys to pass her subjects I wont pressure her, she applying to schools for sixth form as her school has dropped most of its subjects. Its a lot for youngsters but I just want her to do something she is happy with x

[Rossalino]

My DS18 who is now at 6th form reckoned he could have learnt everything he needed to pass his GCSEs from YouTube and needn't have gone to school. Not sure I quite agree but I think it did help him a lot!