Coping with Year 11 stress and anxiety

[ToadMum]

Blimey - okay, DS2 doesn't have mocks until after half term, but no way would we be expecting him (to feel that he needed) to be spending 6 - 8 hours a day revising through the holidays. He does do loads of art, though, anyway , most of which can be added to his GCSE portfolio and I will prompt him to check that he has done any homework they have been set, by a reasonable time on Wednesday night (both he and DD go back on Thursday). I'm sure that we are both hoping that none of his teachers suddenly remembers the crucial piece of work that they meant to upload to Show My Homework when they got home on the last day of term .

I have to say that DS2 is quite organised when it comes to schoolwork- and that they are tested regularly at school, so quite a lot of 'revision' as they go along.

[Eccentric]

I definitely don’t ask my dd to do 8 hours a day. I suggest that 3 or possibly 4 hours is enough but she has insisted on working non stop. I have managed to force her to go out for a walk every day but that’s about it. Now that we are towards the end of the hols I think she is realising that working for so many hours is not sustainable.

[kenyancowgirl]

If it helps, tell her from me that if that is what she is having to do for GCSEs then Medicine is not for her - she cannot possibly sustain that level for A levels, which are significantly harder and then for the 6/7 years of a medical degree, where every 1st/2nd year student I have ever met has said the sheer amount of work is the overwhelming factor.

Use that to get her to realise that, whatever she thinks, she is not working for 8 hours in a day - nobody can - and by doing less time but more focussed is far better. It may completely work in your favour!

[loobylou]

I'm keeping out of things in my house. She didn't do revision leading up to Christmas and the mocks are all in the first 8 days back so I think she feels she needs to do this much now.
I honestly think she'd do very well with very little revision but I know how my child is - she wants to do her best and will be happy with her results as long as she feels she's put in the effort (well, she won't be "happy" without top grades but she'll accept her results without too much disappointment as long as she feels she's tried her hardest). So we're just around for the breaks, offering soup/hot chocolate/board games/fresh air/sales shopping/cinema trips in between what she feels she needs to do. (And she has bought her "sixth form wardrobe" in the sales which was a good distraction!)

[loobylou]

every 1st/2nd year student I have ever met has said the sheer amount of work is the overwhelming factor.

+1.
Dh was invited out by last year's year 13s last week when they were home for Christmas. He said that nearly everyone was loving university but that every one of them (even the very highest achieving) commented on the level of work and how hard it was. (He did Humanities at university whereas I did medicine. He'd be the first to say that he did very little work at university most of the time whereas we were overwhelmed). These were all Humanities students, not medics, and his impression was that there has been a significant increase in the amount of work expected at university since our day.
(Oh and the ones not enjoying themselves were at Exeter - admittedly a very small sample).

[Eccentric]

If it helps, tell her from me that if that is what she is having to do for GCSEs then Medicine is not for her - she cannot possibly sustain that level for A levels, which are significantly harder and then for the 6/7 years of a medical degree, where every 1st/2nd year student I have ever met has said the sheer amount of work is the overwhelming factor.

Use that to get her to realise that, whatever she thinks, she is not working for 8 hours in a day - nobody can - and by doing less time but more focussed is far better. It may completely work in your favour!

I know this KCG but she will have to find out for herself. However there is still a small part of me that says there are dyslexic medics, I want her to pursue her dream and It breaks my heart that she may not achieve what she has strived for since she was very young indeed. This is why she works so hard and if I were to take that away she may just give up. However Dyslexia is a disability and people with all sorts of disabilities overcome all sorts of things.
In regards to A levels I think she may actually find it easier (I am ready to be proven wrong). She has picked all sciences and maths all of which she finds comparatively easy. I gather that this is the case for many with dyslexia because there is no essay writing. Exam answers are short. Her brain just seems to get science. She loves maths and the only way that any of these are an issue is that sometimes she will think or say a number when doing equations and then write a different one down. Her body seems to have a problem translating what is in her brain almost as though there is a connection missing. It is actually quite fascinating if it weren't so frustrating.
Maths is an interesting one she seems to see maths as pictures, she was trying to explain this to me the other day. She was telling me about how she sees fractions as a flow and how all maths is fractions. I don't understand but she seems to know what she is talking about.

[loobylou]

One of the things my dd has said is how shocked she is that, even with doing 6 hours a day, how much downtime she still has. Obviously she's older now and guess to bed later but she's been quite struck by the fact that she can do a decent amount of work and still binge on Netflix/go out with friends etc - just by getting up at a sensible time.

[scary mum]

It's a good point, my DS is a night owl & I often worry about him not getting up until midday when he is revising, but of course he still has many hours left in the day when he does. Someone once told me that their school had suggested dividing the day into 3 chunks, and that two of those should be spent working and one doing something else like sport, socialising, TV or whatever. I guess mine often chooses to spend it sleeping, or at least lolling in bed! Of course, when it is actually exam time & try to get him to adopt a less nocturnal routine so that he is awake for 9am exams.

[Moon unit]

My DS did GCSEs last year.
I essentially kept out of it.
From the end of Feb half term he worked solidly. Before that he just kept up with school work. Didn’t really revise for mocks.
When he got going on non school days he followed his school day pattern of five one hour lessons plus an hour of homework.
He used the same break times etc as the school day.
Everyday some sport and a bit of music.
Was very relaxed which helped.
What we did do support him was not to arrange any duty type visits to relatives etc.
When he had down time it really was his to decide what he wanted to do with it.
He didn’t want to take much time off as didn’t want to loose focus.
The school day plan worked well for him.
He never did more than 45 mins without 15 mins off.
My only input was to test Eng lit quotes and a bit of Geog at his request.
Wishing you all the best of luck.
My DS would have found having more downtime a cause of stress.
Working hard kept him relaxed.
I hasten to add he had never revised much for any previous exams but suddenly decided he wanted to do well.

[Daogroupie]

Thank you so much for taking the time to post this.

It is lovely to hear about a 16 year old deciding they wanted to do well and having the motivation to carry it through.

Did he feel that he had done well when he sat the exams?

I know of a student who thought that everyone else was not working for GCSEs so didn't and was horrified on results day when it turned out the cohort had been working after all and most did a lot better.

Painful lesson learnt the student went on to to study hard for AS and A2 and is now at Oxford with a clean sweep of A stars at A level.

Not so easy to recover from a bad set of GCSEs now that AS is no longer around DG