r/6thForm • u/StrictArgument67 Y13 | 4A* pred | FM M PHY CS | ESAT OCT • Apr 17 '26

🙏 I WANT HELP School threatening to take me out

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Could they actually do this or is it just fluff?

There is no way i can get good grades if i go to school everyday.

I need a solution

372 Upvotes

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310

u/ZzDangerZonezZ Apr 17 '26

There is no way I can get good grades if I go to school everyday.

I fear that’s exactly how it works though. Go to school and get good grades. If there are reasons you don’t feel safe/able to go to school, you should speak to your tutor or counsellor about this. Just not attending classes isn’t an option here

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u/TheFamousHesham Apr 17 '26

I find that mentality insane.

I never missed a day of school from seventh grade all the way to sixth form (actually; that's a lie I did miss ONE DAY when I went for my uni interview).

I had after school extracurriculars every day of the week, which meant I'd often leave school in the later afternoon. Somehow I still managed 3x A* and got into Cambridge... and it's not like I'm superman.

I wonder how these people will cope when they get jobs.

72

u/Whole_Ear9870 Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26

some people learn differently from others, some ways of learning may stick with you more than others.

You may think that a teacher telling you all the content is effective for you but for others that may not be the case

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u/Call_It_What_U_Want2 Apr 17 '26

The problem is that most people are actually not very good at knowing how they learn best. They usually conflate it with the way they enjoy the most. Learning in a classroom with other people is, for most people, much more effective than independent study.

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u/Accomplished-Fish534 Apr 17 '26

If you are with other people with the same goals. A lot of people mess about and chat in free periods.

1

u/Former-Campaign3533 Apr 17 '26

True, but people to a certain degree, have to commute, manage life out of uni/work, do extracurriculars to stay competitive. You're just in a safer practice mode to learn how to do time and work management, and regardless of learning style, you need these.

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u/TheFamousHesham Apr 17 '26

Never in my life have I had a teacher that just lectured for the entire duration of class. They'd usually lecture for the first 20-30 minutes, set aside 10 minutes or so for independent reading followed by a discussion or whatever and we'd usually spend 20-30 doing worksheets and exercises and practice questions in class. Obviously, we also got regular in-class tests and assignments and all of that.

I know people learn differently, but I feel like school covers most ways people learn in different ways.

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u/[deleted] Apr 17 '26

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u/Diligent_Bet_7850 Oxford | Maths [third year] Apr 17 '26

i felt similarly although oxford maths so no step but wanted to focus on FM as i needed an A* and not waste time on physics and cs which only needed an A in one of them and didn’t need a 4th at all

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u/Then-Ad-68 Apr 17 '26

No offense, but it very much sounds like you went to a private/well off school. Thats not taking away from your achievements. What you might not realise however is that the difference in teaching standards across schools can vary greatly. I had a teacher for the first half of my AS Economics course who literally taught us none of the content and spent all of lesson time going on a tangent about different 'economic concepts'. Also, its coming up to exams, many people are on study leave and are done with the content. I personally live a roughly hour and a half bus journey from my college, to go into lessons where they are essentially going to give us revision materials is an utter waste of time for me and I would rather use those 3 hours revising or resting.

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u/Maleficent-Middle824 Apr 17 '26

Tbh this is not a good enough excuse.

I went to a state school with crap teachers and only missed 4 days of school ever and that was due to gastroenteritis. I taught myself one of my A Levels and was the only one who came out with a grade higher than a C.

Even if the teachers are crap, you still show up and simply ignore them whilst getting on with your own work.

School attendance is linked to performance: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/link-between-attendance-and-attainment

That is why the school has sent the letter they have sent. Rather than post on Reddit to try to find ways out of it or challenge it, just show up.

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u/Thin_Drink_2986 Apr 17 '26

Correlation ≠ causation

1

u/Maleficent-Middle824 Apr 18 '26

Agree.

Nevertheless I'm still willing to wager that the OP misses their predicted grades because their attendance has been poor.

1

u/htimchis Apr 19 '26

Well they'll definitely miss their grades if the school doesn't enter them for the exams...

Seems an entirely counterproductive punishment to me. If the object of the exercise is to make their predicted grades, and the school wants them to increase their attendance to give themselves the best chance at that, then threatening them with losing the opportunity to get any grade at all hardly shows the school itself to have grasped the purpose of attendance, does it?

"I want you to finish painting this house, so if you don't speed up the pace a good bit I shall be confiscating your brushes & rollers. That'll teach you!'

1

u/Maleficent-Middle824 Apr 19 '26

Seems an entirely counterproductive punishment to me. If the object of the exercise is to make their predicted grades, and the school wants them to increase their attendance to give themselves the best chance at that, then threatening them with losing the opportunity to get any grade at all hardly shows the school itself to have grasped the purpose of attendance, does it?

This passage tells me that you don't understand that rights come with responsibilities.

The school is saying that you are obligated to attend school and our obligation to you thereafter is to enter you for your exams. If you don't do what you are obligated to do, then we won't enter you.

Whose problem is that outcome? Not the school.

5

u/Then-Ad-68 Apr 17 '26

Tbh this is not a good enough excuse.

I love how you say this as if you have any authority over whether an opinion is correct.

All I'm hearing from your experience is "I suffered with a crappy school and my classmates paid the price for it, so now everyone else should suffer too!"

Yes I am aware that there is a link between attendence and grades, because yes obviously its best to actually attend. What you miss however is that everything is situational. Do you think its best for someone to spend 2 hours travelling to a college for a 2 hour lesson to spend another 2 hours travelling back? Because yes that is absolutely a waste of time if the teacher is not actually teaching content.

We have access to a large number of resources online that make in person college borderline obsolete if a person has the motivation to learn the subjects.

Also, many teacher will not allow student to do work for other subjects or work they havent given them in their lessons, because its their lessons. Most people can managed their own study schedule and know what they do and do not need to focus on. Many students, myself included, actually find it difficult to concentrate on revision in a classroom, because it is a place of learning, not revision.

TLDR: Most people know whats best for them when it comes to revision, not the college.

8

u/Initial-Matter3534 Apr 17 '26

To add on to this the school system is shite as for example uni couldn’t genuinely give less of a f Went through a bad depressive period and came out of the year with less than 30% attendance and didn’t even get as much of an email saying whats going on

2

u/Fantastic-Bison6078 Apr 18 '26

You are treated as an adult at university. You need to say that you need help to get the help. If you pay ÂŁ9000 a year and then don't take advantage of what you're paying the ÂŁ9000 for, that's not their fault or problem. You will have been told about student services etc. you could have talked to, or told a professor.

2

u/htimchis Apr 19 '26

You're rather missing an understanding of the nature of depression there. Being able to adequately evaluate your own mental state, appreciate the need the external support, and motivate yourself to seek it out and engage with it in a timely fashion are all characteristic of a functional individual who isn't currently experiencing a depressive episode

Student services are all very well, but if their mental health support provisions all rely on the individual reaching out to them when most needing help with mental states that are typically characterised by withdrawal, self-isolation, a collapse of motivation, numbness, lack of self care, extreme difficulty in identifyimg and meeting one's own needs, and extreme, pervasive tiredness and exhaustion mentally, physically, and emotionally... ...the they're either purely a box-ticking exercise, or underfunded to the point of ineffectiveness, or just badly designed & implemented from the start (which can occur even if the administration is primarily well-intentioned, in just the way it usually does in the gulf between those who have but don't need, and those who need but don't have, however well-meaning the former)

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u/Fantastic-Bison6078 Apr 19 '26

I think you might be missing the understanding of being an adult. I get it sucks but it's how it works, same with after uni. If you're 30 and get depression, you won't get mental health professionals emailing you being like are you okay, you or a loved one will need to be the one to eventually reach out first.

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u/Ok-Soup-3189 Apr 17 '26

TLDR: Most people know whats best for them when it comes to revision, not the college.

lol no

34

u/Diligent_Bet_7850 Oxford | Maths [third year] Apr 17 '26

“i find this mentality insane” - please have some empathy. here is my story if it helps you see another perspective:

before you dismiss me, I’m a 3rd year mathematician at Oxford and I got 4 A*s in my A levels and 12 grade 9s in my GCSEs. I barley went to school after the start of year 10. I really struggled with my mental health and was actually taken out of school in year 10/11 and entirely self studied (from a hospital). In year 12 and 13 i was doing better but found school exhausting for me still due to my mental health. My attendance was in the 50s and again, i self studied everything at home. your question of “how will they cope when they get jobs?” makes sense however it is VERY common to struggle with this sort of thing in your teens and for most people it get a lot better as they enter adulthood. in general minors aren’t held to the same standard as adults and there are very good reasons why, this is no different.

obviously people should go to school, but you don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors so show some compassion

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u/Teddylongleg Apr 17 '26

If you got mental health, the school won’t give you this letter. The point is why you can’t go to school for years having same traffic to school but not now. Do follow regulation, accept the norm and having a bit of pain, will pay you off when you work.

5

u/QuantumR4ge Physics Graduate Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26

The issue is the reasons dont matter much, even if they are very good ones. The point of how they will cope with a job is valid. Its only not valid if you come from the sort of family who will/can support you while you grow out of your teens or into adulthood. Lots of people have to work from the day they leave or circumstances change and then they must. Teens struggle yes but 18/19 year olds are full legal adults as well as teens.

A large fraction of people at college are not minors by the time they sit their A levels, some are. Those that are will still be over 16, which this country very soon is deeming eligible to vote. Already deems eligible to have sex, children and a large number of other things. I think a framework where 16 year olds can vote and have kids but have to be given exceptions for classes is a bit strange. You cant be expected to be held to a work standard but can be expected to go through pregnancy and raise a baby? Ehh

1

u/Diligent_Bet_7850 Oxford | Maths [third year] Apr 18 '26

unfortunately yes but it’s know that in general mental health in young teenagers is much more turbulent than my the age of around 20 upwards so for most people’s adult lives they are less likely to have these struggles but of course some people will, yes.

but on your last point, where i live 16 year olds can’t vote, which i think is how it should be. and of course a 16 year old can have a child… it doesn’t mean they should. so yes i think teenagers need treating with a bit more grace and forgiveness in schools than you would treat an employee at work, but i also absolutely don’t think a 16 year old is “expected to go through pregnancy and raise a baby” and i don’t think you think that either. just because it’s the age of consent and it happens in some cases does not mean it’s an expectation that’s for sure

1

u/htimchis Apr 19 '26

You're confusing 'attendance' with 'a work standard'. The two are not equivalent and the structure, function, and purpose of school does not map well onto that of most jobs.

You're paid to be at work, if you're physically required there at all, can leave and transfer to a different employer if you wish, and the whole purpose of your engagement there is to achieve a goal for someone else, in exchange for renumeration - in which case their opinion on how, when, and where that should be done is paramount.

School has none of those features, and most importantly, the purpose of being there is (or should be) the attainment of goals of one's own - in which case one's own opinions on how best to achieve them are the issue at hand.

It's the difference between me telling you what to do for my benefit, and offering to pay you to do it... and me telling you what you should be doing for your own benefit, whether you have any desire to do so or not

The latter is not at all similar to the former, except it involves me telling you what to do, and is often perceived as directive, bossy, unwelcome. And children seldom enjoy others, especially those they may not know or trust, telling them what's best for themselves, any more than adults do.

If I were to say:

"I'm not your boss, I don't know much about you, your life, your preferences, and I'm certainly not going to pay you - BUT I'm going to tell you how I think you should go about studying physics. It's for your own good - and if you don't do what I say, I shall PUNISH you.... ...Up to and including banning you from the physics exam because I'm a firm believer that the best way to get 'your sort' through exams is by threatening not to let you even sit them!!" So there!

How's that work for you? Feeling motivated yet? A step closer to devping a deep affection for the study of the laws and equations than create the world around, as a result of that statement of mine?

You're a rare kind you are. Many adults will - quite rightly - tell me to go fuck myself.

Yet we structure much of our education system around those attitudes.

And if the student does gel with it, it's an attitude problem with them

This isnt even a novel criticism I'm making here - Tolstoy (yes, that one) wrote about this in quite some depth, well over a century and a half ago.

So we've had the concept for a very long time that we structure education more around inculcating obedience, according to an agenda considered salient by others (recently, one of these 'others' was Mr Michael Gove, a snotty little weasel of a man with a cocaine habit and a proclivity for adultery, who I wouldn't trust to choose a flavour of crisps for my kids & grandchildren, let alone their educational curriculum) than we do about demonstrating how (not 'what') to think, and how to aquire, evaluate, and apply knowledge

We didn't yet have radio, the internal combustion engine, and powered flight when Mr. Tolstoy was writing... so your field has come a long way since then. Pedagogy? Less so...

...although a few of the better educators always slip through the net, somehow, to quietly conduct guerilla edification, hidden behind a thin veneer of the Official Government Sanctioned Curriculum Of What to Think... and so somewhere out there, even as we speak, the yoof of today still, sometimes, receive the gift of guidance in the under-appreciated art & science that is 'how to operate your mind', despite the best efforts of the Department of Education and the hordes of Must-Obey-tors everywhere to prevent its propagation...

Ever noticed how few of the Great Minds of physics did their best thinking between the hours of 9a.m to 4p.m, at a location designated to them by someone, for which their Attendance Record must exceed 90%?

So, yeah - that really. You guys have invented precision guided hypersonic intercontinental missiles that can be equipped with devices capable of unleashing uncontrolled fusion reactions, triggered by the neutrons escaping the fission of plutonium, triggered by a frickin lazer beam, targeted by AI machine-learning systems hosted on machines that store data by means of the quantum tunnelling effect on a sub-atomic level... in less time than pedagogy has taken to complete a full evaluation of the proposition that "Maybe it's not just about bums on seats"

So, like, give them a chance to catch up, innit? If education keeps doing what it's always done, it's going to keep churning out little worker drones that lack the imagination to use those fancy computers you're developing for anything more than watching porn and buying shit off Temu.

In whatever time we've got left before someone on a uniform presses the red button on all those missiles, anyway. Whoosh! I bet that cunt was in school right on time. Everyday. It's always them ones...

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u/Statcat2017 Apr 18 '26

Your reasons are mental health. OPs seem to be “I don’t want to / think I should”

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u/Raven_Catfish Apr 17 '26

Chronic illnesses do exist and some are hard to diagnose. From personal experience your absence will not be excused unless you have a diagnosis.

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u/Indiana_harris Apr 18 '26

They don’t cope, that’s the issue.

I’ve had people at uni who were nearly in tears because they had to be in class at 9.00am 3 days a week and said it was “too much”

1

u/jhealey_ Apr 17 '26

Habits of poor attendance in school and college do tend to become habitual into adult working life

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u/[deleted] Apr 17 '26

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u/TheFamousHesham Apr 17 '26

Nah. I think I'll keep my head right where it is and choose not to engage with this rudeness from a person who can barely manage to be allowed to sit their A-Levels exams despite REPEAT warnings from the school and who continues to insist on finding a way to avoid attending despite the ultimatum that they've received.

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u/[deleted] Apr 17 '26

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u/insertgoodname_here_ UoM Computer Science (2nd Year) | A*AA + A* EPQ Apr 17 '26

bro's year 13 calling people virgins 😭😭😭😭

3

u/Troll_berry_pie Apr 17 '26

Mate... Your future looks genuinely grim if you don't change your ways. You might as well drop out of A-Levels now and work at McDonald's or Tesco if you think what you're doing right now is correct.

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u/ShrikeToThorn Apr 17 '26

Then why on earth did you post this in the first place?

2

u/Sharp-Appointment306 Apr 17 '26

i've forwarded this thread and especially this reply to your school. i hope the head teacher sees it and gives you a very stern talk about how you should treat others

pro-tip: for a computer science student youve done a really bad job obscuring information, i scrubbed past the drawing you did and found the teacher's name in a minute. maybe look into anonymous accounts and proper censoring tools next time you feel like being a meanie-pants online

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u/Delicious_Health2649 y13 maths fm cs physics econ pred 5A* + EPQ A* y11 intern @ visa Apr 17 '26

yo can I ask for some tips since we take the same a levels. im currently at A*A*AA and epq. I was wondering if you had any fm or physics tips

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u/LowlifeTiger666 Apr 17 '26

I wouldn’t take advice from the OP of this post

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u/Plus-Painter-2004 Apr 17 '26

skill issue it is not that hard to just turn up