Every parent dreads receiving a letter from their child’s school, especially when it concerns late coursework.
Coursework usually counts towards your child’s overall grade in that particular subject, so late or none submission can seriously harm their overall grade for that year, and if they’re currently working towards their GCSEs, it can have a detrimental effect on acceptance into AS level courses.
So how do you tackle late coursework without blowing a fuse? Here’s some expert advice on how to approach the issue calmly and encourage your child to get up to speed.
Talk to your child
Although you may be disappointed that you’ve had word that their coursework is late, it won’t help the situation if you go off at the deep end and start handing out punishments straight away.
There might be a logical reason why some of the coursework is late or hasn’t been handed in yet. Perhaps they’ve been spending more of their time with other subjects that they’re not so confident in or are struggling to complete the work but are too embarrassed to ask for extra help.
In some cases, they may have been prioritising extra-curricular activities such as sports over their coursework.
Once you have the reason why their coursework is late, then you’ll be in a far better position to decide the appropriate course of action.
Talk to the school
The best way of ensuring that your child catches up with any coursework is to speak to the school and discuss the reasons why the coursework is late. Try and arrange a meeting with the subject teacher, yourself and your child so you can agree on a way forward to get things up to scratch.
Many teachers will be happy to offer additional support and can invite your child to see them after school so they can help them with any areas they’ve been struggling with.
You can also put in place a schedule over the next few days so that your child has the opportunity to catch up at home after school; they might not be happy with this new arrangement at first, so it’s important you reinforce just how vital coursework is.
Check subject deadlines
If one set of coursework is late, then its worth checking how much progress your child has made in other subjects to ensure you don’t receive any more concerning letters!
Don’t be afraid to get in touch with the school if your child is being a little evasive about their other subjects because you’ll be in a far better position to do something about it before its too late.
