Different brain. Very different way of working

We shifted Arav to a CBSE board of study in Grade 11 - 12 instead of continuing with an international model - IB or A levels.

At the time our thought was that the international board required more writing plus he would have a hard time juggling so many subjects ( for IB). Also, we had ruled out sending him to another country for graduation as frankly, we were not sure he would be able to focus on studies alone. It just seemed to be an easier option given what we knew.

As it turned out, it was not the board, style of instruction or even exam that would be our undoing - It was the exam duration.

Even on the best of days, my son cannot sit still in one place for more than 1 hour. At a stretch he manages 1.5 - 2. Beyond that I think he has a system shut down. His accommodations meant his getting an extra 1 hour over the 3 hour scheduled exam which required him to focus for 4 if he were to make use of it.

A careful analysis of his exam papers revealed that while the first hour saw reasonably good performance, it dropped sharply after that. And I don't think he ever got to really using the last extra hour that was allotted to him due to his disability.

Also, as any parent / student of high school will know, the 3 days holiday prior to an exam are crucial and most students are able to do MORE in these 3 days than many do in the many months prior. Also, for a vast syllabus, It is crucial that this time is used wisely to input the necessary formulae / facts in the short term memory bank. Arav was simply unable to utilize this time effectively. So while he gave up a lot of his fun activities on regular days to maintain a consistent ( 3 hour with breaks ) study pace throughout the year - his days before the exam were like any other - woefully short of the big push needed for a strong finish.

This required a strategy change at so many levels.

• First of all, we had to reassess what we could hope to complete in a long duration exam. If he could not sit in a chair at home for 2 hours, it was unlikely that he would manage 3 in school effectively.
  

• Second, we had to revisit how best to study in view of Point 1. This was HARD. Arav had always been a top scorer with A pluses and accepting that may no longer be possible took longer than it should have. In trying for a 90% score ( which required completing the syllabus), we ended up stretching him so thin that he landed on 50 percent in his First Term. A more focused preparation for the easier 80% of the syllabus would on the other hand have given us an easy 70-75%.

But at what point does a parent accept that they can no longer complete the syllabus? It required a complete shift that I was not ready to make until it was almost too late. We still have the finals to go and deep down while I am still hoping for more, I realize that we need to consolidate the 75% first lest we fall to a 40% 1. We are asking him to work in 2 hour slots without breaks and hoping to increase it gradually. 2. We are no longer scoring ourselves out of 100. We are first consolidating what we are already strong with to ensure the 75%. 3. Time and will remaining, I hope we can take some bites out of the remaining 25%. I'm not sure if everybody understands the difficulty of this shift. To provide an example, there are subsections / sub types of questions that are harder within every subject and these actually take the bulk of the time to practice. But understanding what percentage to skip basis possible impact to the total possible score is a high risk game . Not only will skipping topics eat away at the students confidence, the actual easy questions could combine these harder concepts. I would also like to add that Arav was almost completely unable to study in a classroom environment even with his meds in Grade 11 - 12. The pace in large classrooms is fast and his constant zoning out meant that we had to invest in full time tutors at home for almost all subjects, something we had never even considered in lower grades. On the flip side, he is blessed with a processing ability that allows him to soak up things faster than me or my husband at any age. So we try and use the tools he has.

In terms of impact in real life, he focuses well enough when he wants to on things he enjoys but unfortunately we don't always enjoy vendor presentations, client reviews or even guests at home.

It is a skill that he will definitely have to work at.