Your youngster may come home with a school report that could use some improvement, or grades that are lower than you may have hoped.

How best to respond? You may feel disappointed or frustrated or tempted to ignore the bad news, but ideally, parents should take action, says Germany's Federal Association of Tutoring and After-School Centres (VNN).

After all, you and your child can still work together to improve their grades before the end of the year or any looming exams.

The tutoring experts provide five tips for parents.

Don’t scold

It is, of course, understandable that parents are disappointed – but scolding won’t change the mark. What’s more, your child is surely unhappy about their poor marks too

Investigate the causes

If low grades or a bad report come as a surprise to parents, try to find out how the situation came about. Often, your child knows what happened. Was it that they fell behind due to absences? Did something happen? Stress within the family may also have a lasting impact on a child’s concentration. So it is important to identify where the gaps in knowledge and understanding lie.

Make a plan

Parents, discuss the following questions with your child:

• Which parts of the curriculum did they understood well, so that they simply need to be revised?

• Which parts of the curriculum do they need to be properly work through, as this is where the gaps in understanding lie?

• Which books, worksheets or other materials should be used?

The next step is to set interim goals. You don't want these goals to be too ambitious, but they should genuinely be achievable within the timeframe you are planning.

Find a partner

Who could explain the content to your child and answer their questions? Are there subject teachers or other people who could take on this task? It is important that:

• Your child gets on well with the person.

• The person is qualified and able to explain things clearly.

• The person is available to provide support until the end of the school year.

Celebrate small successes too

Has your child understood the maths formula or completed the last dictation almost without mistakes? Celebrate all successes, maybe by taking a trip to the cinema or doing something your youngster really wants to do.

It is important for parents to show their joy and pride, as that will boost your child’s self-confidence and motivation to tackle the next milestone.