Any tips/advice for guiding DD through Year 10 as she starts GCSE courses?

[HoneyKate]

If anyone recalls a previous thread of mine, I had quite a battle with DD's school (now an Academy) to allow her to study the GCSEs she wanted to take. We finally got there and she is studying for 9 - English X 2, maths, core science, RE, PE, history, media studies and drama. As I understand it, her core science exam is taken in Year 10 and, if she passes with a Grade C or above, she will be able to study advanced science in Year 11.

So the main reason for this post is to ask how you managed to motivate your dear sons and daughters to understand the importance of working really hard now, i.e. how important the next 2 years are in terms of the future, and any hints and tips on how to keep my DD motivated and focused. She often seems to be away with the fairies and I do wonder how much of what she is being taught actually sinks in. She is quite young in her year and, I feel, a little naive and bewildered sometimes compared with some of the other girls. My DH and I are committed to doing as much as we can to help her through the next 2 years but any advice from those of you who have been through it and managed to come out the other side with all of the family still sane and liking each other would be greatly appreciated.

[Milliways]

Does she have ANY idea of what career she might like - or even dream of?

I found that by talking about jobs/careers you can get onto how you train for those (apprenticeships/on job training/college/uni etc) and the fact that ALL of those will want some GSCE's - and the more you get the more choices you have for next stage even if you change your mind.

Big-uo 6th form or FE college. How nice it will be to concentrate on the 3 (or more) subjects she really likes, and can drop some of those she doesn't - but again to get there she has to pass those she may not like so much now.

History/Media etc will all have course topics - get her to tell you about them. My DS liked to say what he was studying, how it was going, what the teachers are like etc. (DD never spoke much about school but we were lucky in that she was extremely focussed and just got on with it).

[HoneyKate]

Thanks Milliways. She's very keen on drama and has been involved in drama classes since the age of 5. She's desperate to go to either a drama college or study drama at university. Ideally she'd love to act herself but she understands the reality so also has teaching drama in some capacity at the back of her mind. We have always encouraged her to try and keep her options open as far as poss. Her strengths lie in english, history, drama, media and she's very sporty. Her weaknesses are science and maths. Both my DH and I work in media (nothing highfalutin' unfortunately!) but we have quite a lot of contacts and feel we could at least get her some kind of internship somewhere if drama doesn't work out for her. Also possibly the option of some kind of sports teaching. To get into the local 6th form college to do A levels she needs a minimum of 7 Grade C GCSE passes, to include english, maths and science. She will struggle with the maths and science but her teachers believe she can get a C if she puts in the work. She'll need a B to do A level drama and she's easily on course for that. I think she would be required to do 4 or 5 AS/A levels at the 6th form so she's looking at drama, english, history, film studies and media.

She's normally quite good at telling us what she's doing at school and we ask her to bring her books home so we can see her marks and teacher's comments. My worry is that she doesn't seem to voluntarily get on with studying. We always have to remind her to read her books or do some net research, read around the subject etc. The school, historically, have never given what I consider to be very much homework. She's only had one piece since starting Year 10 but I am assuming this will increase as they get stuck into the GCSE courses. I guess we need to be on her case all the time, but in a gentle way....

[JustGettingByMum]

If the school dont suggest it, then I would aslo recommend getting GCSE revision guides, especially for the exams she will be taking at the end of Y10. Some of them are exam board specific, others less so. CGP guides were a big hit with my 2 but it might be worth a quick email to her subject tutors to confirm which they recommend befoer spending lots of money.

[TheWave]

Get some 6th form, and uni or college prospectuses sent to her and flick through with her so she can see the future.

Maybe go to 6th form open evenings a year early with her (i.e. They are on now) so she gets an idea what she could do in 6th form and grades needed.

If she's into internet forum stuff maybe look for a year 10 thread she could lurk on/post on on the student room.

[HoneyKate]

All great ideas, thank you Milliways, JustGettingByMum and TheWave. We'll definitely act on all of this.

[eatyourveg]

we're in the same boat here ds3 just starting Y10 and we have got all the 6th form prospectuses. He is not an academic but hopefully will manage 9/10 Cs and Bs. He's really into sport and has found a place with lots of BTECs at different levels for sport coaching, outdoor sport and fitness and excersize or sports therapy - Its been a huge motivator for him to see the various course requirements and so far he's come in most days and sat and done his homework there and then!! Not sure how long it will last

[Suffolkgirl1]

BBC bitesize has useful revision pages for most GCSE's.

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/

[glaurung]

Dd has just finished GCSEs and to be honest it took her until about the end of year 10 for her to get in the swing of them properly. She's quite disorganised, and it would definitely have helped if I had had a list of all the controlled assessments they were doing and when on the family planner in advance as to begin with she didn't really appreciate how much they counted and wasn't preparing for them at all (especially in her least favourite subjects). If I had known they were happening I could have tried to persuade her to do some background work and if she had she would have gained better results. By year 11 she'd got her act together, but although she was able to redo some she was stuck with poorer results in others (fortunately not too many).

[HoneyKate]

eatyourveg - good luck to your DS with his sports ambitions. I agree it's a really good idea to work on homework promptly. DD would prefer to leave it until the last minute but we try and get her working on it with encouragement to at least make a start. Invariably she ends up starting and then thinks she might as well finish it. I've told her it's far preferable than having it hanging over her head, say for a whole weekend. She goes all "Kevin the teenager" with the sighs and rolling her eyes up to heaven! But I want her to get into good habits with homework - if it gets to the stage where she is getting one or more pieces every night she will need to have the discipline to get stuck into it straightaway especially if DH or I are not around to supervise.

Suffolkgirl1 - yes the school recommends Bitesize and we have used it before so will check out the GCSE pages you mention.

Glaurung - I know what you mean about the controlled assessments. Our school doesn't seem to issue lists of dates and I really wish it would. DD had her very first controlled assessment (in English) towards the end of Year 9 but I only knew that's what it was after finding out from another parent. She didn't seem to be aware it would count towards her proper GCSE grade until I explained it to her. Either she wasn't concentrating in class (worrying!) or the school didn't really explain it. She got a C which was a little disappointing given it's supposed to be one of her better subjects, but it's a start and at least it was a magic C!

I feel I have to try and keep on top of everything as I can't be sure she will always bring home all the information. We've had no communication at all from the school about Michael Gove's changes either.