Years vs levels

[CalicoRose]

DS wants to study for his end of year tests

But I'm a bit confused. Looking at books in WH Smiths some books are for level 5-7 (or whatever) and some books are for Y7 (or whatever)

Do all the sets in Y7 cover the same stuff? Will a Y7 book cover everything hes been taught this year? He's working at a level 5 or 6....

[webwiz]

Mine revised from their school books at this stage then they are just going over what has actually been taught.

[CalicoRose]

He doesn't bring home his text books. The teacher keeps them.

Nor is he allowed his exercise books - although they're so unreadable as to be useless for revising.

Which makes getting ready for school easy :) all he needs his his lunch and PE kit.

[CalicoRose]

Not to mention he specifically wants to revise the bits of the syllabus he hasn't been taught!

He says in science they've run out of time to cover one whole unit.

And he doesn't have a maths teacher at the moment. The last one (his third this year) left rather suddenly....

[ThreeBeeOneGee]

I think the first step is for him to make a list of what topics he has covered in Y7. Different schools cover different topics in each year of KS3.
These are the resources that DS1 has used for end of year exams in Y7 & Y8:
Maths - CGP KS3 revision workbook.
Science - CGP KS3 revision guide (provided by the school).
German - CGP KS3 revision guide and vocabulary trainer.
Latin - Cambridge Latin Course website.
History - BBC Bitesize website.
Geography - BBC Bitesize website.

[webwiz]

How does he do any homework with his exercise books?

Mine didn't really have text books at this stage but they did use their exercise books for revision (even if they were a bit scruffy)

[CalicoRose]

He only brings his exercise book home if he has hw for that subject. And then he has to hand it back in again. Ive never ever seen his science book as he just brings home worksheets. Occassionally he does bring home his maths book.

He's only worried about science and maths luckily.

But it still makes no sense to me. I've bought him books with Y7 on the cover - but I can't understand if there really is such a thing is Y7 work.

Or if every school and every set cover slightly different things.....

[ThreeBeeOneGee]

DS1's school are roughly following a Science course called 'Exploring Science' but squeezing the three year course into two and a bit years, and doing the topics in a completely different order to the textbooks. So in Y7 they did some 'Y7' topics, some 'Y8' topics and a few 'Y9'.

In Maths, the topics they cover in Y7 even vary between different sets in the same school.

[bellabelly]

I would really recommend the CGP ones - am an English teacher so can only really talk about the ones for English but I think they cover lots of different subjects and they're very user friendly. The KS3 English - the Scary Bits is especially good, in my opinion.

[bellabelly]

link

[noblegiraffe]

Has his school got a login for the mymaths website? That has lessons on all topics and all levels.

[MadeOfStarDust]

Does your school do a mini report every term - ours lists the subjects, effort, current level and expected end-of-year level - would give you an idea where he should be in each subject. (but each child is supposed to know where they should be at the end of year in every subject - it is THEIR individual target - level 6/7 is where my dd is aiming for most subjects)

We are lucky - all the standard textbooks are available in the school's Virtual Learning Environment - i.e. online, accessible from home.....

[cardibach]

If it is school end of term/year tests, not covering a topic won't matter - the exam will be set by the teachers, so will only include what has actually been taught up to the point it is taken. The National Curriculum divides work into Key Stages, not years, so a 'year' book might not include the right things. I am sure that your DS will get his books and possibly some revision notes/guidance before the exams as schools want to encourage good habits of revision.

[Startail]

DD1 would say CGP and BBC bite siz.

She lost her maths books and the CGP Still got put up a set.

[Summerflower11]

I often wonder why do the students not bring the topic book home .especially to read through ,use for revision and forward planning etc. Does any body agree or disagree that topic books have there place jut at school!!?

[noblegiraffe]

Because schools do not always have enough books for each kid, they are one between two or shared with other classes. Also books sent home do not always come back, which is a pain.

[lljkk]

I think topic book = a notebook as opposed to a textbook.
We always had our own textbooks in secondary, has that long been unusual in UK?

[musu]

Seems odd that he doesn't bring home his exercise books (I don't mean textbooks, I've never seen ds's textbooks). Ds came home at half term with an A4 page for each subject he has an exam in listing the areas he needs to revise. He also brought his exercise books home. End of year exams will only cover what they've actually studied.

I thought having revision topics listed was a great idea until I realised ds had completely misunderstood his teacher's instructions for history. She'd written that he had to memorise and order key dates. He did exactly that - memorised all the dates he had in his book in order. When I tested him I realised he had taken that completely literally, he could recite all of the dates but had no clue what they represented!