Worried - DS is taking a very cavalier attitude to IGCSE's!

Mocks were after Christmas here, and it's identified the areas he needs to work on which is useful. As he's a bugger about revising and has procrastination down to a fine art, then little and often works for him, rather than massive chunks of time all at once. Some subjects I am not too worried about, as he should get A*, but it's the languages and the chemistry that worry me.

We use the Easter Holidays as the start time for revision here as well, any earlier than that and the whole thing becomes a grind. If a child is up to date with their work then Easter onwards gives plenty of time. If they have been daydreaming for the last year and a half then a bit of extra catch up time might be needed!

DS3 starts then too scaryteacher but he had mocks in the run up to half-term and would be horribly stale if he started again now. And resentful and cross if I pushed it. I can't see any virtue - and some harm - in revising before the start of the holidays: 30th March. That leaves six weeks and then the protracted period of the exams themselves, which is a further six weeks. That's a long time. I'd have thought the worst thing of all is to be completely fed up with sitting staring at books weeks before the exams even begin. They're all different I suppose, but I don't intend to push it with mine: he did some reasonable steady work of his own volition for these mocks and I think it would send a message that I didn't recognise what he'd done, whereas in fact I was pleased and surprised.

O Levels were bound to be harder than GCSEs; and CSEs easier. Having said that, we took less O Levels on the whole, with eight being the norm at good schools. And there's that old quip of Stalin's I think: quantity has a quality all of its own. I take my hat off to these young things juggling eleven or twelve different subjects all in one hit - it's a real challenge I think.

It depends on when the exams start Kensingtonia; ds has the first of his IGCSEs on 08/05, so leaving revision til Easter is leaving it too late. He is doing little and often and being tested, so we know it has gone in. This is his chance to make sure he knows his stuff and to identify areas where he is not so confident and then has time to get his teachers to go over it again if necessary.

I used to run a weekly revision class for Year 11 from the October half term until the exams, including two full days during the Easter holidays, to make sure they had sufficient time and opportunity to catch up anything missed; to go over exam technique; to hear what the examiners are looking for; and to go over topics they hadn't grasped. This was any of the year group, not just my own sets.

I also did O levels 30 years ago this year, and I have to say (as a teacher as well as an examiner), I don't think GCSE content is a patch on O level, and the marking is positive rather than negative; we credit what they have got right, not mark them down for what is wrong. I did chemistry and biology practicals, and did lots of texts for O level Eng Lit; Chaucer, Shakespeare, Bronte and some poetry as well. Perhaps we did different boards.

From experience as a year 11 teacher and tutor, I have seen too many kids leave their revision until Easter, and then panic at the amount of stuff they need to get through, (the assumption of the ostrich position, head in sand, arse in air was evident) hence the revision classes I ran, and my insistence that ds does little and often now.

Just a couple of comments - OP my DD is not expected to start revising until around Easter. The school are doing a revision tips evening in March. She does GCSEs and goes to a super selective grammar. I was quite shocked to hear about the cheating allegations - she has experienced nothing like that in the controlled assessments she has done. In fact having done tradional O' levels at my grammar 30 years ago I really believe that the GCSEs test a wider range of skills. I was never tested in practical science ability, or analytical skills in history for example. The English controlled assessments also seem to test ability over a wider range of texts than I ever had to study. Frankly the old O' levels were a test of memory and the ability to write quickly - and while I did well, I did f* all for two years, except memorising parts of the book and the notes the teacher gave us, the evening before the exam and then spewed it back out. I dread a return to end of course exams, especially as DD2 is dyslexic.

Meow75isknittinglikemad -It's very sad that some schools appear to cheat. It must disadvantage those who don't.
It isn't every school.
I know they don't at DSs school because he has never even been allowed to see a piece of work after it has been marked let alone "improve" it, he is told the mark / approximate grade and that is all.
Roll on terminal exams and a level playing field.
I would have gone along with the gender stereotype based on DS1 but DS2 suffers great anxiety at tests and exams and I suspect would do better at continuous assessment.

Mine never read the gender stereotype handbook yellowstone! Not at all surprised you lose track sometimes to be honest, but your dc are evidently very together and thrive without too much parental involvement. Their collective results tally is mind bogglingly impressive - well done to them!

Cheers, yellowstone.

Marjorie I'd say that Easter was a good time to start revision in earnest even for those taking non modular GCSEs, provided always that a reasonable amount of revision was done for the January mocks.

You're right glaurung, I got it wrong :) The English Language and French have increased at the DCs' school since controlled assessments came in and coursework went out. We have so many exams in this house each year that it's fairly easy to lose track! (A Levels/ ASs/ GCSEs again this year, for the third or fourth year running). Tbh I let them get on with their work and don't intervene.

There's clearly a difference of opinion amongst educationalists about the relative difficulty of IGCSEs and GCSEs. No doubt it depends whether one comes at it from a perspective of taking GCSEs as linear with controlled assessments properly done or from the different angle of endless bite size modular with or without the pencil marking routine (pretty shocked about that). Done properly, there's no difference in the standard required for equivalent grades, even in Science.

My DSs too would find exams only easier. My DDs like coursework/ controlled assessment - very gender stereotypical. So, ease of format is relative. I think the quantity they have to do is tough and the quality is testing enough.

My DC3 did no work over half term - the only work done by friends was in Art. It's the last chance for some time off, in my experience - they did modules in science last month so had worked over the Christmas hols so it was nice to just chill out. I remember it being this way for the other two, too.

Useful thread, OP, because DC4 is taking IGCSEs this summer.

She did no revision in half term, which for us finished a week ago, though she did do some art, maths and science homework. Loads of art actually.

Anyway, my experience with her three older sibs, who did normal modular GCSEs in the UK, led me to think that the Easter holidays were the time to begin revision.

Hmm, think we'll start talking about exam prep. some more now. School is on the case, obviously, but a bit of parental back-up will do no harm.

Also, as the exam for igcse is the whole course stuffed together into 2 exams at the end, they are harder to do.

modular is in such bite size peices it would be hard to fail if you wanted to pass. You have been tought a particular topic, the exam for that topic is sometimes 20 mins and even that can be multiple choice. I know becuase I couldn't believe when ds was telling me he had an exam and i got all churning up for him. Dont worry mum its only 20 mins. What?!

oh am glad i have seen others with over 25 percent course work.
Also glad i have seen that it is regular that schools give back coursework to improve.
And also very glad to have a science igcse teacher back up my earlier comments regarding igcse being much tougher,

I teach science IGCSE. There is no coursework or controlled assessment. 100% of the marks are on the end of course exam. No modules.

They are much tougher than the modular core / additional GCSEs that we were teaching before swapping over a couple of years ago.

I can't speak for other subjects.

The exams are in May, too. I told my students that they would be wise to spend some time revising over half term.

I really hate being told by my Head of Department to mark in pencil and give the work back to re-do

I hate it with a passion, but the HoD and HT say other schools in the area do it so we disadvantage ourselves if we stick to the rules.

I HATE IT!!!

25% for geography coursework here too yellowstone, but French speaking and writing are done as controlled assessments and together count for 60%, also English language is 60% cont. assessment (but only 25% for English Literature). 33% for each of the sciences. So that's at least 5 core subjects with more than 25% total not done as traditional exam, and they're mainstream exam boards. Only RE and maths have none for her, but that's a huge increase since ds did GCSEs only a couple of years ago - I wonder if your dc6 has more assessment tasks than you are aware of (because it's being done at school)?

Dd does better on exams so would prefer just an exam most of the time. She's been told the French topics in advance (which is allowed apparently, but means the controlled assessment is little more than a memory test) so for this an exam would be harder, the rest has virtually all been done at school ('low control' parts of geography fieldwork and preparation for a speaking English task spring to mind, but not much if anything else).

I am getting ds to do has h/w for half term tomorrow (broke up on friday), and spend some time over half term concentrating on languages and learning vocab and verbs.

Many of his courses have finished (syllabus completed), and so they do revision in school, which helps a lot. I'll also get him to draw and label geography processes (rivers, coasts etc) which should make it stick, and make him explain things to me as well; and give him some work on moles for Chemistry.

It needs a gradual ramp up on the revision, so they are accustomed to doing 2.5 hours per night by the exams.

I suppose exam boards must vary then but DC6 is taking his GCSEs this year and he'll be the sixth to take Geography and all six have done coursework/ controlled assessment which has accounted for or will account for 25% of the final mark. None have done a subject where coursework counts for more except Art and D&T. Is yours an independent school Laughing Gas?

I'm glad to say our school doesn't go in for sharp practice and the fact that it does all exams as linear and in one sitting means that marks are well deserved and not a case of a pupil turning up and writing his name.

Mummle mine have got mostly A (51A and 6A) and expectations at their school is high but it can be counterproductive to push IME, your DS will probably do better if he has a bit of a break.

From conversations with teacher friends Laughinggas coursework (or more correctly controlled assessment) cheating is indeed widespread but by no means ubiquitous. It can be very hard to make up the lost marks in an exam from a reasonably decent assessment score if the grade boundaries for the assessments have been pushed sky high by all the other schools that cheat, but that is what many children have to try and do.

Then I hear that in schools that are 'caught out' cheating the assessments are sometimes all marked at zero which also seems unfair as none of the children at those schools can hope to achieve high or in some cases passing grades.

The calculus in edexcel iGCSE maths is very basic and only worth a very few marks - ds got the questions right before he'd even been taught calculus by intelligent guessing! Aside from that there isn't much difference between it and many GCSE syllabuses - Dd's GCSE maths questions certainly seem no easier and not really different in style. Also no coursework in GCSE maths these days so really not much to choose between them (though I am told the Cambridge iGCSE is harder, and I have been told sciences iGCSEs are harder too, I have no experience of these so that's heresay only). It is said boys are significantly advantaged by terminal exams with no coursework, so it may be iGCSEs are harder for girls and easier for boys in general.

DS has CAs in French, English and Geography. They are all done in school and there is no reworking allowed, nor are they allowed to have feedback.
They are endless and very demanding. Several English papers are over four hours.
I don't doubt that the amount of work gives a fair assessment of the pupil's performance but they have completely dominated Y10 and 11. DS would far rather do terminal exams which he has in all the other subjects.

really? ds geography gcse is 50 percent controlled assessment.

No coursework goes home, it's all done in the classroom and is called controlled assessment. Some subjects have no controlled assessment (Maths) and only the creative subjects (Art, Drama) have assessments which count for more than 25%.

Schools which offer IGCSE always claim that they have more rigour, just as IB schools make the claim for that. Universities say different.

DS1 starts his GCSEs in May. There have been booster and revision classes galore at school since Christmas. He goes to several at lunchtime and after school. However he hasn't started full scale revision at home yet. He has done a couple hours each on RE and geography. The difficulty I have is in coaxing him to leave the maths and physics which he already knows inside out and concentrate on the "boring" stuff.
He says he will be starting proper revision in the Easter holidays. As far as I know there is no more course work in GCSEs. It has been replaced in some cases by controlled assessments which are essentially like exams.