GCSE Support Thread 2013

English Lang tomorrow, and then next week is the week from hell, with Chemistry and English Lit on Monday followed by lots of others...

Had a lovely afternoon, re-reading Wuthering Heights and making lots of notes on big bits of paper on 'destructive love' and similar..

really enjoyed myself, much to dd1 disgust! Apparently the only book marginally worse than WH is Jane Eyre.... This is from a girl who's only really read Angus Thongs and Snogging before

DD has RE tomorrow as well. She us revising tonight, but this is a really low priority subject for us, and to be honest, we don't really care about the outcome.

RS and Spanish tomorrow.. DD had AQA Biology B3 the other day. Muttered darkly about tadpoles but thinks she's done ok. This generally means she's buggered it right up ( I refer back to the great P2 debacle and we only talk of the second maths exam in hushed tones now)

No exams today , but DD had Textiles and Welsh yesterday .

She's a little worried now , as the last question on the Welsh paper asked for their opinions on the relevance of the Welsh language , and she told them what she thinks

Oops .

Can I join too? It's nice to have some company on this stressful journey for my dd and I. We had all kinds of ructions in the house over the weekend, blowing up out of no where, but obviously out of stress. Poor thing came down with a heavy cold too just to make matters worse. But nothing now until early next week so some calm is restored. Soup and the Sims seems to be helping today. She does not seem to have done much for her English Lang and Lit with AQA. Lit she says is about poems. Anyone know of any good resources for these? Many thanks.

Or ds even ...

Pretty daisies - that was dd's verdict on physics too - he's hoping there's a lot more maths-y questions in the next paper

I think it's AQA but not sure and can't ask at the mo as she's out - but yes, I just checked their boundaries too and it certainly doesn't seem as grim as she's painting it!

We'll see! And thank you

SteamingNit If its aqa further maths igcse then last year it was 64% for an A*

store.aqa.org.uk/over/stat_pdf/AQA-I-GCSE-GDE-BDY-JUNE-2012.PDF

so if thats what's she's doing then a slap round the face with a wet fish is in order

Oh dear - dd, who has been very calm and collected thus far, has come home almost in tears because she got 62% in the further maths practice exam they did last week (I think it's an iGCSE, but not sure - you can apparently get A** in it, so no pressure there...).

She now thinks she'll find A level maths impossible, that she was wrong ever to think she was good at maths, and that she doesn't get it at all.

Have pointed out that the Further is only an extra bit of stretching, 62% is perfectly fine for now, there are weeks yet and she can go to the extra sessions, nobody expects her suddenly to be able to do everything, and difficult things are sometimes.... difficult.

She is like me, on this - 'if I can't just do it without help, I'm obviously no good at it'.

We have no idea what a 62% equates to - she says in a normal exam with normal boundaries it's a C, but might be different in this. ANyone know? And thanks for listening!

thanks duchesse, its interesting isnt it? I'm a gov at our school, and we do have incredibly strong management team who are totally committed to getting the kids what they need to reach the next level (whether academic or not). we know we are going to appear to fail hideously in the ebacc equation, because of our clientele and their interests/abilities - doesnt mean we're not a good school though!! and we are ahead of our 5 a-c target inc english and maths... also ahead of national target I think, which is pretty good for totally non-selective, non-leafy suburbia type.

bsochy I think the real problem for schools with the iGCSE until recently has been that it did not count in the league tables, . My highly selective DC's school for example that only did IGCSE Maths and English (for getting 0% GCSE A*-C in the crucial subjects) was always at the bottom of the league table for the county. It takes some guts as a school to make that decision.

Now I believe they are being counted as GCSEs in the league tables it should even out the playing field a little.

Added to that the fact that IGCSEs are harder than GCSEs for most pupils and the school risks a lower pass rate/ lower grades, now that it is counted in the league tables. Only really self-assured schools sure of their population are going to use them tbh.

DD1 does not have tetanus. She has some stronger antibiotics now, and she has had a tetanus jab (plus diptheria and polio) which she should have had in March, and which had been rescheduled for next month in school. She's also had some Very Good News (we hadn't got tickets for a Thing. And now we do have tickets after all). So she is much more cheerful.

Obviously there are people who have worse runs of luck/health coming up to exams. I was at school with someone who was diagnosed with hodgkins disease in the week before our O levels started, and one of my best friends lost her mother not long before our A levels started. I myself was very sick during my O and A levels with a chronic illness. But still, all that notwithstanding - DD1 has had a very tough couple of months and yes, I am very proud of her because she never gives up, she never stops smiling, she completely counts her blessings at all times, and she isn't all 'woe is me'. She's a great kid.

HSM - get the wine in! I stocked up in Aldi this morning... although expressed stress levels are not high, and we dont nag apart from the odd 'have you actually done ANY revision?' stress is being expressed through the medium of tantrums at deviations from what she expects as the norm... eg DD2 needing to stop at Sains to get tampax on the way to school this am!!

Abuelita and Abra - interestingly diff pov! DD1 is at a good school (sec mod as we are in a GS area), and their objective is to get the DC the qualifications they need to move on to the next stage (as well as ensuring they are rounded people etc etc). We were told that IGCSE english would be less appealing to eg RG unis, but not an issue for us.

DD has 1 gcse exam today and 1 tomorrow. I don't know what we'll be like next year when she has more than 1 subject !

Plus no retakes--at my children's schools. One shot and that's that.

Well the IGCSEs my children sit do seem harder than the GCSEs their friends sit when you compare past papers.

Plus there are no modules. No coursework. Just exams. And fewer 'applied' questions in the sciences. Some of the Maths they do is done in the AS course of other boards.

boschi - iGCSEs are supposed to be harder but there's no reliable evidence to suggest they are. iGCSEs were aimed at the international market not the English one. That's because there was no way that coursework from international centres could be verified as the pupil's own work. It would also be difficult to moderate coursework from overseas. So coursework was not used in iGCSE.

There's pleny of anecdotal evidence that iGCSEs are harder but that seems to come from those, mainly independent, schools who use them. In England there's a prejudice in favour of independent schools - anything they do is judged superior to what is offered in state schools.

It's a prejudice which is shared by many politicians including Lord Adonis, Labour peer.

But in the last round of the PISA international education tests, the OECD (who run the tests) found that when socio-economic background is taken into account, English state schools outperformed private ones.

In other words, the success of private schools is down to their intake of advantaged, usually high ability children.

School pupils in the UK are among the most examined in the developed world (except for perhaps Singapore). Most countries have moved to graduation at 18. If there are tests at 16 these are not high-stakes like GCSE (and the number's usually about 5, not the 8-10 that's routinely expected of our 16 year-olds) but are designed to decide on 16+ progression. Much of this assessment is done by teachers.

Our Education Secretary, Michael Gove, says he wants to reform our exam system so that it's world-class. But it won't be because as I said above most countries have their high-stakes exams at 18. Even the CBI, hardly a hot bed of Marxist agitation, wants the exam system to move to 18.

I posted about this on the Local Schools Network:

www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2013/02/reform-will-make-exams-system-on-a-par-with-the-worlds-best-thats-the-rhetoric-but-whats-the-reality/

Poor old DD1 (I say old. She;s still only 14!) has 7 exams next week, and then 12 after half term. Whatever the impact of changing syllabus content, the process is just horrendous for the kids. Far more exacting than I remember from my day (we had longer exams, in some cases, yes, but fewer papers).

Duchesse and Russians, for you both - and your DC.

DD1 had PE theory yesterday, she doesnt care about it but only needs 16 marks to get her C - hope to god she managed that as it would be another one on the list.

IGCSE english today (she's got a C already, but they are retaking to aim for higher grades). Interested someone up thread said IGCSE was harder? my understanding is that it is actually easier.... she's still got AQA to come.

5 exams this week, 3 next week, then halfterm and 4 more after that. Finishes with maths on June 14 - no news about study leave yet, but am hoping she will continue going in for extra maths help whenever possible - god knows she needs it!

Russians, hope your DDs foot improves soon. You sound very proud of her and with good reason :)

Duchesse so sorry you're having such a bad time. Puts the GCSEs in perspective a bit

I worry about the results being manipulated politically too. DD1 was a victim of the whole debacle last year and looking at the past papers they seem to be getting harder and harder. After DD2 sobbing until gone midnight yesterday that the paper was worse than any she'd done before I'm dreading August.

Aw, she sounds lovely, what bad luck.

I just keep wondering what surprises August will bring in terms of sudden changes to grade boundaries etc - dd has worked really hard, but you just don't know what Gove might have up his nasty little sleeve!