Year 11 in September 2016. Feeling nervous for DS

You can queue for groundling tickets on the day.

Minesawine - Macbeth is on at The Globe in London at the moment. Might that be an option? DD got taken to a performance in some caves in Bristol by the school- apparently it was brilliant

LockedoutofMN - massive thank you , this thread had dropped off my list & I've just come back to it now. DD has read Dr J & Mr H by the pool on our holiday this week. It's helped that our friends have read the book, and I read it too so we've had some boozy chats about the story over the last couple of evenings, and will check out the Ian Rankin piece.

Icequeen01 - good to hear that your DS got his act together. DDs school, a comprehensive, also keep a very close watch on how well students are doing compared to their MTG and work hard to encourage and motivate every student. I think it's s common feature of all good schools.

Us too. Dd has a history practice ca due by next Friday and English essay due beginning of term. Awaiting Maths iGCSE result due 25th but we'll be away and no arrangements in place to collect by email yet!

Thank you v much LockedOutOfMN thats great

carysrebeccasmum Sorry for the delay, I've been offline for a few days. This is the Ian Rankin documentary, really interesting: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007qyzv Hope you can find it on iPlayer or similar (or the English teacher might have a copy already?)

Try not to be too anxious on behalf of your ds. Your role is to support and encourage him so that he stays on top of things. My dd has just finished Y11 and although parts are stressful there are also high points too and overall it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Keeping in touch with other Y11 parents on here helped too!
dds school had a parent's evening at the start of Y11 that clearly explained how parents could support their children and also there was one at the start of the revision period as well. Attending these was very useful.
They can apply for more than one sixth form and the one they go to will depend on their results or whether the sixth forms have enough students to fill the course. They provisionally choose A level subjects when they apply but most colleges are fairly flexible and a final decision can be made once they have their results. While it is sensible to consider possible uni options, Y11 is too early to choose degrees imo!
Hope that helps

So glad it helped Minesawine. I also forgot to mention just how much 'nagging' and revision the school will do with the year 11's. It's almost like brainwashing It really does seem to get through to them in the end.

You will find that you will live up to your username, particularly during the GCSE's

Good luck!

Dd starts year 11 in sept. She's stressed already. She puts a lot of pressure on herself.

She's better with coursework and not so good with exams due to dyslexia.

So picked art, photography and graphic design and is now going a bit crazy with course work which I did warn her about!

Great ideas many thanks
Lockedoutof MN could you post a link to the clip of Dr J and Mr H if poss please ,i googled it but not sure if its the right one thank you

My DS has just finished year 11 and is waiting for his GCSE results - eeeek! Not sure if this will help anyone but we have a bright, very laid back 16 year old. He attends a grammar school which is perfect for him as he needs a boot up his backside to get him to reach his potential. We struggled to get him to revise for his mocks in October. Lots of crossed words until in the end my DH and I told him we would back off but woe betide him if his results were awful. The little sod managed to wing it and came out with mostly B's and a couple of A's. However, after attending parents evening following his results he seemed to take on board what his teachers all said to him which was how easily he could change those B's to A's or even A* with some revision. It seemed to work and he did revise for his GCSE's.

He chose his A levels following his mocks (computing, physics, business studies (not overly pleased with that one!) and an EPQ. We had hoped to change his mind to take maths which would sit well with his other choices but he's having none of it. We are still hoping he might change his mind though and change to a facilitating subject such as English or History but not holding our breath. His school do not set anything in stone re their choices until the exam results are out.

He seems a bit cocky about his GCSE results if I'm honest and that worries me. Bit we will find out in just over two weeks.

I do think boys are particularly hard at this age (unless you are very lucky). Good luck to all you up and coming year 11's. I won't say it's an easy year but I am dreading 6th form more and the thought of him possibly leaving home to go to uni

Not the standard Mumsnet experience here. We are waiting to find out:

a) if ds has secured the 5 GCSE's he needs to scrape into college

b) if he will need to redo the maths (college will take him anyway, as not maths/science related subjects), but he will have to retake

If a) happens (even if b doesn't), then I think he will do all right: college will be very different from secondary and I see him as someone who could take off and do very well in the right environment/with the right subjects. The career he has in mind will not require MN standard results- but he needs to learn how to apply himself and he needs to pass.

Funnily enough, I am probably less worried than most mums on here: we have been through some rough times, dd had similar worries at this stage (chronic illness and school refusal during secondary leading to a small number of GCSE's), we have had to learn that the smoothest path is not always the only one and that the world doesn't come to an end if something unexpected happens.

Maybe we do have the same DS!
That said, mine voluntarily got on with his English today so I was wildly impressed with that. I suspect he now thinks he is done though and I doubt we'll see much more voluntary work...

I think you have an advantage as the early exams may well work as a good motivator, however they turn out. All our eggs are in one basket next summer which is scary.

I like the schmoop page! I bought DS Brodie's Notes on Macbeth as it got me through my English lit GCSE in 1989! Mainly for the scene summaries that are in normal English.

DS is going into year 11, his targets are all As but his report showed that on a good day he is forecast to get only one A. On a bad day, none.

I think the report gave him a bit of a shock, he says it did but he is very good at saying things and then not following through.

I should say here that I've told him that I don't expect straight As but a mix of As and Bs with a couple of Cs will give him very different choices than 7 Cs and a couple of Ds.

The only work he is doing over the summer is English that we were insividually sent by letter from his English teacher as he is not progressing to plan. No other teacher seems to have realised he is underachieving, sadly I feel as he is likely to get Cs he doesn't come on anyone's radar to realise why he's not doing well.

We have arranged maths tuition but unfortunately the centre closes over the holidays.

I am a bit at a loss to know how to motivate him. He is clever but lacks confidence in his ability which isn't helped as he has an extremely bright brother so tends to compare. We really try to deal with him as an individual and discourage comparisons but he still does it.

I also struggle as by this stage I was doing 3hrs per night and he is given hardly anything by school. Any attempts to make him do extra work end in battles.

It also doesn't help that he would like to join the police but may not be able to because of health reasons. We have sought expert advice on this but it is not clear and will depend on what doctor assesses his application. So he really has no idea what he's aiming for from 16-18.

I am hoping and praying that he will suddenly 'get it' and step up. Any tips are very welcome.

Suggest to him to think of people who are like lady Macbeth in modern times. Or to compare a couple of characters - what have they got in common / what is different about them.

Yes I have a tip for this. Shmoop. It's fabulous. 13 pages is masses. Try and get him to summarise themes in a half page each.

www.shmoop.com/macbeth/summary.html

errorofjudgement Ian Rankin made an excellent documentary on Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, explaining how Stevenson was inspired in creating the characters, setting and background to the novella. I strongly recommend it; I think it's really helpful. It's about 40 minutes long but pretty dense with materials so best watched in 5-10 minute chunks, then have a think and write a few notes, (even better if you try to find a part of the text that relates to Rankin's point).

Some ideas for "revising" English over the year.

Lit.
Make a list of key quotations from each set text (may already have this from Year 10 exam. revision) and copy out onto flashcards or a colourful A4 / A3 poster for the bedroom wall. Make sure they're SHORT; single word quotations are brilliant!
If studying An Inspector Calls (a previous poster mentioned it), watch the 1982 BBC version (on YouTube) with the script in front of you - the adaptation is 99% faithful to the original so very useful for revision and quotations tend to be more memorable when watched and heard, as does the sequence of the plot.
For other set texts, re-read just the key scenes, e.g. main characters' entrances and exits, climaxes in the plot (murders, marriages, deaths, revelations, etc.)

Lang.
Work on spelling - keep a log of all spelling corrections to their work, then focus on the words which are most likely to be needed (e.g. sincerely, faithfully, believe, definitely, disappointed) and try to learn 3 a week. Again, these could go onto flashcards or a bedroom wall poster, or parent could help with regular mini-tests.
Download a list of "high level" vocabulary - Geoff Barton has a good one available online - and pick out anything from 10 to 50 words to try and learn and start using in written work.
Change the homepage of laptop or phone to the Guardian or Independent newspaper and read an article every time you go open the browser before doing whatever it was you went online for (or once a day). Extra keen - make a note of any new vocab. or impressive sounding phrases in the articles you read. (I say these two newspapers as their content is available online free. Telegraph offers 10 articles per month per device, as does The Economist magazine and a newspaper for schools called The Day - your child's school might have membership in which case they can log in for unlimited access).

I'm a head of Year Eleven. I would say it is important to start this year well. Not panicking or working all night, but seriously, and focused. There is no time to waste.

Get in the habit, from the start of the year, of going home and studying what you did in class that day, as well as doing homework. Chances are, homework will gradually be replaced by studying, and answering questions from past papers, as the year goes on. There is a great deal of material to revise for the final exams. in all of the different subjects so it's a really good habit to get into going back over what you've done in class that day or week, especially in "spare" time e.g. a night with little or no homework, or a dull weekend when there are few or no social plans (or grounded!)

Parents can help - it can be motivating for the student to read aloud their class notes to somebody, or for you to read them back to them, or if it's a subject you know about then you could give them a 5 minute quiz, or - this one's particularly good for science - ask them to explain a sub-topic or "process" of their choice to you, and basically it's a bit like that "Just A Minute" game on the radio, they explain until they run out of knowledge; then they realise how much they know (and feel proud of their accomplishment) and at which point they need to start revising again (where they went blank). Teachers can also give you advice of ways to help / support your child with these little and often methods of study.

If your child is studying a foreign language, encourage them to use a website for practising grammar (especially verb conjugation) and vocabulary for 5 minutes per day, again, you could sign up too and have a "battle". Their language teacher is sure to recommend certain sites or apps; Conjuguemos is a popular one at our school.

Hope this helps? The earlier they can develop these habits, the less stress there will be at the end and the more in control they will feel as they realise what they do already know.

Good luck to all! And for the parents, !

You need to refuse to allow yourself to feel anxious because your anxiety will either make him feel anxious and not perform well, or will make him go the other way and feel that you're being over the top which will make him too relaxed.

You need to get advice from the school about how much he needs to study - (probably 2 or 3 hours a night in total including homework) and decide how you can create the right environment for this to be done. It's advisable to get him to leave his phone downstairs or to switch off the wireless for that time. There should be clarity but no big rows - it's his life in the end - you can lead a boy to revision but you can't make him think etc etc.

Most schools suggest 4 A levels, then drop one at the end of year 12, but with reformed A levels it's a little more complex.

Some boys, who are able but can't decide on what to specialise, choose IB. But this is only done by 3% of schools for a reason.