Gcse 2018 (10) The one with half term

Dd is going to the same 6th form as your ds Lulu (don't be creeped out - I know via Sticker )

@RosieLig DS gets extra time too, and had a high IQ too. I was just trying to say that it's not the difference between the two extremes that qualifies him for extra time, it's the fact that over 85% of 15 year olds can write faster than he does.
Maybe you are right, however. This is just what I was told by learning support when they were assessing how to support DS's learning disability.

Morning all

Sostenu how is fussy pup? I have a very fussy sleek (part Bengal) tabby cat who will only eat dried food, left over Sunday roast and tinned tuna! Also a rotund ginger cat who will eat anything.

mmzz dh took ds to Moss Bros to hire a suit for the prom. I am surprised at how much it cost - ds chose a Ted Baker chequered blue one and it cost £100 to hire. I wasn't expecting it to be that expensive, around £70 or £80. There are perhaps cheaper options.

I hope everyone has enjoyed half term, it has been over in a blink. Ds has been in every day for revision sessions, the last one today is History. I don't know if the teachers get paid for coming in for extra time - I am very thankful to them either way. The school has pulled out all the stops.

I agree results day seems a long way away and even feels a little surreal after that he's enrolling at 6th form. He's going to a very big 6th form and I need to buy an expensive bus pass - it will be a 40 minute trip to get there.

Next week is busy with 2 exams on Tuesday and 2 on Friday, 1 exam on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. After next week English and Maths will be finished and they slow down for the following 2 weeks.

Just seen your later post Peggy about processing speed hence no extra time. The cuts offs can seem arbitrary when you are on the wrong side of them

@mmzz -don’t think that’s right about extra time. My DS has a high IQ but gets it as does a friend’s daughter who is extremely bright. I’m not sure of the exact criteria.

Peggy

That's rough - thank goodness you persisted and fought her corner and she now has rest breaks and a prompter....but no extra time? Her school sounds slap dash and indifferent

I don't profess to understand what the requirements are - I got dd tested privately by an Ed Psych for dyslexia in Y2 of KS1 (none of the teaching staff had flagged it with me or even noticed an issue in her Ofsted outstanding primary school , but I knew otherwise). It involved a couple of hours of extensive testing and she was found to have high cognitive ability (i.e. much higher than average) with significant processing issues and working memory difficulties (much lower than average). The Ed Psych report typically makes recommendations on how the child's needs should be met in a learning environment.

Post primary, at her subsequent school the Learning Support Department are excellent and have a member of staff who is trained and accredited to do the full gamut of testing. Dd was retested in year 10 to review access arrangements - so she has extra time and use of a pc plus she does her exams in a small group (3 other students) to minimise distraction.

It really shouldn't be a lottery whether or not your child with spLD gets the support they need. For further education will she be staying at her school for sixth form or moving on to a sixth form college?

bombula DS is like that - at one point I just gathered everything up and slung it in a plastic crate in his room!
He's got 3 hours of science revision at school this morning. This afternoon is meant to be English language. If he comes back with any top tips, I'll pass them on! He may just come back with practice papers, though.

Peggy,

I’m so sorry to hear of what your daughter has gone through.

At the most basic level, we are just concerned that the kids will have had no experience of revising for anything more than a unit (6 weeks) of work before, which does not always translate into the best revision practice for learning 2 years of work. Hence why i have been so keenly following this thread and all the hints and tips so closely to develop lots of resources that we can throw at the situation.

Thanks for all the responses.Some great advice.I looked at dd notes last night and they are a complete mess! So will spend weekend helping her organise them. She is very bright but completely disorganised and all over the place with no clear strategy or plan. So now I have realised will try and prod her in the right direction

Peggy sorry to hear you've had such a struggle but good to know the TA is helping.
Sostenueto Your dgd's hair sounds amazing! (I have curly hair. I've decided life is too short to straighten it. If it gets too huge I just tie it back.) Glad to hear dgd's interview went so well - I'm sure they were very impressed with her.
I hope you win the battle of wills with Pup!

Aw thanks sost and mmzz for reading that long post.

Mmzz you are right. You have to have a processing speed below standardised score of 85. It doesn't matter about your profile.

We blame Gove in our house. For most things

After pretty awful time in y10 GCSEs in terms of distress and being told the quiet room was "full" we went for the ADHD diagnosis which I assumed would be enough to get exam support.

Anyway 4 exams to go here. In Wales so doing old style GCSEs. It has been interesting following your experiences of the new style.

Your kids will all do well. Even if they don't get the 9s they are hoping for, they will do well in life because they have your love and support

Prom - is it a sort of 21st century equivalent to a coming out ball? The only time I have ever paid someone to do my makeup was on my wedding day, but they do it for 16 year olds' parties too, now?

I really must look into getting DS a suit for the prom.

@PeggySchuylar unfortunately, I was told that although a spiky profile is what indicates the SpLD, the qualifying criteria for extra time etc are a much cruder measure i.e. are you in the bottom 15% of the population for that thing of not?
So, you could get a genius whose disability puts them in the 16th centile for that thing and it would be a glaring handicap. However, they wouldn't qualify. Whereas a child whose IQ is around the 20th centile and is a tiny bit worse than that in reading or writing would qualify.
I was also told that processing speed is really difficult to test for. Is that true?

peggy

Dgd s hair is nearly 3 foot long down to her bottom and needs a severe cut before prom hairdo. Its very thick too and not dead straight. Her mum has curly hair that goes into ringlets and is very pretty but she has always spent masses of time trying to straighten it which does not suit her at all! Think dgd may opt for half up and half down approach for hair ( she always finds it hard to make a decision). I don't know what preoccupation is in having long hair is about? Dgd always ties it back as she doesn't like it in her face yet refuses to have a more manageable haircut! In fact the other day she had pigtails and her chavvy hat on. She looked liked Dorothy out of wizard of oz having a bad day

ksb my DD's school don't do end of year exams. DD has dyslexia and ADHD. In a heated discussion with head of additional needs I was told she would need evidence history of extra time in exams.

"How? You don't do end of year exams," I said. So frustrating.

No extra time awarded as dyslexia/processing speed wasn't bad enough in y9. Turns out there was a 60 percentile difference between her reading and her writing in y9. Nobody (including me) tested DD's processing speed.

Anyway after me asking for information on how to appeal the extra time decision and process as I only found out in May (ie complain), school have put in rest breaks and a prompter. DD has a lovely TA supporting her. DD finds the rest breaks helpful as she can stop and "take a rest from my brain."

New teachers always comment that she is an A* candidate as she makes links and has a brain the size of a planet. This is good in ckass but not in gcse exams as DD sees gow everything she knows is linked together in some kind of network. It's hard to match that to a maek scheme. And she's going to get 5 gcse passes so job done as far as school concerned

Oh yes girls and their hair......when it was my DD's prom I foolishly looked at a couple of youtube's on how to do hair and thought that looks easy, we only tried the day before and even I had to say that she looked like she'd been dragged through a hedge backwards......luckily manged to book her into the hairdressers (I had to resort to pleading) we were both thrilled with the result!!!

Boys are easier in that you just have to ensure they have a shower and wash their hair!!

bluebelle
Prom ready here! Dgd lost a bit of weight but OK. Dress looks lovely and lot of practice with heeled shoes! Hair and makeup booked.(and paid for)
4 more days of 6 hour revision (no exam Monday so day off school) but 7 exams the rest of week. We are all nearly there the last few hurdles in sight and what brave DC we have to have survived all the stresses and strains of exam season. It will finally be goodbye to the first part of their lives and forward and upwards to the second part. Then there's the third,fourth,fifth,sixth.........

Phew I missed the maths test - hope I don't get detention

androb good luck for the match, is it cricket?

DS said last night that he only has two more days of doing 6 hours of revision, he can definitely see the end is in sight.......I think initially he won't know what to do with himself.

Is everyone prom ready, we still have socks and tie to buy which is proving quite problamatic!!

Morning! Wide awake here and rest of house is snoring. Last day of hols and DD planned history and psychology revision with some chemistry thrown in, ready for next week. 7 exams next week so a tough one but soon be over.

Prom dress getting hem done early next week now that shoes are bought, and hair appt booked in. Was supposed to have a trial in hols but ramn out of time so will do that after exams. Needs to be a lunchtime appt so she can see that it will last all day n night.

DS starts high school in Sept and I will remember some of these recent tips - particularly the one about making sure that you have fully understood a topic before you finish it. My nephew is starting yr 10 so his mum has been asking DD about exams and all that so she can encourage him.

Off to Warwick Uni in about half hour - got to drop DS to get team coach and then drive myself down. Staying cheap in a travelodge as 2 trips to London in June and end july!

It's June! I can't believe that this year is going so quickly. Soon the exams will be over, but am I the only one who feels like results day is in a different lifetime? And then they'll be starting the next stages of their lives.

I can't quite believe that I'm old enough to have a child who has finished with compulsory education (even though I was34 when DS was born!)

It feels like the GCSEs are getting easier to manage. DS was extremely nervous for the French oral 5/6 weeks ago, but now he's in a rhythm of revise, rest, line up, do the exam, come home, move the books onto the bottom shelf of his bookcase and start revising for the next one.

ksb76 I have two Y9s so will definitely need one of these threads in the summer of 2020.