Starting Year 11-GCSE2021 (title edited by MNHQ)

Mmm and Spanish is so vital for dentistry 🙄

KittyMcKitty

Point taken lol

@portico in my eldest son year many went up 2 grades between mocks and GCSEs - as I keep telling my youngest it’s a marathon not a sprint 😀

NotDonnaOrBlitzen
We will do our best. He has not practised as many past questions as he claimed. Making him todo so now over the next few months. We have cousins who are dentists, and one of them, a dental student, scored similar GCSEs’ scores in his mocks in autumn 2017. There is some hope of an uplift in scores - though Spanish is a big ask.

@portico you’ll know from DS1 but DS2 is very very likely to go up a grade from mocks to the real thing. I’m guessing he needs a 7/8/9 profile for dentistry? So tough!!

I just hope they use Nov 2020 papers for their next set of mocks should he do them. I also pray that exams happen, as sure will get fucked by CAG scores

DS2 got his mock results back. School does not give breakdown or papers to look at, so we can’t identify and work the weaknesses. Good results, just not very good as he wants to go into Dentistry. 2 9s, 7 7s and a 6. We should be happy but have told him he needs to step up a couple of gears and show some desire instead of my forcing him to study. It’s past exam questions here on in.

Also, DS1 to do A Level mocks in Han

hi Ds got moderated results back and as I expected managed 3x5s 5x6s as he left revision to the night before as he procrastinated so long about revising and wouldn't listen to advice also not helped by school saying this may be it. He's upset as he was couple of marks of the next grade in nearly all of them. Hopefully hell now use it to spur himself on. He's also in lunchtime clinics for physics and chemistry.
So hard to motivate him and get him focused his attention span for revision seems milliseconds but classwork Y10 shows him highly capable.

Crikey titsywoo that seems horrid. They’ve known for a good while.

Thanks @UncomfortableSilence :)

Hopefully not @Neversaygoodbye - I'm sure they will allow for it. If I remember correctly the art teachers themselves mark the portfolios and then are moderated?

So DD came home and said after their art exam ended the teacher and the head of art sat them down to say the GCSE art exam is cancelled and they have until March to finish their portfolios. I think they were expecting an ecstatic reaction but they have played this all completely wrong and they just got silence. All these kids have been led to believe for weeks that they would have to hand it in and so either rushed or got completely despondant and gave up as there was no way they could have got everything done with the time they had. Luckily i had said to DD all along don't rush they will not make you hand it in for December (I was 99.9% sure they were talking bollocks) so her work is pretty much on track and of very good quality. I'm just so cross at how they have handled this - so much stress and upset over nothing.

@Titsywoo yes DD's school starts GCSE's @ Yr9, it's obviously been a massive benefit in this situation however, DD had a very tough yr9 with MH issues (still ongoing but improved) and never finished her yr9 portfolio. Hopefully that won't affect her grading.

Notdonna- I'm not holding my breath but I hope for her sake, if not I will be getting her a maths tutor, she's had a tutor before and it makes a real difference with one on one breaking it all down. She's being held at a 5/6 really and they seem to only teach to their predicted level, she can always answer the first few pages of exams and then struggles as it gets harder, her teacher says this is because later in the papers are the 7/8/9 questions which are too much for her

Titsy- great grades so far well done to your DD.

[quote Neversaygoodbye]@Titsywoo my daughter hand to give in her art portfolios for yr9,10 & 11. She's not in now for the rest of this week as it's "catch-up" week, so doubt she will get hers back - she's probably pleased about that.
Well done to your DD for her grades, sounds very positive. [/quote]
I think DD would have a breakdown if she didn't get hers back but it is nowhere near finished! Did your DD start her GCSE in year 9? That would have been amazing. Not even half of year 10 and one term of year 11 in school has not been anywhere near enough time for this work to get done.

I can totally understand her being pleased though - I can't wait to see the back of this sodding portfolio. When people say art GCSE is a big workload they aren't joking!

@Titsywoo my daughter hand to give in her art portfolios for yr9,10 & 11. She's not in now for the rest of this week as it's "catch-up" week, so doubt she will get hers back - she's probably pleased about that.
Well done to your DD for her grades, sounds very positive.

DD got 2 mock results back today (the rest were only sat last week and early this week so will be marked over xmas and in Jan) - she did really well. History that we thought was a grade 8 was actually a 7 but still very happy with that, french was also a 7. I'm hopeful she can get 6's and 7's for everything but I think science is unlikey, RE more likely to be a 5 and maths who knows (she has a brilliant tutor but still struggles). Art exam still going on and portfolio been handed in to mark (please god let her get that back for xmas holidays!) - since the portfolio still isn't finished and needs lots of written work and mounting doing I hope it doesn't pull down her mock grade. Not sure why they need to mark that for the mock tbh.

Interesting @UncomfortableSilence 3-4 times out is a lot, depending on online support. Good to see the govt stepping up. And your school for making it available to their students. I’m just a tadge cynical that there’ll be a wait list or some other hurdles for your DD and others to jump. Hope I’m wrong and the intensive tutoring helps!

Same here @ihearttc - at least they’ll not have any excuses to not knuckle down - no parties, no outings, no mates over.... just revision. Happy teens. Happy Christmas. Great! 🤣🤣

DS1 isn’t even doing his mocks until the middle of January so all of Christmas is going to be spent revising!!

Looks like mass quick covid testing is going to be happening in schools from January. I know our 6th form used them last week and then put all the students on online learning from Monday this week.

Sorry quick link as off to work but have a read through this.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/catch-up-premium-coronavirus-covid-19/catch-up-premium#what-catch-up-funding-is-for

Available to all schools, online provision was ok, she's had three isolations since October some have had four other year groups a lot more.

School are offering it to those that have had the most isolations this year I believe.

@UncomfortableSilence I’ve never heard of the governments National Tutoring Programme. Good to hear that the govt are trying to do something about it. How much time has your DD had off and did her school do no sessions whilst isolating?

Moderation is going to add to the quarantine of papers isn’t it? Possibly another 6 days.
No mocks at DD2’s school until 6th January - DD1’s mocks took a week or two to be marked but that was pre COVID so we can add 6 days onto that as they’ll quarantine test papers before and after marking. If they have to be moderated my a second teacher it’ll be nearer 3-4 weeks.

DS received two results today and he’s pleased with them, long may that continue!

E.g A school may have 5 English Lit classes in year 11 and each class teacher will Mark tgeir classes paper.

The papers would then be moderated (by a group of teachers or the HOD) to check tgat each teacher marked uniformly and tgat tge marks are comparable between classes.

'moderated' for mocks usually means the HOD checking that a teacher hasn't marked too generously (or not enough) especially if teachers have all marked their own classes rather than 1 teacher doing all section A, and another all section B. Only needed for things like English & history which are more subjective than maths & science.

Hi all
What is “moderated”.
My son has done his mocks, abd gets his report on Friday. Do we know what is meant by moderated?