Starting Year 11-GCSE2021 (title edited by MNHQ)

Country dancing?! In year 10?!! DD would have loved that (we love a good barn dance in our household), but I just can't imagine a load of awkward 14/5 yos having to do grand chains and baskets etc.

DS had English and Maths tests today.....bad enough he thought, till he found out that pe was country dancing that made his day pretty much unbearable

@TeenPlusTwenties Not long until Christmas now, and a nice break. Hope you and your DD keep your spirits up.

Some bright spark has decided it's a good idea to do a y10 English Exam & a Maths exam on the same day next week. Just as we are struggling to keep going in our house.
(I know it's reasonable from the school's point of view, but still.)

It looks to me like it will be quite good for getting the basic core knowledge learned but I don't know yet on 'applied' knowledge.

Yes, just looked at the biology and did a quiz thing.
Good thing I am not the student!
Will show site to ds when he is in the mood.
He is watching I'm a Celebrity on catch up so his interest is zero at the moment...

I'm quite liking the free version so far, though I haven't seen what I'm missing with the paid iyswim?
We've been using it for Biology, Chemistry, Food & RE so far.

Hello,
With Seneca what do people think of free version rather than paid?
What are experiences with it.
Thanks.

these are my gcse options •-•
~compulsory~
•maths
•english language
•religious studies
•latin
•biology
~3 options~
•chemistry
•geography
•home economics/history idk what to pick
~reserves~
home ec
computer science

Sorry to hear about your dd feelig sick teen.
I would be encouraging my dd to school even with nausea. Mine have to be in bed and sleeping/ resting or in school.

Does she eat breakfast?

A friend of mine had a dd who was always feeling sick in the morning. Visit to GP revealed she wasn’t eating breakfast and the dr told her always have breakfast and it went away straight away after that.

She's been giving a grade of where she's sitting now and predicted grades. Like you I still think in old money so a set of Bs would be amazing.

re grades. Are they target (which might be set from y6 SATs) or predictions, or what? DD has a target of 4 for English based on SATs and desire to pass, but end y9 was predicted a 2/3, and recently got 5 on an assessment, so all over the place really.

A bunch of 6s would be like Bs in old money, so great for someone not massively academic.

Silence Yes she had, but that is an interesting point and I will consider it.

Had she suffered prior to the sea sickness incident? Just wondered if it could be linked to that. I have emetophobia, I know most people on Mumsnet think that's a load of crap, but it's very real and very debilitating.

Thanks. She managed until 12:45 which is better than nothing. Once home she had a sleep then tomato soup. Early night tonight, try again tomorrow, if she can last until lunch that would be fine as PE after lunch then INSET on Friday.

We had a long instance in the holidays, but she was seasick on the way there and then was worried about coming back.

We had a meeting at school last week titled 'Coping with GCSEs' mainly based on effective revision, was quite informative although probably nothing we don't already know. Was helpful to receive all the exam boards so we can get past papers etc.

DD got her report yesterday which she was really disappointed with, she has been given target grades across all subjects of a 6 except RE which is a 5. For someone who struggles a bit academically I think this is great, tried to impress on her that predicted grades are at best an educated guess however she was having none of it

Tricky, did she manage the day? Are you sure it's not an issue at school? Does it happen in the holidays too or just when she's at school?

If she's not actually being sick then she needs to try to go in, may be worth checking nothing else is going on medical wise. DD gets horrible nausea the week before her period.

Am I being a good mum or a bad mum?

I sent DD in to school today nearly in tears because she felt sick.
But She has had blips of feeling sick on school days since about June this year which then don't come to anything (ie not sick). There doesn't seem to be a pattern yet (food, periods, lessons) that I can establish. She was sent home lunchtime on Mon, did all day Tue though feeling sick, but came home and ate stuff, then this morning.

So not wanting her to miss lessons I sent her in with note this morning. She went straight to medical room so they rang me, I explained situation, she's at school now but tbh I'm expecting a call at break or even after p1. I'm only 5 mins away so can pick her up easily.

What would your approach be?

I think I need to get her to keep a food diary as maybe there is a pattern that I've just not spotted.

Yes, hats off to any young people with the spare time/ energy to do the fundraising!

I have heard other families complaining about how they could all just have chipped in for the trip, as it was always the same family members sponsoring the child for x activity, supporting the cake sale etc etc.
There’s also the extra costs with passports immunisations etc. I think it’s unrealistic for us on a number of different levels.

Not sure what assessments have been happening... think they might stick to the same regime as KS3 (modular testing every term). Which I have found a bit much, but perhaps at this stage it starts to make sense.

Our school don't seem to do Seneca for science; is it something you can subscribe to as an individual?

I'll have to have a look at Seneca as DD uses that for science too and always has.

We too have had 3 year science and RE but like Teen sets were changed in Year 10 and they have gone over a lot of the stuff they covered last year.

DD just has test after test I think she's just got used to it now!

hellohah Yes and no!

They started the science syllabus at the start of year 9. They got a surprising amount done but they seem to be re-covering now and filling in bits that were 'too hard' last year. (They have also changed teachers and sets for going into y10). So biology they had assessment on Section 1 Key Concepts before half term, and then Section 2 Cells&Control this week.

RE they started last year but most are doing half RE at end y10. DD isn't because she is doing full course, but is just preparing for test on Islamic beliefs for core RE having recently done 'Religion and Life' with her options RE.

Other things like Eng Lit, Geography, Food only started this term but she has had an assessment in each of them.

The assessments aren't full on, but there always seems to be 1 or 2 or 3 to be preparing for so it's dragging on a bit.

@Teen does your DD do 3 year GCSE's? DS only seems to have the KPI assessments at the end of topics, he definitely hasn't had weeks of assessments. His friend message him before half term asking for help with Physics (his friend does 3 year GCSE's at a different school) and DS laughed and said he'd only done 6 weeks of the course, so would help next year haha!

Wanted to mention something re Seneca.

DD's school have signed them up to Seneca for Science. But I have discovered they have also given us access to other courses as well. (I don't know if that is normal when schools do it or not).

In particular, for anyone who is doing Food Preparation and Nutrition with Eduqas/WJEC, the CGP revision guide is inconsistent with the spec, but the Seneca stuff seems to follow the spec.

Our school does a Kenya Trip.
DD isn't doing it because
a) she doesn't want to go so far away for such a long time
b) she wouldn't be much help on physical projects as not very coordinated or strong
c) wouldn't have the bandwidth for fundraising
d) we've been to S.Africa as a family

Getting a bit fed up of assessments here. They started the week before half term and have been going on so long now we are round to repeat subjects with a 2nd Biology assessment!

DDs school do this trip, it's to Zanzibar. It looks bloody amazing however she has a severe nut allergy and it wasn't managed particularly well on the last trip she went on. Some of this trip looks fairly remote so we've decided against it.

I agree it's an awful lot of fundraising across 2 such important years but still I imagine a fabulous experience.