GCSE’s summer 2020 thread 5 - And then there were none..

Blimey hes just come in, given me a hug and asked me what I wanted for lunch. Now he's making me a ham and cheese toastie - maybe I can push for the reading while he's in such an accommodating mood....

He may surprise you!
DD also 16 is a party animal but I think she’s thinking ‘needs must’

How lovely, I can't imagine 16yo DS wanting to read with me now, makes me sad.

We did to kill a mocking bird together but she then went in to read go set a watchman by herself
A kestrel for a knave (fabulous book) was another.
Strangely enough, she has mentioned us reading a book together again which I think we should organise given the current circumstances.

DS's reading has also slowed down, it was definitely affected once they introduced ipads into school.

Yes, we had bookcases full including some classics which I used to read with him as some of the text is hard to understand. I remember reading Tom Sawyer with him, bloody hell that was hard work!!

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn yes an avid reader from being small
We used to read my idea of ‘classics’ together in between the usual popular stuff.
We have several bookcases full of books.
Her reading has slowed down this year-of the nil GCSEs- but she’s got a few lined up once she’s finally dismissed!

That pic didn't come out quite as I meant - oops.

National Average (2015)
Maths - Level 6 or above 9%
Reading - Level 6 or above 0%
Writing (teacher assessed) - Level 6 or above 2%
Spelling, Punctuation & Grammar - Level 6 or above 4%

A natural reader Proggy, is she still a reader?

@FlyingPandas found this online. Not my school just first I found that had a graph!

DD got L6 in reading but the difference between the L3-5 reading and L6 reading paper was vast- not so much of a jump from Maths and SPAG papers.
DD used to ‘bounce over’ the L3-5 reading paper questions as she was ‘looking for other things than the obvious’- if that makes sense.

That's good going getting the 6 in reading Fools!

I think they were being kind putting him, I think they probably felt they needed to enter at least one boy , he was never going to achieve it but e's always been a reader hence keeping his interest through to A level.

Yes that's right, there was a 0% pass rate for Yr 6 Level 6 in reading reality was 0.1% pass rate I think? It was generally considered that DCs didn't have the emotional maturity for that level of understanding in reading. DS was the only boy to be put forward in his year, ended up with a 5a - now taking English Lit at A level. The maths was much easier to attain as it wasn't about nuanced understanding but if you were good at maths i could be taught.

I remember similar kind of figures from our school @JustHereWithMyPopcorn. From what I remember it was generally harder to achieve the L6 in reading than maths - something to do with the logical problem solving ‘steps’ of maths that meant L6 work could be taught to highly able DC, but L6 reading requiring an emotional maturity of inference and deduction that most even highly able DC would not have developed at 10/11? Unless I’ve dreamed that

I guess numbers would depend on the school/area/individual cohorts but I remember a friend’s DD (who attended a school in a much more deprived area than ours) being entered for L6 - she was the only one in her 3 form entry primary who was entered but they still entered her, although she didn’t get it.

Our junior school did Level 6. DS did level 6 maths (about 15 children did) and level 6 reading (only three children took the level 6 reading and one achieved it).

@HPFA I think there were more children sitting L6 than that article suggests.
DD also went to a primary in a deprived area and was taught in combined year group classes. Out of 13 Yr6s (14Yr5 also in class) 2 sat SATs L6- DD included whom achieved 3 x L6.
Many of her peers at her current independent school who moved from state primaries also sat L6 papers.

DS's school had a (hastily thrown together) leavers' assembly on 20th March, albeit without a fair proportion of the year group who were self isolating/working at home due to underlying health issues.

They normally hold this in July (around the same time as prom).
The school are not expecting the Year 11s back. DS has already said there will be some of his year group he is unlikely to see again.
(Though I imagine school will try to do some sort of get together if it's at all possible).

That's interesting about level 6 SATS @HPFA. I had no idea some parents used to use them as a benchmark. The primary school dd went to was in a very deprived area, with around 65% on free school meals and they prepared her for the level 6 papers. I'm not sure who else took them, but it would have been a very small group. I thought at the time that it was a good school! But the stats would have shown only one level 6 that year which would probably put some parents off (not that any pushy parents came near that school!).

The lack of tracking in her current school was strange at first, given the way they used to meticulously move through the key stages in primary, with tests every half term/term or so. Ds, year 9, is in the state system and he gets constant assessment and tracking and I'm not sure I like it for secondary. It seems very hit and miss anyway - probably because he is hit and miss, often forgetting there's a test/not revising.

I think they'll look at a school's prior performance for independent schools - although maybe they'll want some evidence from the school that this year's cohort is similar in ability to previous years.

I'm still wondering what they'll do for home educated children!

@Proggymat

It may be due to the fact that not many pupils did Level 6 and according to this article not all schools even did them.

www.theschoolrun.com/level-6-sats-explained.

DD's school actually sent out a letter asking parents not to contact teachers about grades! I suspect it would probably be counterproductive anyway

There seems to be a big difference between the strict documenting state schools have to do and the range of assessments private schools have. This will be interesting, especially at A Level.

Doesn’t shock me about Eton though - I went to public school for 6th form and they hadn’t a clue about me and had no idea I was failing and probably just based everything on my good GCSE grades.

It was an eye-opener when I did my PGCE to see how time-consuming and joy-sucking all the assessments and documentation was in the state sector. Very handy for 2020 though!

Our school have said "We hope to be able to hold Prom, but have no idea at the moment if that is realistic. Don't spend lots of money on stuff for prom, but if we can run it we will.

I have also had an email for dd's head of house thanking me for all my support over the years - and a couple of teachers have posted FB posts saying "Goodbye" to their GCSE classes...

On the other hand - the school show has NOT yet been cancelled - it is pencilled in for the end of July... no idea if it has any hope of happening.

So they certainly aren't expecting them back to lessons, but are hoping there will be some school before the summer break.

Prom hasn’t been mentioned from our school. Nor yearbooks, hoodies or any other usual end of school celebrations.
They have said they will get the year group together at some point when this is all over.

DS wasn’t bothered about going to prom although I’m sure he would have if his friends ended up going. He is very upset about the football season being cancelled because the team he plays for were having a brilliant season and were neck and neck at the top of the table

DD knows what her initial predicted grades were in December because the local sixth forms request them as part of the application process, and the schools are expected to supply them for this purpose. This was before January mocks though. Obviously she got a bit lower than expected in mocks because she was unwell.