GCSE summer 2020 thread 6 - Carry on Corona Cohort, Further adventures aboard the Corona Charabanc.

@PaddingtonPaddington ds (year 9) was diagnosed a year ago and started on medication in Sept. He’s not been taking it in lockdown because he mainly gets distracted by other people. There’s also an element of impulsivity with him. Happy to chat by DM if you want?

Swinging from it’ll all be fine, reviewing previous year school results etc to oh dear what if it’s not and then DDs accepted her fate so I should too. Roll on results day. Agree for those of you with DC awaiting A levels it’s more significant.

Following DDs appointment with the psychiatrist she has a working diagnosis of inattentive ADHD. DD despite agreeing that the symptoms summed her up completely still seems somewhat shocked. She’s considering whether to start any medication in September. Anyone else have a DC with ADHD taking medication?

Yes, Music Btec.

I’ve also got a dd awaiting A level results but she’s not reliant on them. She was gutted the exams were cancelled as she self studied for one. Luckily her gcse teacher had been mentoring her, set mock exams, and she took the AS level last year.

However she is in a cohort of 1 for that subject and no one from her school has ever taken an A level in that subject before.

Good luck to all the A Level parents! I agree, it’s much more significant than GCSEs. Hope they get where they want for the next stage.

Another one here using up all my stress on DS’s A level results. He is far more random than his sister who is super-consistent.

We are off on holiday next week to try to avoid thinking about either set of results!

Agreed @Monkey2001 - I had a sleepless night fretting about DS1's A Levels. I swing from optimistic to pessimistic from day to day. I try to fret a bit about DD's GCSEs to be even handed as I feel like I ought to but it's quite lack lustre. Poor DS2 has a solitary GCSE result as well (Year 10) and he barely gets a look in.

Interesting point re use of level 6 SATS. I hope they can use the Y7 CATS as DS'2s (non-selective) school had their highest ever average CAT score in his year, so another bright cohort who would probably have out-performed historic results. I think DS may not like his Comp Sci result as, according to the FTL data, the gap between 2019 and CAGs was particularly high for comp sci, so may be heavily moderated. Also they have a great teacher who had only been there for 2 years and he would have made a big difference to results. . He has said that if he gets 2 grades below what he hoped for he might do the November exam for that one.

I still think our worries pale into insignificance compared to A level DCs.

@sandybayley I guess there a few similar schools around the country!

Ah I thought you were London. Your description sounds exactly like one of our local schools.

@sandybayley we’re not in London or the south east - are you?

@Comefromaway I hope your da gets the passes he needs. Am I right in thinking he’s doing a music BTEC?

I only know ds's ranking in one subject, music. It's a small cohort and he is ranked number one. We have been consistently told over the last two years that his knowledge of theory outstrips everyone else and his composition was a high standard. So he is hoping for a 7 or 8.

Everything else is anyone's guess. He probably won't pass science, in English he was bottom set but had a tutor and was doing really well with her. They moved him up a set but he didn't cope with the larger class. So how he was ranked is anyone's guess.

@crazycrofter - from your description I can guess which school your DD is at. DD is at a school very local to yours which is also very selective. They do have sets for maths but don't publicise rankings. The girls know who has got what mark though as they talk and then they tell their mothers...

The only thing we as parents 'know' is when it comes to prize-giving.

@sandybayley dd's school is highly selective but very anti-ranking etc, so they determinedly never give results out in public or rank students. There's no sets, no prefects, no speech night or annual prizes etc. So we don't have much of an idea really.

Whereas at ds' grammar school they're setted for almost every subject, we're given breakdowns for all exam results, what percentage of the year got each mark etc, so if it was him I'd have quite a good idea, despite it being a year group of 150.

Haha, I wasn't one of those mums in reception! And to be honest, I've never cared about ranking - until now!

Dd is in a year group of 90 so it's a bit easier although in reality she doesn't really know where she is, except for in Spanish. However, I have to confess (and maybe I'm more like the PTA mum than I realise!) that at parents' evening teachers always have their mark book out so you can see (upside down) the scores of all the other girls. I do sometimes have a scan down just to check whether dd is getting similar marks to everyone else....

Dd has been counting up girls she knows struggle in Maths to see if she can reach the allocated number of 6s and below! This was to reassure herself that she'd get a 7.... I'm not sure it was especially reassuring as she didn't quite reach the number.

@FoolsAssassin I'm pretty sure they would just look at 5 and above as the high achievers, so if there's more of them they could justify more 7s and above. @ChristopherTracy I'm sure the task of ranking is already a nightmare to get right - I can't imagine any school then readjusting the rankings to ensure that certain children didn't get in to the sixth form? Quite apart from it being a very unethical thing to do! Do you have reason not to trust this school?

I know where DD sits in the cohort because she reports back on exam results. It might be a girl thing as neither of my DS have shared the kind of information their sister does.

I suppose it might be a bit like when they were in Year R - intensive questioning of child! Whilst trying NOT to resort going through other children's book bags ( yes a PTA Mum i know did this!).

I am joking, of course , but sometimes at parents evenings they do say things that might give clues - otherwise in such a big school and lots of non-streamed subjects ( including English) I have no idea.

Rather impressed by all those working out their DC's rankings for each subject. Can I ask how you're doing this? Are these all very small schools so your DC knows (or has a good idea) of the relative performance of every other student taking the subject? DS might have a clue in a subject like music (23 pupils taking it, he would rank lowest or second lowest :) ) but there are 360 students taking subjects like English, and DS would have no clue about anyone outside his class except for the odd one of his friends. Though I guess more schools set than don't (DS's school doesn't) which gives you some idea to start with (although presumably there is overlap between sets to contend with and some schools have multiple sets at the same level?)

I hope that at DS' school the rankings were done by computer rather than by the teachers. They already knew which dc had firm offers at other schools and colleges so were 'safer' bets to give lower scores to iyswim and be asked to leave. I am trying not to believe that would be the case but...

@crazycrofter I think there is lots of evidence to support higher attainment but my concern is it just all goes into one big pot and gets spit out by a computer. No thought, just the macro approach which won't allow for nuance.

@FoolsAssassin and @Wheresthebeach if they’re state schools, hopefully they can use SATS results to support higher results than previously?

Dd genuinely doesn’t seem to know where she sits in terms of ability, except for in Spanish where she’s very definitely bottom! Last year there was one 7 in Spanish and the rest were 8 and 9s. But there is another Spanish class and she’s not sure if anyone in that class is below her!

Obviously, it really doesn’t matter if she gets 7s instead of 8s. But she particularly wanted an 8 in Spanish!

I’m sure it would have been more stressful if they’d taken exams anyway. And less predictable. At least in this scenario it feels like we can work out logically the worst case scenario.

I guess this is always a difficult time, if the exam went well then the fear is high grade boundaries, if it didn't then the hope would be low grade boundaries. It a tough system - I'm Canadian and come from a system that was '80% is an A' if you have a bright year then you get more A's, a less bright then less A's. Belling only done at Uni's mainly as a double check that nothing is crazy out of kilter (although I'm talking 40 years' ago!).

I'm having days of slight obsessiveness too. Casually asking DD if she knows if she's near the top in her important subjects. Our problem is that this year is the brightest the school has had in a long time, so everyone was hoping for the best ever GCSE's. Seems unlikely now which just comes across as unfair.

Literally just had the 'damped down your expectations' chat with DD today. She had convinced herself that there is no way her grades could be lower than her mocks, which I'm just not sure of now.

Yep, another one here who thought about trying to rank but in a 170 students cohort, DD has no idea where she falls other than in her own subject grouping, with multiple other groups in same subject.

She’s got a week’s online internship coming up in August that should break up the road to waiting which is good news in this house. And her sport returns today so another win...