Current Year 10 2020/2021 support thread

Welcome back Piccolo Glad to hear your DS is doing so well now but sorry he was ill.

That sounds lovely QueenMabby hope you enjoy your time in Dorset.

Hope you have a nice day in Manchester TheOnlyMrsW DD is also mainly located in her room though has started going for a run for an hour a day early in the morning so sees more than her phone an hour a day. No idea about revision but think she needs a break and she is going down to London for day on Friday so will get out then at least.

Heard LA are having a meeting with us then issuing a draft EHCP so looks like we will get one, only took 3 years. But good he will have one for y10 and y11. He seemed to enjoy day out and its good we got him out as he's very anxious about going out after last lockdown and hardly speaking but he chatted a bit at the end of it.

Gorgeous weather in our corner of Lancashire, not that DD has spent any time in it at all, she's very much against the outside unless there is a football involved .
We're having a day out in Manchester on Friday, other than that a quiet week. DSis came to visit with her kids last weekend which was fantastic!!!!
DD has actually been working quite hard on revision, they are having formal exams the week after half-term with everyone in the sports hall, allocated desks and external invigilators. French and German speaking is the week after but nothing on the English speaking so far.
Silkie your day sounds lovely

Sounds lovely Silkie. We’re in Dorset seeing my parents - first time staying with them since last July! DS has a cold bless him - just think he’s over tired and rather run down. Am glad that our school has a “no homework in the holidays” policy that is reasonably well stuck to so neither of mine have work to do. Just a bit of beach time and lots of food!
Hope everyone else is managing to get a bit of downtime too.

Had a lovely sunny day out eating ice cream at a thatched cottage pub by the river and then canoeing for 2.5 hours seeing the wildlife. DS even started chatting a bit. DD will see her friends in London on Friday. Hope everyone is having a nice half term.

I feel glad DD had exams after Easter (and was very diligent about revising). Although English still hadn’t given them their results back by half term - DD would like to have all her results back!

It's a massive leap to have two years' testing at once, isn't it. There's no way ds can revise more than a small proportion of the syllabus, I'm just hoping this doesn't count towards predicted grades for 6th form - but then again the last 18 months have been such a write off I'm not sure what he can use.

DS did his spoken language last term, had to be in front of an audience with 2 or more people. He chose to record his at home with us watching and we asked questions at the end. It goes on the GCSE certificate as pass, merit, distinction next to their exam grade

Our school does them in y9, DDs was first term of y9 which seems way to early. She struggled with it and was allowed to do it with no audience in the end. It doesn't count towards the GCSE grade just goes on as pass, fail, merit or distinction I think. I would maybe ask the teacher if he's likely to be very anxious and see what adjustments they can make.

I was wondering about that Eng lang speaking test too- last time ds had to do a speech he had a panic attack. Can't find out if they are doing one this year and if it's an actual gcse one. Mfl oral is bad enough..,

Glad your DD is still doing so well academically Rollergirl Mine appears to be trying to catch up for socialising missed in lockdown but hopefully will fit revision in somewhere.

Discovered DS has to write a speech for his English Language speaking test, this is DS who is often mute and doesn't write. I said DS I see you have a speech to write. Yes he said and walked off. He also claims he doesn't need to revise ever as he is a human encylopedia and human calculator. Trouble is tests up until now have been short but that won't work when he has 2 years tested at once.

Finally, DS1 has confirmed he does have some revision to do, but he says he knows what he is doing so I’m going to mostly trust him with an occasional ‘any revision’?

Hope you and dd can get some sun today @Rollergirl11, and that she's doing ok at home. Having online provision sorted out is the one bonus of this year

Hey everyone, hope everybody is enjoying the long awaited sunshine! We are not really able to do too much at the moment. DD has to eat 6 times a day (supervised by me) as part of her meal plan so it makes going to see friends quite difficult. She doesn’t really want to see many people anyway and she isn’t meant to exert herself too much. So feel a bit housebound.

The only good thing about this is that DD is doing a shed load of revision! They have their exams week beginning 21st June. Thankfully she was able to return to school the week just gone and she doesn’t feel like she’s behind from her time not in school as she was able to use the Teams provision. Her Maths teacher has offered to give her a couple of sessions after school after half term just to go over some bits that she wasn’t able to get the hang of virtually but other than that she’s quite confident.

DS insists he doesn’t have any exams and we haven’t heard from school that there are. He is pretty studious and diligent though, so largely letting him crack on. He will be mortified if he drops any sort of grade so maybe this is the moment for him to possibly do so and realise even if you are good and stuff a bit of revision is still a good thing.

DD is doing 3 sciences though its English and History that get moaned about here. She is very strong in physics and chemistry and much weaker in biology. One she does most seems to be maths but she has 3 Maths ones.

We've got lots of science resources, maybe too many! If ds works through them all it will take til August while Frankenstein languishes unread...

DS out with friends at the beach. No sign of revision starting yet but think he needs a bit of a break first and exams not starting till towards the end of June. DS also doing 3 sciences and have got him the CGP revision flashcards with questions one side and answers the other and also some workbooks with questions. He’s best at chemistry and physics so probably needs more effort on biology.

DS is doing three separate sciences. As they started the syllabus in yr9 there is a lot. However science is DS’s favourite so I think he did more revision of these subjects for that reason too!
I found www.physicsandmathstutor.com invaluable for science revision (no gcse maths oddly) with resources by exam board and topic and more importantly question papers and mark schemes by topic too.
Www.mathsmadeeasy.co.uk (or .com - can’t remember!) was good for maths revision by topic. Ds used both.

Yes the science is the bit that is worrying me. There's so much to learn...

Hope everyone is getting on ok with tired half-term teens. I am just looking at various lists of stuff ds needs to know for end of year exams (in three weeks) and there is so much! especially Sciences. Does Science (doing 3 separate ones) generally take up way more revision time than anything else? Ds is unlikely to do well in any of them despite working hard, seems he has to learn every topic all over again especially after lockdown, and I'd so much rather he polished up the few subjects he seems to be OK at. His school has high expectations which is great except when you can't meet them :(

Hope everyone has a good half term, at least it looks like good weather.

DDs exams are after half term for 2 weeks and then DS's y9 ones after that. Y11s have just left. DH and DD have been our for a long walk together and DD has done a run this morning and is now out with friends. Not sure how much revising is going on, if any, but she up to now has been getting excellent grades so leaving her to it. DS is more of a concern as he won't write anything in any subject, not heard more re EHCP but hopefully will get that before too long. He is starting to speak a bit more and done about three times leaving house as well as school in past month so that is improving.

Not that much planned for half term, just a boat trip and a canoeing trip. Think DD will go down to London again. She got in trouble for black nail varnish and being late still, argh.

Well done to everyone for making it to half term! Hope you all have a chance to enjoy the break from the usual routine and the nicer weather.

In terms of revision our Yr10 exams start on the 14th June and I am trying to get DS to do a little and often approach. I know school have suggested things like making a revision timetable but some subjects have been more helpful than others by giving lists of topics covered etc and from other subjects - almost no information! It is quite tricky to get DS motivated especially in his weaker subjects (and he can't just be left to get on with it as he is so easily distracted) but hopefully we will be able to muddle through together. I have bought him lots of study guides and science flash cards etc so now it's just getting him to actually use them.

He does have a mentor one to one session each week and she has been discussing revision with him and she sent an email with some useful links in but quite a few of them were for maths which is not a subject he has any difficulty with! Our chat with the SENCO was quite helpful I think, hopefully we will have a clearer picture of his future options when we have the assessment results and the school will finally see he is going to fail French and let him drop it (he has actually not done any work in French for a year so as far as we are concerned has already dropped it!)

I'd lost this thread but popping back to ask- how much revision did your year 10s do for their mocks?
DS isn't keen on revising, and school have done little more (it seems) than say 'you should revise'