Anyone want a thread for starting year 10 this autumn?

Yes, that's right @MyOtherProfile He got his result today - an 8. But as it's only a half GCSE it carries the same number of marks as a 4 would have in a full GCSE. Still, one down, 10 to go next June!

It's great that your daughter knows what A Levels she wants to take! My son has fixed on two, but not a third yet.

I wish our open days had been in July - seems like such a good time to have them. Ours are all directly before their first set of mock exams.

Anyone getting any GCSE results this week? DS took short course RS so gets results on Thursday. We are away though so he'll have to wait until we're back to get the results as he forgot to sign up to get the result emailed.

I appreciate that short course RS is rather pointless but DS' school took the view that if they have to give RS lessons as part of the national curriculum they may as well take the exam. If nothing else it gives the students an authentic GCSE experience.

DS is also starting to think about sixth form colleges/schools and what A levels to apply for. The open days locally all seem to be in October just before mocks in November.

Oops, sorry everyone, have just realised that this is last year's year 10 in September thread. Good luck to all your DCs though.

I'm joining - another with DS2 moving into year 10 this September. DS1 is awaiting GCSE results and then has several college/6th form offers to study for A levels to choose between.

DS2 has to do Maths, English Language and Literature and Science. School seems to have changed the options system chosen Combined Science, giving him another option slot elsewhere, Music (I'm slightly surprised by this one but he wants to carry on getting music lessons as well as playing sax in one of the school's bands), History, Computer Science and a BTEC in Enterprise (not sure about this one but maybe it's a good idea that he's got the option of doing something a little different there).

His school doesn't have a 6th form attached, though there are local schools that do if he wanted to go down that route. We then have some sixth form colleges so good options. I am trying to steer him toward a mix of courses. He just gets very cross when I broach it.

Similar to here, we had a letter this week to say that there was concern about his English progress.

Today he has asked if Maths, Geography and Economics are a good A level combination. He's not predicted to get 5 at grade 5 and above. (8 for maths, 5 for geography, everything else 4 and below)

@MyOtherProfile it’s nice to not be alone!

very difficult when friend’s dc’s are revising hard and getting 8/9 etc.

New to the thread 👋🏼

My DD’s predicted grades were lower than in previous reports which was disappointing.

Not sure what’s going on although she barely did any revision (I was hoping that the results would give her a kick up the arse).

She has no idea what she wants to do, no interest in doing any work and says she doesn’t care either!!

Ive said that because she doesn’t know what pathway to choose then she needs to work hard to keep her options open.
a pretty exhausting week and I have no idea how to navigate this at all!

Thanks wonderstuff. DS is doing psychology at GCSE and dislikes it, so I doubt he's going to be persuaded by sociology (yes, I know they are very different but he has bagged them together). Also, sociology is only offered at one of our four local colleges.

He has promised he will look at all the subjects without his preconceived ideas at the open days in the Autumn. I hope he does because otherwise he'll end up doing nothing at all as he's tired, grumpy and claims to hate all of his school subjects equally at the moment.

myotherprofile I honestly don't know. We are considering one that does a much more supportive learning pathway, but so far it seems you need to have a EHCP which he doesn't. They might be able to facilitate one A level alongside other options.

My eldest is doing A'levels in Law, Geology and Environmental Science so totally all new subjects. This is at a college rather than sixth form, the former often giving a wider scope of subjects than a school sixth form can. (Not really an option in my area)

DS - is my just about to finish yr 10. His exams were dreadful. I know his English teacher is going to be looking at the potential of a scribe for him (just had a new teacher) He has other allowances for exams in other subjects.

He desperately wants to do Maths A level, and whilst his target grade is okay for that, his others are mainly 2-4's.

Dd just back from work experience, went to spend a week with her aunt who’s senior at Lancaster. Did a project with their analytics team and is now wondering about statistics a-level. So the short list is Spanish, psychology, statistics, biology chemistry.. Think Spanish is a definite. So difficult to narrow it down when they’re only 15 making these decisions.

DD hasn't got a clue about what she wants to do, and is having trouble accepting that growing up is on the radar. She's sticking her head in the sand and hoping life will always be the way it is today. So I don't want to push her too much.

However, she's very bright and excels at academic subjects. She enjoys them but enjoys the arts more. I'm sure that her teachers will be encouraging her to take up the academic subjects for a level, but she's likely to push back and drift into art or film a levels. It'd be a struggle too far (at the moment) to get her to consider t level, or other 16-18 options.

I wouldn't mind either way, so long as there is a plan and strategy around which direction she's heading. She won't contemplate either 🤷‍♀️

loved

I did sociology a-level and lived it, it worked well alongside history, both subjects where writing a decent essay is the core skill.

DS has now finished for the summer, much to the annoyance of his younger brother who has a week to go. He’s talking vaguely about doing some study - he’s not got much planned apart from our family holiday. Any plans for summer study amongst your DC, or other more exciting stuff?

Yes, that’s the one I am referring to. I did watch their online open evening and it looks amazing. No idea if it will appeal but just trying to put as much in front of him as possible to help him pick a pathway for 16-18.

I did read that about T Levels and it’s only the second year of them running so they don’t really have enough evidence of success behind them yet.

@StColumbofNavron if film-type stuff is in the mix for your DS2, is the London Screen Academy on your radar? We went to an impressive open evening there.