Year 10 - 2023/2024 Support Thread

DD and I were at a Sports Award Event on Fri eve. It’s was a lovely sit down dinner with a fabulous speaker, Sue Antiss, talking about gender equality in sport. It was so much better than I was expecting and even better still as DD won awards for two of her sports! Yaay! Which definitely cheered her up.
@DataColour did you get anywhere with PE video clips? Does he race in a velodrome or is it road racing? I can imagine the latter being a nightmare to capture! DD3 also doing PE, luckily none of hers are summer sports. I’m going to ask to see what’s she done today as I’ve no clue where she’s at with it and whilst I’m sure the school will be reminding them, it’s very much up to the students. I think she’s also got some English coursework so need to remember to ask if she’s up to speed with it.

@NotDonna - ours did that too with the Year 10 exams for DD1 - it just seemed to be down to the individual teacher - which didn't help anyone. Literally no idea how DD2's school is doing it- they keep sending us stuff about 'benchmarking' but it doesn't make much sense to us, especially since DD has changed schools, systems, exam boards (you name it) and never took SATs in either Year 2 or 6 so is utterly data free as far as we can see!

@Oblomov24 I’m not sure how they do it tbh. Schools have huge amounts of data and can probably say with a reasonable degree of certainty which children will achieve what. I’ve no clue if that data is used for end of year exams, or if they say last year a 5 in maths gcse was 50-60% so give a child achieving that percentage a 5. I think giving 8/9’s will be pretty certain, if they are looking at the data.

In DD1’s yr10 (6 yrs ago) some teachers would give a grade ‘if they sat the exam today’ , whilst others would forecast. Ot wasn’t always clear who was doing which.

My thoughts exactly Data!

@Oblomov24 My DH who's a secondary school/6th form chemistry teacher says the grading system at this stage of their GCSEs is guess work mainly, hopefully an educated guess! May not even be consistent between subjects in the same school, let alone different schools.

Not Donna hope she is ok. I think schools do things very differently. I was out with my PNG last night at a cheese and wine bar, of the 5 of us, 4 had already got ye 10 exam results, whereas my ds2 doesn't sit them till next week. As I said I'm expecting 5's and 6's and encouraging him to push to achieve a 7 or even possibly an 8 in the real thing, but I'll let him off with a 5 or 6 in his Spanish and RE, because they are his least favourite. Many last night already had 7's, 8's and one 9.

But (re your dd aswell) actually one has to question, what does that 9 mean, so early, is it a realistic evaluation? How can a year 10 child really get a 9, when they are only 1 year into a 2 year syllabus and haven't covered a large proportion of the syllabus yet. All I mean is that maybe her school set more realistic papers and gave slightly lower grades, to show where the children were at atm. Did your other 2 dd's tell dd3 that similar had happened to them?

My daughters have had end of year exams since yr7 so they’re used to revising for lots of exams at the same time and being in the main hall. So DD3 can’t use that as an excuse 🤣
But, from a girl who only 6 months ago hated school, didn’t see the point and although would do homework it was minimal effort, there’s been a total 180’ transformation. She’s suddenly very mature about it all, organised and incredibly keen to do her best and willing to put the effort in. No clue why this is but it’s fabulous timing. It means she’s more likely to reach her potential (won’t be 7, 8, 9) but that’s absolutely ok!

Oh @NotDonna - certainly we had that in Year 10 with DD1 - the teachers do 'get real' and want to scare them - it is often about exam technique at this stage I think. We're dreading the return of DD2's maths exam. She says it was really hard and she revised the wrong bits. It's often the first time that they're faced with them all at once as well, and learning to prioritise. Hope she feels better soon and her siblings are helpful.

@QueenMabby I suspect your DD has done very well, but I understand the angst - the rumours don't help do they.

DD2's concert was excellent last night - it is my favourite one which has the 'fun' ensembles in it, not just the ones on a pre-professional track, which takes the pressure off massively. She was positively glowing afterwards - and we got to take her away with us last night and do the school run from the local Premier Inn after a huge breakfast. She was pretty pleased with that!

@NotDonna sorry that your DD is disappointed with her grades. I don't think it's an indication of much really, there is lot of time for improvement, hope she remains positive, although she must feel like it's the end of the world right now! Glad she's got her sisters for comfort.

@QueenMabby DS is doing FM too but haven't had any exams in it this year. It would have been interesting to know how he is doing in it.
Your DD sounds amazing! DS is also an early riser, even at the weekends, but he just goes on his Xbox!

@minisnowballs Oohh West Side Story! That's great! Hope her concert went well last night.

DD3 finished end of years now and beginning to get results. No 7/8/9’s here sadly. She did worse in maths than last year and cried bless her. It’s disappointing as she’s been studying so hard. One question was an equation plus another equation but on her paper the plus was faded and looked like a minus so lost 4 points there (apparently). I’m hoping the poor results don’t make her despondent and think ‘what’s the point’. She was quite down about it last night. Both her big sisters are home for summer & were really encouraging so I’m hoping she can keep going.

Wow, everyone is so busy! Thanks for all the suggestions of which apps etc your dc like, this is very helpful to me.

@DataColour Ow. good luck to him - hope the arm holds up! DD1 is doing her A-Level mocks at the moment and keeps injuring herself doing aerial dance (surprisingly hard on the arm muscles) and then complaining of the pain.

The musical is West Side Story - amazing, of course, but I honestly think she'll be lucky to get chorus as it's a seriously talented bunch of kids. They asked in the audition if she can do an American accent - she said no, but she can do a Puerto Rican one as we used to live in Mexico - but she also thinks that isn't really appropriate (and i'm not sure anymore - it certainly wouldn't be here in London but it's a very different place).

Not sure DD is doing that much work in the evening @QueenMabby - and she has a concert tonight we're going down for so certainly none today. Think there may be some consolidation to be done over her long summer hol while we're all still working.

@minisnowballs that's a great score for science! I hope she gets the part she wants in the musical. What's the musical?

@QueenMabby your DD sounds so busy! How does she have the energy?! My two would never contemplate doing anything before school. Great that your DD is so motivated. Only thing my DS would be ok doing in the morning is 5 mins of extra music practise just before his exams and I thought that was pretty good!

DS has got a geography exam and an English exam today. He's tired and achy as he injured his arm on Tuesday playing cricket, he did some amazing bowling and he dived to catch the ball (successfully!) and ended up with a grazed elbow on the right arm, so after a day of writing in school yesterday it's even more painful today. So, Geography and English exams are probably the last subjects he wants to have exams in today because of all the writing!

Still really impressive @QueenMabby - she must be super organised - whatever she does in future she'll fly!

Just heard from DD2 - she's rehearsing all day today - tomorrow she's helping with the interview process for new music tutor on her main instrument. When does she actually go to school?

@QueenMabby so glad it isn't just us. I made her go for 'secondary part' though I don't think she'd be getting a main part in a school full of singing specialists anyway- really don't want it taking up too much time. Ballet as well? How on EARTH does your daughter fit it all in - we certainly don't have any of that.

@QueenMabby sounds like an honour! I'm not sure DD is really ever in the classroom at the moment, but that's her own choice, and ours for letting her go to specialist school.

Yesterday she auditioned for the school musical, which is next year. I'm not that delighted about this, but pretty sure that if she wasn't acting in it she'd be playing, so either way won't be in lessons while rehearsals are going on. The old school didn't allow Year 11s to do any extra-curriculars at all in school, so this is a huge headshift for us as a family. She has to ask her head of department for music whether she can audition for things but no-one seeks permission from her parents!

First lot of exam results back from last week - 9/8 for combined science. She's reasonably pleased (not elated)- she must have absolutely smashed physics as she knows her biology score was woeful. Fingers crossed for the rest.