Year 11 2023-24

DD is looking to do 4. History, politics, psychology, French.

I think this will be too much for her, but she can't decide which to take and I know at she won't be able to drop one mid way through the course because she sees that as quitting (no matter how much we and her teachers tell her otherwise).

I've booked 3 nights over the Easter weekend. Extra revision sessions are the second week of the school hols, so I think the break the first weekend will give DD chance to chill and refresh.

I'm hoping DD will do the same as she's undecided between RE and biology. School have facilitated this in the past if timetables allow and the unwanted fourth subject has been dropped by the autumn half term. School feel that three A levels is sufficient and I agree for DD that will be fine.

My daughter wants to take politics and economics at A level, which she's never studied plus business, which she's doing at GCSE and loves. I'm wondering if it would be sensible to start 4 A levels (the 4th in RE as she's predicted a 9) so if she hates one of the other 2 she could drop it without missing any lessons? Is that a good idea?

Easter the school may well put on extra sessions your DC may wish to attend.

For DD1 we went away the 4 days on actual Easter, which might work quite well this year as Easter is at the start of the holidays.

I usually spend this time of year planning travel for school holidays. We are sorted for summer, but what is the general consensus for February and Easter? Do kids generally want to stay at home and revise? We’ve got mocks for core subjects in February. And no other children to have to plan around!

@anoukis it sounds as though it's a policy to try and dissuade students from doing four A Levels. Most schools seem to work in "blocks". If your daughter could do maths and further maths in one block (although this is exceptionally hard to do) they might agree. Four completely distinct subjects might be impossible for the school to facilitate. Your option of taking German via a different provider might be the best option. Good luck with your discussion at parent's evening.

We have parent's evening tomorrow. I'm in two minds as to whether to ask the school if DS can drop Psychology. They didn't have a teacher through most of year 10 and so they haven't really covered even 25% of the course. They have a teacher now (although this seems patchy - she's in for a couple of weeks then out for a couple of weeks). He got a 4 in his mock and is predicted a 5 at GCSE. Given the lack of teaching and instruction I think this is pretty good. DS, however, thinks this will reduce his points average and look bad on his record. It's his 10th GCSE so very much a "nice to have" rather than a necessity. He wants to drop it in order to concentrate on the others. I have sympathy with his argument but suspect the school will not!

(edited for grammar)

@Waspie that's right, it doesn't make sense to me either. It's a good state school with above average (not exceptional) results. The "all GCSEs at 7+" rule applies only for those wanting to study 4 A-level subjects. On top of that there are some minimums per subject e.g. to be able to take Maths 7+, Further Maths 8+ and sciences 6+.

I'm guessing the 7+ rule across all subjects was added because of the high workload at A-level - only the most studious kids are offered the choice to study 4 subjects? Might also be because of timetabling issues, as it's not a large 6th form, a little over 100 students per cohort. In any case I will ask at parents evening. On the application form for the 6th forms she's applied to my DD listed Maths, Biology, and Chemistry plus Further Maths as a 4th option.

However, we now have a family debate - whether to change Further Maths to German - as the 4th subject. She's predicted 9 in German and is keen to study/work abroad at some point. She has a EU passport which will be a big help down the road. There are other options for German if she can't do a 4th subject e.g. studying independently and taking A-levels exams or the Goethe Institute exams.

Good idea @Marisquita, thanks. I'll take a look at the DVLA website DP has just suggested a young person's railcard too.

DP and I renewed our passports in the Autumn and they came back within a week so DS' could certainly arrive before the interview (fingers crossed). We didn't do DS' at the same time because we decided to wait for him to turn 16 so that we could get him a full 10 year passport.

@Waspie I think passport renewals are coming back pretty quickly at the moment.

Failing that, is he old enough (15y9m+) to apply for a provisional driving licence? That would be an alternative photo ID.

It's really odd that a standard comp would want 7+ in every GCSE subject @anoukis I would definitely query this.

Even the super selectives near me have a minimum of 56 points from top 8, not 9. Surely even the most able child has one subject which they might be weak in? For DS this is psychology where they were without a teacher for nearly all of year 10.

DS has his first sixth form college interview later this month. Typically, he has to take his passport as proof of identity and, the day before the interview email, I had sent it off to the passport office for renewal! I will email the college and explain. Hopefully they can offer an alternative. He doesn't have anything else with a photo on though.

DS has his MFL listening mock this week but has done no revision because "you can't revise for listening". I honestly despair.

Examiners can read most things!

😭 DS just did an English past paper today DH just looked at it and committed he could hardly read the writing and looks more like a G3.

Happy New Year to you all! Happy to have found this thread... yr 11 DD here.

My DD has done well so far with her mocks but lacks self-motivation and organization skills, so I'm doing my very best to help with that. (And I think I'm more stressed and tired than she is. I'm a single parent working full-time... and her dad isn't involved in anything school-related).

Most of her mock grades and predicted grades went up from the yr 10 Jun mocks to yr 11 Nov mocks - except in English and Art.

Her GCSE combo: English Lang, English Lit, Maths, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, History, German, Art, and FSMQ Additional Maths. For A-levels she plans to take Maths-Bio-Chem with either Further Maths or German as a 4th subject and is considering medicine or biosciences/biotech/biochem, hopefully one of the uni programs with a year abroad.

A couple of issues... Unfortunately, she "hates" her English teacher and it doesn't help that the teacher isn't too popular amongst kids 😬! Her Art teacher is great and she likes Art, but she's "only" predicted a 6... which she isn't too happy about. Her school's 6th form has a rule that says you need 7+ grades across ALL 9 subjects to be able to study 4 subjects at A-levels. (The 10th subject - FSMQ Add Maths - is excluded from this rule, as it is taught as an optional after school class).

Not sure why a 6 in Art should prevent her from studying FM or German as a 4th subject... I plan to ask at parents evening mid-Jan whether the school is flexible on that at all.

She's been revising for English over the Christmas break - especially English Lit where they didn't have a mock in Nov, but will sit a full English Lit paper in Feb mocks. Also worked on her Art portfolio assignments... that was very time consuming but not too tiring, as she loves art. Also loves that she is able to listen to music while working on it 😉. Apart from that, she's done several science and maths papers which were all assigned homework. This week she is revising for the German speaking mock exam, which is scheduled on Thursday.

Once that's done, she'll start revising for the next round of mocks, scheduled in the last 2 weeks of Feb straight after half term. Hopefully that's the last set of mocks before the actual GCSEs.

She'll also soon receive the externally set assignment paper for Art, as AQA sends them to schools on the 2nd of Jan. Tons of work on that one, but hopefully she can complete all the art work by April/early May, before all other GCSE exams start.

Oh and her school's 6th form is making conditional offers w/c 8 Jan, looking forward to getting that. She's applied to a few other local 6th forms (one selective and rest non-selective), as her school recommends that to all students -- but her own school is our preferred choice (local comprehensive mixed gender).

PS. Sorry for the long message, looks like I really needed a rant 😌

@BeingGrownUp dd will likely be fine for getting into sixth form but her chosen subjects are tough ones so I really want her to go in with confidence. Her friends all seem to be breezing through so I can’t speak to anyone in RL. It’s so hard to know how much to encourage without breaking her.

The party dc was obnoxious all night. She won’t be invited again.

That sounds so like my dd - it’s all been relatively simple until now but mocks showed that she isn’t where she wanted to be. It’s tricky as well because there’s no risk of her not getting into sixth form so there’s no motivation there. We promised to not discuss it over the holidays, but will need to sit down and make a plan when she’s back at school next week.

well done for not biting last night !

Can I join you? We’ve had fairly plain sailing with dd until now…. She works really hard and predictions were 8s for everything. Summer exams were all 5s but teachers all said they’re not worried, she just needs to learn exam style and next mocks will be better. Those were November and her English went down to a 4 with 5s and 6s (one 8).
she’s revising but not effectively and got a new English teacher in September who answers questions with “well you should know that!” We’ve arranged a tutor once a week but it’s heartbreaking seeing her struggle to reach her potential.

A “friend” at our nye party last night was going on about how many days until GCSEs etc and dd just went upstairs while I said goodbyes before rushing to hug her because I’d said “we’re just going month by month in this house” but the dc kept going despite seeing dd upset. The friend is year 10 so not in the pressure zone yet. I’ve never in my life wanted to tell a 14 year old to just fuck off and leave my dd alone at 1am this morning (obviously I didn’t say that and politely smiled while changing the subject).

anyway, I think the next 6 months are going to be really emotional. We’ve booked a summer holiday so we all can escape in July.

sorry for the long post. It’s helpful venting. Next mocks are after half term. Roll on Easter 😩

Thank you, I have seen this and of course there are always other routes which can be taken. If he does his best and gets a 5 then that’s fine. However I don’t feel he’s putting much effort in so far and I know he can do better if he puts the work in.

DD has put together a revision timetable for herself, she's quite grumpy about how much she has to do, she wonders why I am not bringing her up in Norway or Denmark where apparently children can do as much or as little as they please (Youtube said so, must be true). I've apologised for raising her in the UK, obviously a huge failing on my part!

I am lucky as she is on track and although not thrilled about the work at least motivated to get it done - her 6th form destination is lovely and she's looking forward to leaving her school.

@HoppingLady There is/was a BTEC Extended Diploma in Computing which could be an option perhaps if he ends up with the 5 for maths? (I don't know if it has turned into T Level).

I’ve told my DS he really needs step up his revision now. I’m disappointed that I have to push him so much.

He needs a 6 in maths as he has his heart set on Computer Science. But he’s only working at a level 4 at the moment and the school are confident that he will get a 5, but they’re recommending he does the foundation paper. He can do the higher paper if he works hard now for the next mocks and I provided past papers for him to do in December. He hasn’t even completed one 🙄. If it was me I would have done it straight away.

I’m annoyed with the school as they’ve never given much homework so he thinks 2 hours a day (which I think is minimum) is a lot.

I’m helping him with a revision timetable today and then I’m resigning to leave him to it. I’ve told him it’s up to him if he regrets it later.

Shocked after leaving DS to chill over Christmas he is actually revising today got his plan all set up for the rest of half term week too !!
Happy new Year to you all when it comes

I made a new revision timetable for my son to start yesterday. He made one at school back in about October and hasn't done any revision. I've taken out all subjects but English language, maths and science. His big issue is knowing what questions are asking of him. So my approach to his revision (bearing in mind he goes to subject specific revision sessions at school as well) is to print out past papers, let him tackle them but as revision, so if he needs to look things up he can, and then go through the answer scheme with him to teach him how he should have answered the questions. Then hopefully by May he should be so used to completing papers that he won't just sit in front of them and do barely anything, which I think happened in a few of his mocks!

He was not happy I was making him revise yesterday. I said it's only for a few months and if he works hard but still fails at least he knows he tried his best. Whereas if he continues gaming all hours of the day and doing no work it will be all his own fault if he fails. I also pointed out that so far it's been me putting in all the work involving his revision and I'll have to continue putting in the work by going through the papers with him and I felt he could put in a bit of an effort. I've also timetabled plenty of breaks! He didn't stick to the timetable very closely but he did do a bit of work. English is his real problem but I got an A* back in the day so I'm hoping that by going through the papers together I can give him a few pointers on how to put together a paragraph for the longer questions that will get him a fair few marks.

@Bumdrops that's hard. She sounds a bit like my DD1 who is now safely and happily at university doing a degree carefully chosen with a criteria that included no final exams. We paid for CBT sessions for DD1 and I think that's what got her through her A levels. (Didn't do GCSEs as COVID year group). Also got her into a small room for the exams which was a massive help with her anxiety, she hated the large hall.
DD2 who does GCSEs this year is thankfully more pragmatic, hates revision but will do it and coped with mocks which were thankfully before Christmas and had the results before the holiday which was also a relief. A sensible way to do things. She has round two of mocks in February but just core subjects and mfl so not too bad and viewed as more practice.