Year 11 2023-24

Oh no! Hope all the poorly kids feel better xx At least it's now and not the real ones !

My son's start tomorrow and he's just had emergency surgery on a testicular torsion, you couldn't make this nonsense up could you! Better now than in May...

Hope yours feels better soon!

My son's mocks start on Monday and he's just been sent home with a temperature and feeling rotten..perfect timing!! 🙄

My son only did paper 1 in English (x2), all three sciences, and his two options subjects. The only ones he did all three papers for were maths, further maths and MFL. He knew that in advance though. The mocks window is less than half the window of the full exams so I'm not surprised they couldn't do all papers in all subjects.

Yes I hope it will. DS started off the week quire positive but is now exhausted. He thought he did well in the non calculator naths paper but then had brain got for the second one. He has a break before the last one so fingers crossed. We had a history related meltdown yesterday, and uts one of his favourite subjects thst he wants to dovat A Level, so needs a 6.

They will probably be given a grade based on the boundaries for that paper. It indicates effectiveness of revision and ability to answer questions. Even if only 1 paper not a bad prediction.

Ah ok - well yes that sounds pretty stressful! Sorry didn’t mean to moan just unsure how to interpret the results when they come through and how to then respond to them

@Angrycat2768 I actually think (hope!) next summer will be less intense as the exams are much more spread out. But DD doesn’t even start mocks until early Jan so still has that fun to come. Grade predictions were based largely on her Y10 exams.

It depends how much he's failed by. If he's got a three, then a grade of progress is expected by the real ones. If he's got a one, it's going to be hard work (but not impossible) to get him through at a four.

Yes mine is in the middle of mocks and this week it's a paper in the morning andxa paper in the afternoon every day, with classes ( used for revision) in between. It's mind boggling. Next week is better. He us confident on some but not others. It's so stressful and it's just mocks! God knows what summer is going to be like!

My DD sat 19 papers in ten days. That wasn’t helpful either as she couldn’t think straight and they haven’t covered all the work yet!

Thank you

I think it is not unusual to only do a subset of papers for mocks. Doing full sets would lose too much teaching time to exams and marking, plus not all syllabus will have been taught yet anyway. Your DC should have been aware and only revised topics for the papers being sat. 8 days isn't long, the real ones are over 5 weeks.

So quite annoyed here.
I assumed as Mocks were over 8 school days, the students would be sitting whole exams. Seems not. So only 2 papers sat in maths out of 3, in computer science it was only 1 of 2, history just the one paper and so on.

Im not sure how this gives you much to go on in terms of gaps in knowledge?

The grades for example in computer science are based on one exam being 60% then other 40%. They only sat the 40% paper this time where DS got 1 mark off a 5. He did the 60% paper in September and got a 6. Unless I sit down and attempt to work that out, all they will report home is the 40% paper mark.

I too have one of those lovely but missed pupils. I’m dreading maths!

They did look sheepish! I told him to speak up more in class after thst and make sure he asks if he doesn't understand something, and they at least knew eho he was this last parents evening!

Wow that's awful. I hope they felt embarrassed on that evening.

I imagine it's really hard with a sibling who is doing well, must add pressure to him and you as well.

It's rubbish at times

It's so frustrating isn't it? When we were looking at schools, I didn't just look at the outstanding grade, I looked at the progress 8 and value added to make sure it was the right decision, but they have just let him coast imo. Every parents evening its ' oh he's a pleasure to have in the class/he's so lovely' but I took my DS2 to parents evening and he came, and some of the teachers didn't recognise him! He'd been there 3 years! DS2 is much more academic and is doing well but I suspect the top groups are pushed, the bottom groups are pushed to get a pass but the middle ones are just left behind.

Angry** yes they are. I had thought the same but put it down to my increasing cynicism. But I think you are right.

Cactus** yes that's a good point and something we'll definitely check for when wdd Ed hopefully get to look at the paper

What a horrible thing to do. Your poor DD. It s clearly telling her that it doesn't matter how well behaved you are or how good your attendance is, they only really care about results. Is it an Outstanding school? My DS's is and I get the feeling its the same there. They haven't bothered with him as, even though he works hard and is well behaved, he doesn't get top marks. I feel that haven't helped him at all. Its been more' Oh he doesn't cause any trouble so that's enough. We'll put in the bare minimum of effort to get him to pass.

@tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz There's definitely a knack to answering History and English questions, also does she quote the source? My DD will answer the question but not back it up with quotes, I've tried to explain to her how not quoting loses her marks.

I'm feeling under prepared for my DD's next step, the local colleges had very few open days which we were unfortunately away for and the secondary have barely mentioned their sixth form, only impressing on them that it has high grade requirements so they better put the work in at the GCSS info evening.

Thanks folks. To top off a thoroughly shit week she's been told that she hasn't been invited to the Christmas Rewards Trip (even though she has 100% attendance and way over required behaviour points needed) because "spaces are limited ".

Ahh well. She's learning early that sometimes it feels like the Universe is laughing at you

Thanks for replies though, and to OP for setting up this lovely safe space to sometimes feel sad but also share some camaraderie!

Oh that's horrible, your poor DD.

I agree with @Aaarghthepancakes though. There are ways of answering questions to maximise marks. My son's classes have been looking a this while doing the past papers because the students were getting lower than expected marks on questions they thought they had done well in.

My son is not happy about the fact that they are going to be given formula sheets again this year. He believes/has been told that they push grade boundaries up.

Mocks all over here. DS is optimistic but had a bit of a freak in his English language paper which isn't ideal. He thinks he maybe messed up about 20 mins of the exam. The others he was happy with. Results in two weeks time.

He has text this morning to say he's re-thinking his third A level choice. He is set on History and English Lit. and had been considering Government & Politics or Philosophy & Ethics for the third. He's now thinking biology to keep the degree options wider.

He's got a taster day at a local school sixth form on Monday. We requested his subjects for this day while he was still thinking of only essay based subjects.

I know some marking schemes are available online @tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz . I downloaded a physics one for my DD not that she bothered looking😐.At least they have a while to address where they've fallen down. Horrible to see them upset when they've put the graft in.