Year 11 2023-24

Thanks pancakes. It could be, we're hoping they will go over the paper initially as a class and then be able to bring home with the marking scheme so we can sit and go through it with her.

Just a thought .. if she knows her stuff (and can remember it), could her mark be because she doesn't quite know how to answer or what the question is asking? Certain with History there is a sort of formula in the way you should answer, and it is quite specific. Same for some Eng Lit.

So the "raw data" results for some of DDs has started trickling in end of last/this week. And it's not good. 8/40 on a history question for example (this was a paper we were optimistic on). We've had lots of tears. I feel so shit for her as she's working so hard.

There is a compulsory results evening in school start f December and it's going to be so hard for her to receive what are likely to be hugely disappointing grades and hear how fantastically well others have done. I know she need to get more resilient as life will thrown much shit their way but still.

Our school did similar for some kids was all the ones who had grades of 4/5 as wanted to encourage them to try foundation as they have found it gives them a better chance to get the pass ! They also mentioned when you get the results it does not state if you sat the higher or foundation level paper.

Wow that is quick!
We have to wait a month they where sat as proper exams writing exam number, same length of time as exams etc.

DS announced this evening that if he hasn’t done well then all the revision was pointless. He’s only really done a very full of week or two of revision!

I wish they’d said before!! My DD has sat all her mocks and spent ages memorising physics equations. They were given the June paper with no formula, and have very annoyingly stuck to the same grade boundaries.

Thanks for sharing @stubiff

This will come as a relief to my DD, physics is her nemesis. We're a week into mocks, she's had 8 this week because of time table issues, shattered this evening & glad it's a downward slope next week with only 3.
Day off tomorrow, she's planning to slob around😁.

Hope yours are all going well with exams/revision.

Very interesting @stubiff , I think they may have been a bit shocked by last years results. Also if Wales and Scotland haven't gone back to 2019 standards then it would seem fair.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-67438619
For those interested. Being consulted on.

@Thesunisshining888 they've got 4-5 months to pull those grades up, don't worry too much yet.

-@TeenDivided thanks. Yesterday he was telling me that he thinks he is struggling to write PEEL paragraphs. We have parents evening tomorrow so it will be good to speak with the teacher but we haven’t got the test back yet.

@Thesunisshining888 Failing Eng Lang in mocks is a cause for concern, especially if other things are passes. I would be getting the paper back and making sure your DS understands where he lost marks. It could be he hasn't answered to the mark scheme, but is quite capable of doing so, or (as in my DD1's case) he has some blind spots that make that GCSE really difficult. You really want to get that into a pass. (We threw everything we had at DD1's Eng Lang, she got a C in the end, but only because she had good Controlled Assessments, she was still about D/E grade on the actual paper.)

Otherwise I think I would look more at mock results than predictions. He should be able to achieve at least the mock results in the actuals, and possibly more, but it depends how hard he worked for mocks, and how hard he works for the proper exams. The main thing is to learn from the mocks. Was it lack of revision, lack of answering technique, misunderstanding the question, stupid mistakes? Use that information to guide focus.

We have received the mocks results.
our school did them before half term so it looks like we are ahead of everyone 😞
what would you give more importance at the moment? Predicted grades or PPE (exams) results? My son has decent (all passes) and some quite good in predicted but he has failed English in mocks. Is this extremely worrying?

Sorry! This was in reply to the gcse maths papers ⬆️

They are very different curriculums.
if a student is borderline 5 they should get a 5 on rather paper, and so there will be some discussion about which is best for them. They might just get a 6 if they are stronger in geometry and algebra.
Obviously if they are aiming for a 6+ they have to do the higher,

Yes, the actual GCSE. He is in Wales, so maybe different there.

What? You mean the Actual GCSE? I thought you meant as m8cks which is bad enough.

I thought the November GCSEs were only allowed as resits these days??

That’s what I thought, especially as the results from May will show as a resit.

That's pretty nuts for anyone expected a 7 or more.

My nephew in year 11 has just sat a proper gcse maths foundation exam, along with the rest of his school. Those that do well will sit higher in May. Has anybody else heard this is a thing?

Hopefully you will have an answer soon ( and some reassurance) as to what’s happening.

As suggested I’ve sent an email to his head of year now

This isn’t what ds’s school are doing. They are doing higher paper mocks for top sets. I would email his head of year and ask about it.