Year 11 2023-24

@GlomOfNit Making revision cards works for many and is often recommended by schools, but it’s not for everyone. DD tried that for Y10 exams and I found her after the first revision morning with a small handful of beautiful cards covering about half a topic and in deep panic about how long it was going to take to summarise 10 subjects!

What worked better for her was to find as many questions as possible and answer them. Start on an open book basis so that you’re getting value from those notes from school, and progress towards closed-book. There is no shortage: past papers on the examining boards’ websites; free sites such as Seneca and BBC Bitesize, inexpensive subscriptions such as my-gcsescience.com and CGP Mathsbuster, the various revision guides. Use quick questions to identify and fix knowledge gaps, and exam-style questions to understand what the examiner wants. In English, for example, I got DD to mark her own practice papers according to the mark schemes so that she could see what is looked for.

Different things will work for different students, of course. I really enjoy this thread for people’s generosity about sharing ideas, including invaluable input from experienced teachers.

Congrats to your DS @Waspie that's fabulous!

I've just bought the OUP English Language revision workbook suggested by MrsHamlet.

Easter holidays I've kept pretty clear for DS to do revision. He's got one family birthday, one day out with friends and a rugby tournament (one day). He's not much of a morning person so his revision timetable starts at 11am. He's targeting paper 1's during Easter.

He got some great news yesterday and has gone to school on a real high: he got a conditional offer for the super selective grammar school he applied to (Reading Boys). There were hundreds of applications for just 30 spaces so it was a real longshot. He needs to get 56 points from his top 8 GCSEs to accept his place. He should do this reasonably comfortably but it does give him a reason to focus and study hard now. Like GlomOfNit's son, DS is very capable. But sometimes he can be a bit arrogant and complacent about his abilities. My feelings about a super selective single sex school for DS are more mixed, but it's what he wants so I'll support him.

If you do AQA English, I recommend the OUP revision workbooks and text guides over CGP. They're more expensive but the series editors are examiners for those specifications.

No plan here, as yet. (Sorry, I'm a very latecomer to this thread but have been lurking a few weeks!) We really need to sit down and hash something out but I don't want to alienate my son.

My son is academically very capable but hangs out with a peer group who are downright freakish in terms of ability and therefore he often feels very crestfallen at grades that fall short of his friends. (they can rub it in, too...) So there's that...

But I think he's also fallen victim to the praise heaped on him by teachers at parents' evening. They like him, they predict great things. Then his second lot of mocks results start coming in and they're quite a mixed bag. I'm concerned that he's been getting quite cocky, trading on the 7/8/9 predictions and not doing anywhere near enough work to sustain the momentum. He gets very stressed about all this so a light touch is needed, which I don't always manage, and he self-regulates and destresses with his hobbies (Warhammer, watching favourite tv/films online, arguing with mates on Whatsapp...) That's fine but I think he disappears up to his squalid bedroom to 'revise' and is actually painting models most of the time! He also gets very prickly if I suggest he should be doing more revision at home, as 'it's ALL we do at school now!!' - true enough, all his lessons seem to have been revision sessions, exam techniques etc since at least Christmas. Very little actual new content this academic year

I've started getting some revision guides - did we leave that rather late?? he claims almost nobody at school uses them, but was very grateful to me for getting the History of Medicine one as that's the weakest area for him in History. How do you decide which one to go for (obviously you pick the right board but there are often several options from different publishers)? I used to revise by reading my class notes/text books, then trying to make concise notes on cards or notebooks. He claims this 'doesn't work' but I'm gently pushing him on that as I know damn well that writing things down really helps to consolidate in your mind.

I think if I suggest he should aim to do at least 4 hours a day over Easter he will explode at me!

We haven't got a plan for Easter yet. We have mocks results on Monday and parents evening on Wednesday, so that will probably be the decision between some and lots!

Really interesting seeing the different approaches thank you. Dd is talking about having 3 or 4 days out with friends or us. And on the other days doing 4 hours revision which sounds good. I asked her whether she will have covered everything by the end of the holidays and was met with a “of course not”!

Going back to 2015 here, so pre reform.
My DD took 4 or 5 days off at the start, then did 3hrs plus breaks in the morning, afternoon 1-4 off for activity, 1.5-2hrs late afternoon 4-5.30/6.

Morning was maths, science, in 3x1hr slots. Afternoon was mainly French, Spanish, english, but also some science. Some variation as went to school for English revision sessions on some days (in crisis to pass eng lang I could help with maths and science 1to1; had dropped humanity mid year)

DD wants to blitz a few key subjects over Easter: Drama (first GCSE exam), Biology 1 (first week and lots of content), Physics and Geography. School seems to be drilling them hard in Maths and the two English subjects so she will do whatever is set for those. Chemistry and French she’s happy with. Anyway I will sit down with her when term ends and make a plan to get through what needs to be done. I am taking time off work to help her side by side, which is her preferred method of working!

Mine is off to USA with school for the first week, then is bound to be a bit jet lagged for a few days so I’m not expecting a huge amount.

They only did mocks after Feb half term and they all seem to have gone well, plus the curriculum has been covered in every subject except biology so there’s lots of in school revision going on as well as some after school sessions for certain subjects. Keeping revision it to a minimum at home and carrying on with out of school activities as normal seems like a good plan to me.

So Easter holidays are looming. As are the exams? Has anyone any thoughts on how much revision to hope for each day?

Your poor DD.
How is the school at pastoral care? Anyone she can talk to there?
Can she go to the people she does like to get them to sign the shirt?
Thinking back (many years) to when I left school everyone got very giddy and people I'd barely spoken to signed my shirt....

DS got his exam timetable. I also found out his school are in everyday till May half term though whatever exam they have in afternoon will be revising for that subject in the morning. The after May half term on study leave only going in for exams.

We’ve not been told if they’ll finish early for study leave. Parents evening this week so I’ll ask then.

It’s so hard not to be involved. My DS has just got annoyed with me for setting out what I think he should do this week. Apparently he knows and can do it himself.

The problem is up to now he’s been doing 1 past paper for 1 subject in a whole week. I’ve said this is not enough at all and he needs to pick up the pace.

I’ve done a timetable for the week and I’m going to leave it at that for now. I don’t want him to feel pressured but it’s hard when they don’t let you help.

Thanks @CactusPeach it’s hard to know what’s “normal” when that’s not been the school’s approach previously. I imagine it keeps some students on track rather than them falling off grid between school and exams. These exams cannot be over soon enough as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know why I’m so nervous for dd. I was far more chilled about my own GCSEs and I don’t remember my parents being involved other than the occasional “have you done your revision?”

Yes, my teens school does this too.

I think ive posted on this thread about dds struggles regarding friends in school but now as the last day is looming she is having anxiety about all the shirt signing etc saying she wont have anyone to sign hers (catastrophizing). She does have friends but not ones she hangs out with at breaks etc. Anyway to help her manage the anxiety?

DD is doing fine and I'd love to sit with her and do a revision timetable but she doesn't want me at all. She sits in her room and revises by herself, she has revision guides and access to websites thru school. She is revising and they've got last few mock exams this week. In her mock exams she got 5/6/7. I wish she would be OK with me being more involved and helping her to define where she should focus...don't know if it's a "me" problem or not lol.

DD's mocks have been eye opening.

She'd been predicted 6 for Art, 7-7 for combined science then and then a mix of 8s and 9s for all other subjects.

Her business studies came back as a 6, a drop from 8 in November. All others have dropped a grade.

She's devastated because she thought she'd revised much better this time than the autumn. So she now feels back at square one with her revision technique.

She's also very nervous because she's not jet finished the curriculum in most subjects.

We've recommended lots of past papers, speaking with her teachers whenever she had a question, study guides and plenty of breaks, exercise, good nutrition and sleep,

She's very focussed on her revision, with a RAG list for every topic within a subject.

DH nags her to study more, to use techniques he's researched, I don't feel I can push her any harder than she pushes herself, so I'm taking the positive encouragement approach. I hope that we're sufficiently balanced between us and that she knows we want her to feel she's done her best.

One thing I have learned from her is that the constant "you've only got x weeks so make the most of them" stresses her even more. I never mention timelines now.

DS fell foul of this in his November mock. He was certain the unseen English Lang criticism was going to be on Life of Pi. Spent ages on it. It wasn't. I think (hope) that has cured him of trying to predict the future!

We had a horde of last year's y11 absolutely sure the Macbeth question would be on divine right, because some TikTok teacher said so.

It wasn't.

It’s hard not to as a teacher. I am certain that poetry will pop up on this years year 6 reading sats - and the whole paper can’t be worse than last years shocker of a paper. I would also bet bats won’t appear 😅

Nooooooo.... don't ask people to guess!!

I think there will definitely be a question of each of the texts studied. That's as far as I will ever go.

I will tell my students what last year's questions were, and that they're unlikely to come up this year.

Excellent advice! Thank you. I might do a shout out to see what my Secondary friends in English think might come up.