Y10- 2025/2026

I've just booked one open day - we've been to one already that I think his heart is set on but want to look at one other 6th form college that offers the same course, and one school that careers adviser told us can offer BTech/A-level mix and may be prepared to be flexible about grades. It's unlikely he'll be interested, but just in case he has some change of heart/performance this year I think we ought to have a A-level option on the table. I think they are the only 3 we'll apply for.

Back to school tomorrow, we need to look at sixth forms and then mocks in November. It's all going on.
Had a big chat about starting making revision cards now, rather than Oct half term. Time will tell!

They make them redo maths and English if they're 2 grades or more below expectations. Oldest DC had to retake maths at the beginning of Y11 as their 'year to go' results were low

Can I ask why they’d make him resit? My son’s school just grades them and uses them for the summer report with predicted grades at the current level. They have tests every term but I guess now it will just be mocks they’re prepping for.

I suspect he'll have to resit both his English tests from last term next week and the result will be exactly the same as then. 😥

You’ve perfectly described how my son interprets (or doesn’t) text. He just can’t contextualise it into written thought, even though we have many long, intense and thoughtful discussions about life and current events. I feel awful when I read his written work and can’t afford tutoring.

Best of luck to you and your DC

we start year 11 tomorrow.. so far DD is making all the right noises about locking in, now or ever. Etc etc

but we haven't had a year go smoothly yet so Im ready to buckle in!

Good luck all with Y11. Got a big change here, due to ill health basically writing off Y10 my DC is starting at a new school and restarting Y10 again. New GCSE options, much smaller school with specialist staff. Hoping things work out well. Particularly wishing those of you with kids facing additional challenges lots of luck for the year ahead.

@CouldNotStayAway do you fancy setting up a new thread for our Y11s? Or I might have missed it!

The main issue is English. Even though he is bright and articulate, he can't seem to write a word - it's a not uncommon problem with ADHD.

He also really doesn't seem to grasp analysing a text at all - I watched a playback of one of his tutor session and he just can't understand how you can potentially write several sentences about the meaning of two lines of text. It was something that came quite naturally to me and I totally get it doesn't at all to a lot of kids, but it means I have no idea how to explain the concept to him.

I suppose the worst case scenario, which I can live with, is he does Functional Skills for English. Because the dumb thing is he got a 4 in History at the end of the year and a 6 in Psychology, which shows he can write more than functionally, but unfortunately he has to jump through the hoops of English to prove he can write

@Echobelly same issue here, a lot to catchup on but no understanding from my 15yr old about how to actually study and he is refusing my offers of help!
am dreading Yr 11

He told us he'd ideally like to do 20 mins a day maximum and we've had to say it's just not enough. We're asking him to do just over an hour if work plus half an hour reading (this is DH's fixation, I can't seem to explain to him that DS does read and many of his peers cannot be made to read at all!) And have explained this still leaves loads of time to do fun things.

The problem is that open ended writing tasks which is what he needs most, can end up taking half a day to get out a paragraph 😥

I feel really bad making DS work over the holidays, but he will have to retake both English exams a week or two after he gets back and as a minimum it would be good if he could at least not panic and write something in them. Even if he could just get 20% it would be something.

He is getting a break at summer camp for two weeks now, but I think when he gets back I want to sit down with him and start annotating his English Lit texts, which I don't think he's done at all.

I’m so proud of my DD, who hadn’t taken any incentive to organise herself and learn how to properly revise up until Y10. I was so worried!

She really knuckled down, devised her own systems and methods, and in the end was helping others to revise too.

She got mostly 9s, a couple of 8s and a random 6 in English Lit but she realised what went wrong there and got on to amending her revision notes immediately.

She broke up at the beginning of July and took a break whilst we were away on holiday but has been keeping up with things regularly, so should be in a good place come September.

Summer holidays yayyy! Dd has tidied her room and vowed to do loads of schoolwork this summer - but day 1 she already bailed on her plan to do some chemistry notes and spent the whole day reading and sleeping.

I have told her that every day that passes without any revision, she’s cooking family dinner and picking my son up from his holiday club - that might focus the mind!

Well done @Fluffycloudsfloatinginthesky 's DD for clinging on through all those challenges.

@LetItGoToRuin sadly DC2 has informed us that she will not be revising over the summer. It's a shame as DC1 is back from uni, and would be an enormous help to DC2 with revision, but hey-ho. To be fair she's not here all that much over the summer between our holidays and an orchestra tour.

Mocks were a mixed bag - she's really struggling with maths this year. I am confident she will get a pass and not need to resit but she's working several grades below what she's been predicted. She's vaguely on or around target for most other stuff, and wildly got 8s for English lang/lit which I think is impressive for a kid who hasn't read a book since year six .

Big choices to make for next year - most of her friends will be going on to A levels at a particular 6th form, because it's just what most people do. I think catering college would be a far better fit as food is her real passion at school, but it's hard to do something different.

@Echobelly that does sound like really encouraging results, and hopefully more than on track for what he needs. Do they make a decision already on higher vs foundation? At DS’s school they said the final decision wouldn’t be until closer to the time.

@Fluffycloudsfloatinginthesky well done to her on getting through year 10, and it’s great she finally has some support.

ive not posted on this thread for a while but my daughter has made it to the end of Y10 still in school which is an achievement after a Y9 which had so many suspensions and detentions I thought she would be in a PRU by now.

it hasn’t been smooth sailing but it’s a lot better - she takes her medication most of the time and the teachers have also learn to recognise when she hasn’t.

the MH lead that started supporting us end of Y9 has been amazing - she was the first person that actually saw the ADHD that I was convinced she had even when the other teachers thought she was naughty.

She is also pretty sure she has ASD (as was suggested by the ADHD) assessor so she is doing a new referral for that to CAMHS and I am not having to battle and fight for it to be done.

Mock results weren’t too bad - 57% in the higher maths paper which compared to the 14% she got not that long ago is amazing.

it just makes me sad that she didn’t get the support earlier to have got all of this resolved before the GCSE years. I truly think if the MH lead had been involved sooner we would have.

Mocks weren't great, but the ones he took were OK all things considered.

Obviously no marks for English Lang and Lit as he couldn't sit either. On the other hand, quite encouraged he got 4s in maths and history, even though he wobbled in the exams he says, but he'd not managed to write anything in history other history tests this year, so that's really encouraging. And basically he will pass maths and that's all he needs to do. But I think he can get a 5 or maybe even a 6 in the real thing.

Got a 6 in psychology, which is a pretty great so we want to tell him, however he revised psychology, do that for everything else. 44 in science which means he only goes in for Foundation, which is a bit of a shame as I thought maybe he could make a 6, but this caps it at 55. OTOH, I feel pretty confident he can get 55 with an easier exam and it might be better than doing Higher and maybe only getting 44. Only a 3 in drama written exam, but I think he wasn't really sure what to expect from it and it was his first drama paper.

He only needs 5 grade 4s for the Btech he really wants to do, but I'm hopeful he can manage 5 subjects at 5 or more, if you imagine him going 1 grade up for each, which is respectable. I'm just resigned that he may have to retake Eng Lang with his Btech.

I agree! Ill be amazed if she revises

Our children seem quite similar! My son got all 7s and 8s in mocks apart from one 4 in music (!) and whenever he works hard he does well, but is resistant to working and tend to do the minimum . He did take the mocks seriously but tends to only work under pressure and leaves things to the last minute and doesn’t do enough. Hence I can’t imagine him revising over the summer.