Y11 2025/26… come and join

24th June is what our school told us.

Hi,
anyone know what the last possible day is for GCSE exams next year. I think it’s those reserve days but don’t know the dates.

We had options night last night and they have to be submitted by December. Dd has to choose 4 alevels to start with with the option to drop one by October half term of y12. All very real now. Mocks are in November so whilst she’s 90% sure what she wants to do we’re going to wait on the mock results before completing the form.

dd is capable of 8s and 9s but I feel because she’s pretty sure what she wants to do, she’s focusing on those subjects and letting the others fall by the wayside.

@wonderstuff exactly this! so frustrating because older sibling was exactly the same. Fortunately, he is realising that the reason he is lonely at college and not with his mates at 6th form is because he didn't put the effort in - which he is doing now (to an extent).

@RememberDecember your school sounds a lot more organised than my DDs school they had 1 small section still to do in maths but have been doing revision since they got back DD got a behaviour point for talking in class as she actually stating the answers before seeing the questions as remembered the lesson from a few months ago she is so bored they onoy do two levels of maths higher and lower she is in the higher set.

@Tebheag they have completed the complete syllabus in Maths and Computing already, but that could make for a very boring year focussed on revision! I think they are now doing the Further /Add Maths syllabus now, although not all will take the additional papers.

I haven't made DS start structured revision yet but he's doing some on his own, which is very encouraging. TBH his school are very good at setting revision activities as homework and have already started Saturday workshops, so I don't feel the need to be pushy.

Totally agree with you all. It was completely uncalled for an unrealistic. DS is doing 1 hour a night and the school have replaced 2 tutor sessions a week with extra English and Maths which seems sensible.

Same

Ooo I’ve just found this thread, hope it’s ok to join? Our DD is in Y11, it’s all ramping up..
Def not 5hrs revision / work a night, that seems ridiculous, not surprised some were crying.

5 hours a night is insane.
We are aiming for 1 hour so similar ish to @SatsumaCat and even that sometimes doesn’t happen. I can see that fitting all the material in that time is going to be v hard though but DS is so mentally tired after school more than that just isn’t going to happen.

We've been told 30 minutes per subject per week revision, on top of homework. But then they also want you to do extra reading for English (like newspapers, poetry for the unseen poems bit) ... and you could do 5-a-day maths etc so adds up to more if you were going to do everything they suggest I think. Was given a list of websites, apps etc for all the main subjects that can be used. DD said she already knew about most of them from teachers but there was one or two things that she hadn't.

5 hours a night? Do they even want these children to relax? 😢.

I am pushing DS for 30-45 minutes a night at the moment. With the probability of ramping it up to 1 hour 30 after Christmas. They need time to decompress too and it’s unrealistic to expect them to just school, study eat and sleep without any relaxation time.

@Littletreefrog that sounds awful - apart from anything else a 4 is a pass. It's too early to be so negative. 5 hours of revision is unsustainable.

We had a Y11 meeting at Dd's grammar school last week and it felt like a bit of a waste of time. It was mainly telling us to support the children and give them various techniques for learning. Given it's a group of very engaged parents, it felt slightly unnecessary. But they did say aim for an 80:20 break down. If your child is doing what you expect 80% of the time, you should feel happy!

The most interesting part was about A levels which they want them to choose by the start of December, which feels incredibly early. If they stay on, they may be able to switch after results but it depends on spaces. There's another open day in November to discuss A level choices and to be honest, I was a bit annoyed they couldn't have just bundled it all in together rather than making us trek to school twice. It has a huge catchment over a massive area of London so it's a bit of a pain to get there for many parents.

@RememberDecember definitely not that full on at DDs school yet ! Have they even finished the syllabus to be able to complete past papers?
@Littletreefrog that sounds awful got a feeling they will do similar at DDs school did for DS also tried to persuade kids to drop from higher to lower Maths paper as said better chance to get a 5.
{mention:BetFries}@BetFries it is hard when you feel everyone else is sailing through had that with DS and having the same again with ALevels spent so long with him helping him revise and marking past papers for GCSE dreading doing it again. Then feel like a failure with DD for not getting a tutor etc to help her do better as thought she was already doing very well !
Starting to see why shops already have 25% of on wine 😢

Thank you @Walkingbkwrm ! Sometimes it seems like I’m the only parent at our ‘academic’ state school whose children aren’t sailing through with ease. Having to also think about next year is just adding to the stress.
Goodness@Littletreefrog I think I would be crying after that!

@Littletreefrog We've had a similar experience with school forcing DS2 to design a completely unrealistic revision schedule. If he does 30mins - 1 hour a day then I’m happy - the risk is that as he now’s thinks it’s all hopeless he does nothing . School have undone all my hard work over the summer trying to get him in the right place with a plan that works for him - to do just a little bit but most days but starting much earlier than more academic DS1 did . I’ve told him to create the schedule and then ignore it while making his own more realistic plan.

I am very very annoyed after going to the year 11 parents meeting last night. Despite it being a parents meeting there was a significant number of year 11s there (not mine thankfully) and the headteacher spent 90% of the evening (in quite an aggressive manner) saying:

• if your child doesn't get a 5 in maths and English they can't access apprenticeships or college
• if your child doesn't get a 5 in maths and English they will have affected the rest of their lives
• if your child doesn't get a 5 in.maths and English they will spend their lives in the minimum wage jobs
• your child is fighting against all the rich kids with tutors and private school kids for the top grades so essentially they don't have a chance unless they are putting in 5 hours revision every night rom now
• even one day off school will mean they have blown their chances
• if they have a very time consuming hobby they should quit as there isn't time for both

Then the head of year 11 came on stage and tried to undo the damage but there was at least two girls I saw crying.

The school is in an area of deprivation, attendance can be shocking for some kids and some parents do not give a toss at all so these things might have been needed to be said to some people but surely you target those conversations to the people that need them!

I'm all for a rocket up the arse of the year 11s in September but this was really too much.

Hello, joining here. All seems a bit full on this year already! DS did a maths paper last night, said that the teacher is going to set one each week as part of homework - that sounds intense! Anyone else have same or am I woefully out of touch on workload?

@BetFries I’m not sure I can last all year either and I only have one in an exam year! Been a long week in our house with NEA’s (in class assessed coursework), coming thick and fast, the usual back to school bugs and “motivational” assemblies. Also they keep asking DS1 what he wants to do next year. He has no idea at all so this makes him panic. We have had several bouts of tears and it’s only September. 😢 Sending thoughts of solidarity. Aiming for B’s and C’s here (Wales) but sadly the least likely C’s are maths and English which is a bit problematic.

Hi, joining because I can see this is going to be a long year, with one in Y11 and one in Y13. DD (y11) came home saying she was going to fail everything so there was no point studying - and we're only 3 weeks in. We sat down and talked through some history and that worked a bit to settle her down; but I'm not sure I can do this all year... Her predicted grades are very middle of the road and, at the moment, I'll be happy if she gets 5 passes and maths and English.

What English Literature specification is he doing. If it's AQA, what poetry group is he doing? There's love then power and conflict and then also words and lives, that one is new only started teaching recently but there's lots of good resources for it as the poems are more modern. It does look like a goof poetry event though so useful whatever poems they ate studying.

@UncomfortableSilence I have just paid for that poetry event, his school has organised for them to go en masse. It seems potentially more beneficial than the normal trip to see Inspector Calls etc as poetry is such an alien concept to them! Nice that the poets get a bit of an opportunity on the GCSE circuit too!

A level choices will be a dilemma, especially trying to look at sensible combinations. He’s quite keen to do Computer Science but won’t do Maths, which will limit what he can then ‘do’ afterwards. Other possibilities include French, History, English, Philosophy. My eldest DS is an out and out STEM boy, so DS2’s options seem more complicated to navigate!

God knows. She trains in her sport 5-6 days a week too. She’s definitely tired and have said over and over she can drop sessions but so far she wants to keep at it.