Y11 2025/26… come and join

Hi :) Just found this group.
DD has just started yr11, No idea what to do for A Levels going to be a fun year(DS doing ALevels same time just hope he passes)
@waitingquietly can you email the school and ask for more information. DD had a careers interview yesterday and the person could see her predicted grades as commented any 6th form would be happy to have her with these grades.

@36and3 wow how do you fit it all in DD just does sport for fun and that keeps us busy. Actually got her into it to do a few competitions to help with stress as she used to get stressed before tests 😂 she has gone the opposite direction now as only did 30 mins revision for yr10 exams! Thankfully she still had 8s and 9s and a 7 in English Language. .
@FlyingPandas do feel your pain had same problem last yr with DS I actually threatened to take away his gaming equipment instead we compromised on reduced game time. Actually tried to convince him to do an apprenticeship and not to do ALevels as didn't want the repeated stress.

We have tutors. Weekly maths for an hour and fortnightly English for 90mins. Admittedly this is to help tip dd from the 7/8 to 8/9 so not exactly necessary but she’s keen to have the extra support. She’s at a private school so shouldn’t really be paying more but most kids are doing the same.

sixth form options event next week and alevel choices are due by December. Currently she wants to do English lit, history and psychology for an LLB course. She has considered sciences for a more medical route but I definitely think essay based subjects are better suited to her.

Looks fab. I hope DS's school goes.

I'm in. DD works incredibly hard but it doesn't always show, unfortunately for her.

https://poetrylive.net/about-the-events/

This was shared by another parent in DDs year and looks pretty good for English Lit.

The MidYis/Yellis tests are done at the beginning of Y7 and they just form a baseline for students. They generate objective predictions for GCSE.

No tutors here either although DD is very academic and on track for high grades. DD1 did have a tutor for Maths but she was the Covid year with the teacher assessed grades.

We’ve had predicted, working at and working towards grades since Y10 too.

She’s very focused and working hard, we had a parent info evening which had the core subjects talking and giving revision ideas/resources. Her school is a bit of an exam factory so it is test after test after test but has been like that since Y7 so she is used to it.

We have predicted grades too and have done since early Y10, along with indicators of how likely DS is to achieve them.

We aren't using tutors either but DS is at an academic indie and predicted high grades so I'm hoping we won't need to. If he was borderline passing core subjects then I definitely would. If it helps anyone, we used the mytutor website for older DS when he was really struggling in sixth form and would definitely recommend - admittedly this was for A levels but they have tutors offering GCSE tutoring too.

DS seems to be back in the zone now they're settled back to school - is quite diligent at managing homework and the dreaded DT NEA - it's just the making of revision notes for topics already completed that really isn't happening! But I will keep on nagging encouraging him to do so...

We had predictions after Year 10 mocks and a pretty good idea of what DS is aiming for since the end of Year 9.

This is curiosity - at this point DS1 had predicted grades and had done for some time ( state grammar) , DS2s school haven’t given predicted grades at all - ( non selective private) they bang on about yellis and midys tests carried out pre GCSEs but haven’t told us what the results really mean or what we should be expecting DC to achieve . I’m a bit cynical about this … anyone else here with no predictions at all yet ?

Can I join? DS predicted grades ranging from 4 to 6 from year 10 mocks. We have a Yr11 information evening tomorrow where I am hoping to find out about booster sessions etc. my oldest went to a different school who were great and he did extra classes in the morning and after school which really helped. I hope this school will do similar.

DS is wanting to become a paramedic but that seems to mean Uni these days so we are trying to work out pathways to uni that arent A levels and I'm a bit overwhelmed. DH and I both just did A levels at our schools sixth form so there wasn't a lot to organise ourselves and oldest DS did an apprenticeship from 16.

DS has an hours of maths tutoring a week and have just set up half an hour of English tutoring a week. He’s currently low grade 3 for maths and cusp of 3/4 for English-so it’s out of necessity not because we want top marks for bragging rights. It’s costing me an arm and a leg that we can’t really afford but needs must. We’d be happy if that tutoring gets him to solid grade 4 with the possibility of a 5.

DS1 was predicted 9-6 but was weak in Spanish and English , school offered extra lunchtime sessions which he only went to a few of , he worked hard at home though and used Mr Salles on YouTube for his English . He ended up with a 4 in Spanish and a 7 and 5 ( near miss to a 6) in English language and literature . 8s and 7s in pretty much everything else . I’m not sure a tutor would have helped as it would have diverted even more time and attention away from his good subjects. DS2 hated being tutored for 11+ and has always said no to tutors .Strangely his weaknesses are his brother’s strengths and DS1 has already done a bit of ad hoc sibling tutoring …my advice is to see what school offer- it’s not in their interests for children to not do well

No tutors here either. DS had an English Lit tutor last year but he flatly refused to engage so we stopped. He's on course for 7-9's in everything except French so I'm not pushing it. DD is far less academic and did well with tutoring to help her catch up after covid, so we'll probably get her help to achieve solid passes in English and Maths. She's only in Year 8 though, so a while to go! If your DD doesn't need it then I wouldn't add to the pressure by getting tutors.

No tutors here but dd1 is quite academic, seems on course for 7s-9s. I would definitely consider it if they were borderline passing particularly for Maths and English. If not, I don't know whether I'd bother.

I think if you're at grandparents and can still do a couple of hours revision a day in half term, it should be ok? How does she feel about it?

Hello - interesting mix of experience here. My Y11 DS has predicted grades which look very disappointing to him and us. A mix of grades from a 4 media studies to a 7 in Maths. Nearly all of which he did better than in his first round of PPE - with no prep -so don't really know where they come from.

He has done zero revision though and school never set much homework so he's a bit shocked by what they are expecting this year.

I too have an older DC with a very much non standard GCSE experience. She had EHCP and very difficult school experience - only decided to take GCSEs at Christmas Y11 and only started revision at Easter - and now has six GCSE 345567 - the 7 is English and the 4 a maths resit she got this year. So it's enough and probably makes me more nonchalant than I should be about the whole process.

Neither of them will be studying medicine or going to Cambridge though. That's a whole other layer of pressure.

We are not using tutors.

My DTs are currently considering a wide range of of subjects for A levels. I am glad that they can do taster days where they can try out any subject but importantly some of their potential A level subjects that their school doesn’t do at GCSE (e.g Law, Politics, sociology)

Joining as DS2 has just started yr 11 and doesn’t know what A levels he wants yet!

@MakeTeaNotWar. We aren’t using tutors as Ds
is currently working at a good level. With Ds1 he was working below target so we got him group tutoring sessions for Maths and it really boosted his confidence and he got a grade 8.

I may organise some tutoring revision sessions for ds2 when we get closer to exams.

With the trip to Ireland could you still go but have a low key break so dd can revise whilst she is away?

Hello all

First time for GCSEs in our house.

I have two questions - from chatting to parents of DD's peers, it feels like we are the only family not using tutors. Do others feel the same? It's made me wonder if we're doing the best for her - but she is very diligent so I don't want to add to her workload and pressure just to keep up with the Jones.

Second question - to avail of cheaper airfares, ages ago I booked for us to visit my elderly parents / the kids GPs in Ireland. But now the school has released their exam schedule and DD's mocks start on the very first Monday back. Is it a terrible idea to go away for the Oct half term?

Connected to this, I had booked for us to take off on Friday 24th with the mindset of "oh they never do anything on the last day of term" but now it turns out her German oral mocks are that week. Could I ask her German teacher to ensure her exam doesn't fall on that day - WIBU?

Following

DD says she hasn't had any regular homework yet just revising for tests. Wonder of that's what Y11 is going to look like. School have invited parents in next week to hear about how we support the kids through Y11. The kids have had all the talks about knuckling down too.

There is a whole host of YouTube out there too , some of it better than others . DS2 likes Scarecrow Science ( he does some basic videos useful if your child just wants to pass ) and DS liked Mr Salles for English - again he was just trying to pass . The only subject DS couldn’t find much on was Geography .

@GucciGin - I hear you about the googling. So much stuff out there, no one would have time to do even a small fraction of it. DS couldn’t cope with it anyway so I am firmly not looking for stuff that I know he won’t do - just makes me more nervous.

Just looking for C’s and B’s here - medicine sounds a whole new level of stress!

I decided to search GSCE revision support on FB and now am overwhelmed with what's showing on my feed that I have not liked or followed. It's constant revision notes, webinars, l tutoring online, how to get from a grade 4 to 9, mind maps etc! Arghhh