Exams or not?

[Dizziliz]

Hi, for a long time I've been worndering wheter to bother going throught the process of exams. At the same have been following some of the syllabus's. However I find that our learning is rushed, stressful & really boring! This morning we have still followed some of the syllabus but later on in the morning we had a change of learning style. We were looking at aspecets of our ecosystem, in particular the energy cycle. It was much more interesting & we all came together to learn & discuss together.

It has made me reconsider our learning methods & possibly sacking the idea of going through exams & do much more enjoyable learning together.

Now that I've ranted could you advise please? What kind of things do you all get up to?
And for those of you that have older children now finished their education how have gone out into the big wide world?

How old are your DC?

They are 14, 11 & 8.

What subjects have you been doing? Which exams are you looking at? Is it only the 14yo who has been doing exam-focussed stuff?

Some people decide on specific exams and then simply spend a few months before the exam going through the syllabus and doing past papers. Some people have spend less than six months on a subject doing it this way.

My DC have done no GCSEs or A-levels. We started doing OU courses at 14.75 and 13.5 years. DD (18) is awaiting the result of her 5th course (which will give her 190 points) to see if she has done well enough in it to convert her conditional offer into a firm place at uni from October to study law.

DD has done Level 1 German (30pts), Maths (30pts), Sociology (10pts) and Arts (60pts) and Level 2 English (60pts) since Feb 2007.

DS (almost 16) has done five Level 1 short science courses (and is on his 6th) and Level 1 Maths. He will have 90 points by his 16th birthday and may go on to a Level 1 English course (30 pts). He dos not know what he wants to do yet so we are keeping options open. We are planning on a "Russian as a foreign language" exam rather than (I)GCSE.

Hi agian, we've been doing Maths & IGCSE English with my 14 year old. It's the maths that seems to be taking all our time, he can spend all morning working out of a Higher maths text book.

The idea of just looking at past papers seems a good idea, but how do they learn what they need to? Or do they just keep working on the questions they're getting wrong?

Were you intending to do the exam soon? How long have you been working at it? Which book have you been using? (Sorry for all the questions.)

A lot of people recommend ConquerMaths although it is quite expensive. You can have a trial for £1 and if you phone them, apparently they give a discount to EHEers.

You might also find it helpful to sjoin the Yahoo! group linked from www.home-education-exams.org.uk/. Lots of people there with a lot of experience of different exams and books (that's how I know about ConquerMaths).

Also, if your DS is bogged down, it might be worth doing a past paper (say, the GCSE Foundation, which you can buy in WHSmith from CGP) to see how much he does know and then put it aside for some time (regardless of the result) - perhaps six months. When you come back to it, he could do the same paper to see if the break has helped or hindered and give you an idea of the bits that are difficult for him.

I suspect if it's taking you a morning to do a higher maths textbook you're either a) trying to do too much in one go b)your 14 year old is not yet quite ready to do it or c) is bored, doesn't really want to do it and is therefore procrastinating. We're doing higher maths next year (DD is also 14) and she spends about 10 minutes a day on it .

This isn't in any way meant to be a criticism, or to say my DD is amazing or particularly bright - she's as capable of dragging her heels over things as the next person! Just that you maybe want to think about what is making it take so long. Are you trying to cover too much in one go? Are you doing too much of the same thing? (I always say once you can get 2 or 3 of something right, there's no need to plough through 50!)
Could you get a textbook that is more appealing or suits your DC better? We're doing CGP workbook higher maths and we do one page a day. This covers the whole syllabus amply in about 70 days.

One thing we did was to do foundation maths first this last academic year and are now going on to higher. It worked really well for us because she never had that huge leap to cope with. English we are not even bothering with until year 11. By then I think they can do it much more quickly and easily than when they are younger, and their English just develops naturally.

Maybe have a rethink about how to do the maths differently. past papers are a good idea because the bits that are secure you don't need to waste time going over.

I hope this is a help! We've made lots of mistakes too as we've gone through - I started Physics GCSE recently with both my 14 year old and my nearly 11 year old but although the youngest is coping, she's not finding it fun, so I've been thinking there's really no point and I will return to much more informal learning for her. I think setting it aside for a bit might be good for your 14 year old - and you probably won't lose any time.

"The idea of just looking at past papers seems a good idea, but how do they learn what they need to? Or do they just keep working on the questions they're getting wrong?"

DD works papers and then I mark them with her there. We discuss what she got wrong and why. Sometimes she just made a silly mistake and can see where she went wrong, other times she is in a bit of a fog and it is obvious she didn't really grasp it first time round! For those bits, we go back to the textbook and go back over how to do it. Once we've done that for all the errors (which might take a week), she works another one...and so on. It doesn't take long to get the errors down to nothing.

Hi again, thanks for your replies.

For his maths we're using one of the edexcel textbooks (it's upstairs right now & don't want to disturb the little wotsits)
There are loads of questions in each exercise, I think there are about 40ish chapters ranging from about 5-10 exercise within each exercise.

We started his Maths in Jan & he is halfway through the 10th chapter.
My idea was to try & work towards sitting the exam next june & think about what else we could do once he's doen his maths & english. But as I say he's working at a snails pace & it's incredibly tedious.
Or maybe as you say I'm trying to cover too much.

I like the idea of doing a page a day I shyed away from the CGP because when the girls have used them they are done in minutes. Are the GCSE books ok?

I did kind of lurk on the exam Yahoo group....

It's this book for his maths.
You can look inside, see what you think.

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1405831448/ref=oss_product

Having looked at your link, I think the problem lies with your textbook, not your DS!

There's no way my DD would plough through all that in under about 5 years . The "done in minutes" bit was what appealed to me!

We have this book and this book to explain it. We are doing AQA, but they have the same for edexcel.

We used the matching foundation ones for foundation (which she has just taken) and the minute a day thing obviously didn't matter as she got 100% on her first two modules (waiting for the final result in August!) and a little note came back with it telling me off, saying I had entered her for the incorrect level and she should have done higher!

How about trying a different textbook and seeing how you get on? Even if you start from scratch, next June should be OK. We have only just started higher in June from these books and are whipping through it - DD1 takes her first higher module in November. Worth a try, I'd have thought.

Thank you so much, I really appreciate your replies. I will have a look those.