The 2017 Exams thread.

[WankersHacksandThieves]

I think we all found the thread last year useful and supportive so I've set this one up for us all to share our woe, angst and (hopefully) joy for the 2017 exam season. I'm also trying to have something on Scotsnet that isn't politics. I'm trying to avoid that tbh as it just all makes me too angry...

Anyway, I have two going through it this year, DS1 in 5th year sitting 5 Highers and DS2 in 4th year sitting 7 Nat5s.

Studying has been underway since the prelims ended. They are doing 3 x 25 minute Pomodoro sessions on weekdays and 4 sessions each day at the weekend. To be honest it's mainly been used for the coursework up until now but the last piece is due in today for DS1 and DS2s is all in now so proper study can commence.

How is everyone feeling?

Wankers you have given a more full and yet still comprehensible explanation than many educational theorists and practitioners do.

Also you started a support thread wasn't you who derailed it.

Sorry Wankers, I think I came across grumpy. I work in education and have these sort of grumbles daily.

I just want to support my children during a difficult time as last year was more stressful than when I breezed in my standard grades in 1993!

Hopefully we won't have the maths meltdown again. It's the first exam this year. And hopefully I won't get cream cleaner in my eye and having to spend the night in A&E!

thank you lidl - i'm just an interested parent but maybe I need a career change :o

I think to be fair boodle seems to have particular concerns about her child's schooling and I am as happy as the next person to listen to a rant but to continue to compare (inaccurately) the systems to prove that the one you've moved from is better really gets my goat.

Thanks Groovee, I am actually annoying myself now - It's Friday night fgs :o

I have a game of two halves with the Maths, it's DS1s strength and DS2s weakness. From what you've said (if I am remembering previous posts correctly) I think circumstances seems better for your DC this year? As for the cleaner - did you see something awful and attempt a variation to brain bleach? Sounds painful btw - maybe you should just stop any cleaning until the exams are over...

Haha no! My area at work had a pupil draw all over the table with felt tip. I thought I would clean it and squirted the cleaner in my eye!

My new work found out from my old work that I need a personalised risk assessment.

I'm having one of those days, I've managed to get beans, yoghurt, cheese sauce, butter and chocolate all over myself today - wouldn't be quite so bad but those are from different meals and I'm wearing a white linen shirt....

Typical!

Dd is doing really well in maths. Her maths teacher has a child who went to nursery and primary with Ds. She seems to be very good for Dd and her class last year got A's!

That's fab. DS2 has had a couple of teachers that he's struggled with so it hasn't helped his confidence. In primary he was doing really well and he also won one of the regional maths on-line things. He's struggled in High School though. DS1 is now doing maths with him and he seems to have really picked up.

That's really sad Wankers, that his enjoyment/understanding of maths seems to have dissipated at secondary school. A good - or bad - teacher can make such a difference (or )

Ds has been fortunate in that he's had a brilliant Maths teacher for the last 3 years (and good ones for the first two). He disappointed that his teacher won't take the Advanced Higher class but he'll probably get the same teacher he had in S2, who was also good (and Scotland is a small place is married to one of dh's best pals at school/the No 8 to dh's scrum half who he had long lost touch with).

I've only ever had an issue with one of ds' teachers over the 5 years he's been there - which the school dealt with quickly. Interestingly, ds now has much more respect for him and the depth of his knowledge, even though he is not currently his teacher for that subject.

Just to add my tuppence worth. My dd's school have stuck to the spirit of CfE with BGE to the end of S3 where they had to drop from 10 subjects to 6 Nat 5s.
I was initially concerned about dd "only" doing 6 subjects but was easier about it once I realised that it was the same as the 7 O Grades I did ( in the late 70's) as we had maths and arithmetic as separate subjects. In the end it was more than enough as the workload was hefty even starting at change of timetable at the beginning of June. DD did maths, english, computing, chemistry, modern studies and art. She was very stressed most of the year and worked very hard.

The chemistry in particular was a challenge and I noticed that she was covering carbon chemistry which I had done at Higher. The teacher explained that the course was made up of some of the standard grade, some of Intermediate 2 and some Higher.

In S5 she continued English, Maths and Modern Studies to Higher and dropped the other 2 but picked up Higher Human biology - having done Biology until S3 and Higher Philosophy having not done any Philosophy at all. She got an A in the Human Biology and B for the Philosophy. She is now in S6 doing 2 AH and an 15 credit OU module. I think this reiterates the value of the BGE until S3 which allows kids to pick up subjects again in S5 or even S6.

Interestingly my niece is 3 months younger and is at school in England in a grammar school area. She is at a "comprehensive" and has done a larger number of subjects but they have not been covered in nearly as much depth - this is certainly true of chemistry,history and English. She is now doing 3 A levels and has found the jump from GCSE to A level very challenging partly because the GCSE did not appear to encourage the same level of independent study or thought.

I agree there is much to criticise with regard to CfE especially the lack of consistency of application but I have to say it is my experience that it does teach youngsters how to learn independently. While dd was pretty stressed through much of S4 she learnt strategies to cope with that and learnt study techniques/skills which are transferrable and consequently S5 and S6 have been much better. i also think she is fairly well prepared for the independent and self motivated study/ learning required at university.

We moved back to Scotland from England partly because I felt the system here was better ( flawed as it is) and I have to say that while dd's education has not been perfect, on the whole, her experience has been far better than that of her cousin. Certainly she has much more confidence in her ability to find things out and to analyse and evaluate the information she finds.

I'm sure it depends a lot on your school - my (I admit limited experience) of secondary in Scotland is compared with experience of academic state schools in England. And I understand that the 1st year of university in Scotland is broadly equivalent to the 2nd year of 6th form in England, so that students coming from England can skip that foundation year and start in the 2nd year of the course. Which is fair enough as Scottish students leave school a year earlier.

So when do children really have to start working hard in Scottish secondary schools? Is it in S4 that the work kicks in, or in S3? I'm interested, as if the hard work is going to kick in at some point, I will try to do my home education prior to that stage.

To follow up and support what readsalot said, one of the things that CfE was supposed to address was the massive jump from "O"/Standard grades to Highers, so that Nat 5s are a higher standard than the "old" S4 exams and/or expected pupils to learn how to learn and apply their knowledge iyswim.

Hence questions about crocodiles crossing a fast moving river in the Maths exam (Ds had no problem with "applying" the Maths he'd learnt to the scenarios in the questions).

In terms of when does the hard work start, kids are kids and many of them will only "start" when the exams are imminent . It's one of the reasons why those schools that let their more academic kids bypass Nat 5s (as technically the CfE was designed to permit) have stopped doing so, as it would mean that their first exposure to exams are their critical exams.

Ds has been encouraged to do "little and often" by both the school and us since S1, but only really started knuckling down in S3 (when ds' school starts the Nat 5 timetable) and again only really properly in S4 in the run up to his Nat 5 Prelims.

They also have to produce work for their portfolios (English is something like 40% of the final exam) plus Geography and Chemistry also require them not sure about Physics /do orals/aurals for their MFLs

Now in S5 for his Highers, as well as their Prelims, ds is doing regular tests. He has a geography test every Monday - which is partly why that is the subject he is most confident of getting an A in. (He's actually confident for 3 subjects and half-confident for the other two - but putting plenty of work into them).

DSs attend a very academic school. I'd say that homework was very sporadic and light until they started the Nat 5 courses (after Easter holidays of 3rd year going into 4th year). Then it is full on with most subjects (Maths I think the only exception) require coursework submissions as well as doing the course and preparing for exams. There is a lot.

What year is your child in boodle?

By the way, Scottish students who complete the required AHs may also be able to skip the first year of Uni in Scotland - that's why AHs and A levels are treated more or less equally.

I've found this quite useful to show DSs where the most amount marks are coming from for each of their papers - i.e. how much has come from the coursework or which paper etc.

www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/63002.html

Our school in a deprived area starts the "hard work" in S3 where quite a few gain Nat4's to lead on to Nat5. D's was accepted by every department he wanted for Nat5. But a number of his classmates have been told they haven't performed to a high enough standard.

It's interesting how things have changed in 2 years now the school are adapting to Nationals and how Dd did things to how Ds is doing now.

Just "signing in"... DD doing v well but biggest stress is that she's doing six highers and the exam timetable means she has all of them in just 12 days (with 4 in 1 week). And boodle, I think the "hard work" is down to individual kids - DD is pretty academic so when she found school v straightforward in the first few years we encouraged more time spent on sports, music, etc - which has now all been cut back as she has a really heavy workload.

My feeling is that there is a big jump from Nat 5 to Higher. In some ways that's no bad thing - DS is being pushed this year (S5) in a way that he hasn't been before. DH - who's a product of the English system - was surprised to find that Higher physics included topics that he hadn't covered until university. Equally though, I think that it's a shame that so little seems to be done in the early years of secondary - I personally would like to see more homework, more setting and less of what I feel is teaching to a rather low average...

I'd like to see more setting in early high school too. DS2 has suffered more than DS1 from an element of constant LLD from pupils who are either not interested, struggling or otherwise disengaged. At least if those that were struggling were removed from the mix they would perhaps be able to access the topics better and achieve better rather than being drawn into disruption by the not interested crew.

Ds' school sets from S1 in Maths and English (Maths after a few weeks as it's relatively easy to do tests, English after the October Week).

Difficult to set much beyond that in later years as there might only be one class doing the subject at that time - especially if it is timetabled across a couple of columns.

Good on your dd for doing 6 Sturmundcalm. It doesn't seem as common as it was back in my day a long long time ago - although even then, it wasn't that common. But my school timetabled to make it possible.

Ds' exams start on 5 May with his Maths Higher and finish on May 24th with Geography. I think there's something like a 12 day gap to Geography, which is why he's confident of his A in that as he'll have plenty of time to concentrate on it. The rest of his exams are relatively evenly spread out with at least 48 hours between exams. At least he's got no exams on consecutive days.

In my experience the hard work kicks is towards the end of S3. DC 1 is now in S5 and I think S4 was pretty tough, esp with when is comes to handing all their portfolio work, whilst completing the actual course itself before moving into the actual revision. The High School does Nat 5s in one year - which I was uncomfortable with at first but I think it sets them up well for 5th year.

DC1 is sitting highers in English, Maths, Physics, Computing and Graph Comm. He has been pretty diligent so far but I think he's feeling the pressure. I've told him to just hang in there, less than two months to go with his last exam higher physics on the 17th.

DC2 has chosen his subjects for S4 (well kind of) we are waiting to see if they can accommodate a request but haven't heard anything yet :(.

DC3 is still in primary so no concerns there!

DD is in S1. So far almost no homework, and school is not tiring her out at all, as she finds everything pretty straightforward. She is doing masses of after school activities, plus I am teaching her some subjects at home and giving her some homework myself, and this year she has also taught herself to touch type and to cook. She still has oodles of time and energy. The school has a policy of not ability setting at any age in any subject. DD is academic, and this is really not helping her. I'm hoping that the Nat4 and Nat5 divide (if I've understood that correctly) will help a bit. It's difficult to know how your child is doing, as the school doesn't judge on or feedback on results, but only says whether they are working in class or not. It all seems to be based around making the children feel good about themselves, regardless of their academic ability or achievements. So some parents get a shock when they find that their child, who they were always told was doing so well, is doing National 4s rather than National 5s.
It sounds from what people have said here as though work is likely to pick up around Easter of S3 - useful info thank you. I will plan to wind down the home education at that point.

If she's bright and self-motivated, she might still have oodles of time and energy.

Ds also did/does loads of extra-curricular activities. For the first 4 years of secondary, he was both cycling (track & road) and playing rugby to a high level, plus doing DofE, Young Enterprise and gaming with his friends. It's only in the last year that he's dropped his cycling - but has added in going to the gym to bulk up for his rugby (and he's now coaching an S1 rugby team).

Part of teaching them self-direction is so that they learn how to juggle competing interests. Ds has said he'll drop the gym shortly until after the exams (maybe just do done exercises in his room to have a break) and his rugby is winding down anyway wouldn't want him to get a concussion

Last year, he voluntarily moved his XBox into the spare bedroom to remove the temptation - but then we found him, the day before his Computing Science exam, in the spare bedroom having an impromptu on-line study group with his Computing geek friends

Ds1 was the school refuser back in S3/4 and at one point they threatened that he wouldn't be able to stay on for highest if he didn't improve.
He did ok with a mix of Nat 5s and dropping down to Nat 4s in some subjects.
In Highers he failed English, but did well on his other subjects despite attendance still being low (due to migraines which may or may not have been as bad as made out) good enough to get unconditional offers.
He then coasted AH because of the unconditionals, which was annoying but not that surprising. He's now thoroughly enjoying first year at Uni doing a course he loves and motivation seems to be high.
Ds2 is doing 8 Nat 5s and says he's really motivated (apart from French) and wants to do well. I give him advice and support and he gives me updates on progress.
I'm hoping the largely hands off approach will work with Ds2 as well as Ds1 (eventually) although doing a school survey recently did make me concerned how little I could actually comment on the strength of the teaching.

Can I ask what sort of revision schedule your DC are planning over the Easter holidays? I'd kind of assumed that DS would be doing quite a lot of revision over the holidays, but he's actually looking really tired just now and I'm aware he probably needs a decent break too. I can't work out what a reasonable balance between revision and time off would be. I know that it's really up to him, but I also know that I won't be able to stop myself from nagging if I feel like he's not doing enough - I'm just not sure what "enough" actually is!

I'll be happy enough if mine follow roughly the schedule they have been following since the prelims.

We split it into 30 minute slots (use the pomodoro app so it's 25 mins then a 5 minute break). They do 3 sessions on a school day and 4 on a weekend day. Then we just split the subjects across the sessions with any extra being allocated to subjects they need extra time on. 2 of DS1s weekend sessions are when he helps DS2. He's doing highers so less subjects to study for.

If we were starting from scratch at the holidays, i'd be tempted to do 4 or 5 sessions a day which still gives them plenty of time to chill out but means that they should be really focussed when they are studying instead of spending 5 hours in their bedroom faffing. The plan when they are off is to do the same as they do at the weekends which is get it done before lunch (in our house that means doing it by 1pm, DS1 tends to do his about 10am to 12, we try to get DS2 to do the same but he tends to start at 11 until 1.

We get them to study away from their bedroom with no distraction. they can use their laptop for bbc bitesize. I think it helps for them to know that when they are in their room it's relaxing time and they don't need to think about school or exams.

Sessions should be a mix of revision (maybe doing a mind map or bullet pointing a part of the course) doing something on-line and doing past papers.

When study leave starts then revision will vary from the weekly plan and be focussed on the upcoming exams for that week.