mocks in year 13

[gingeroots]

Is it just me or does anyone else wonder if these are useful ?
My DC is doing sciences which seems to be very modular ,and will be doing resits and taking some A2 modules early ( instead of in the summer )after Christmas .
The school does quite a lot of practice papers anyway and I sometimes wonder when the teachers get the time to teach .
Mocks are scheduled for March , so just a few weeks before Easter and then I expect they'll be on their own for study leave .
Good preparation for Uni I suppose .
It's just that the teaching time seems so short and I wonder what the students will really get out of mocks .

Absolutely imperative in my opinion.

The students need to understand exactly the format of the exams, the experience of true test conditions, but most importantly they need results of papers that have been set and marked in true exam conditions, so they see that they aren't easy.

thanks for replies !
Although I think by year13 the format etc of exams should come as no surprise to students .
( nor the fact that they're not easy )
Pixie - yes modules in January ,sorry that's what I meant by after Christmas .

I agree with OP's reservations. I teach in a big (very successful) independent school and we don't have official mocks for either year 12 or year 13. We do frequent past papers with them in class - either timed individual work or group/class work - and that's more than plenty. There's absolutely no need to sacrifice a week's teaching for exams. Better to leave it to individual teachers to fit tests in as suits their courses.

I would be quite annoyed if DD2 had official mocks in the march of year 13 I think it would be a waste of time as she will be too busy finishing off coursework and actually completing the syllabus rather than taking time out to revise.

For chemistry she will have completed 75% of the course anyway and will have already taken 3 sets of external exams as is the case for her two maths A levels as well. I'd rather the teachers were given that time to teach and as Lizzywishes says past papers timed or otherwise are more useful at this stage.

That is really my sentiment entirely ,I just thought maybe I was a bit mad holding it .
Dc seems to spend so much time taking external exams and practising papers ,it seems to leave little time for teaching .
And the school went back 2 weeks late into the autumn term because of rebuilding ,you'd think they'd want to make the time up .
So relief to know I'm not completely bonkers .

I think if DD2 had to do mocks at that point I wouldn't expect her to do any revision for them - the run up to Easter is MAD in year 13 anyway, what is the school thinking of?!

Mmm...trouble is that last year there was talk of students having to achieve a certain grade in the mocks or risk having to pay themselves to take the actual A2 exams .
One student spent time before mocks ( I think they were a little earlier last year ) catching up on Chemistry project rather than concentrating on mocks and thus got involved in this debacle .
Not sure what the outcome was .

That is just ridiculous gingeroots - I'm all for doing stuff within lessons that helps with exam technique but formal mocks seem unhelpful. If a minimum grade was necessary then I would just say 'get the minimum' to DD2. Losing teaching time in March is madness!

Schools around here don't have mocks in year 12 or 13.I know my nephew didn't have any mocks and when DD1 and DD2 took their A levels they didn't have mocks. All 3 of them got into uiversity.
Gingeroots I agree with webwiz. That is ridiculas,

I agree if a DC has taken lots of AS modules that mocks maybe have little use as they disrupt teaching time. However, at my son's school they don't do modules or mocks after Christmas and I think mocks would be useful. Firstly because it means they learn everything they have been taught, but more importantly they have to do exam papers under exam conditions. Most lessons are at most an hour long, exam papers are up to 2 hours long. My daughter who is now at university says she found them useful and thinks her brother will be at a disadvantage from not having mocks.

I think maybe it depends on the subjects you study .
My DC is studying sciences and only one of the 8 modules last summer was a 2 hour paper .
And all of his lessons at AS and A2 level have been double lessons ,though I think that's the norm at this stage .