Worried - DS is taking a very cavalier attitude to IGCSE's!

[Mummle]

Just wondering how much studying/revision other pupils are doing for their IGCSE's/GCSE's. My DS has left all of his Half term homework until today and virtually did no revision (except for some Chemistry private tuition) all week. I am at my wit's end, as I envisage other children taking the opportunity of half term to revise... and then continuing with their noses to the grindstone during term time. How much revision are your children doing?

There seems so many modules etc as they have gone along, my daughter hasn't actually got that many subjects to revise for at the moment.

However, she does have a lot of lines in her Drama production and is working on her target grade in English, so has spent a lot of time this week doing that.

I think this half term and Easter will see a ramping up of work.

Well, according to my home-edding friends the iGCSE exams are completely Micky Mouse, almost useless, only need one or 2 right answers to get a pass which is good enough, only useful as a ticket to go to college & have the chance to do A-levels there. So if I believed them there is no point whatsoever in making more than minimal effort.

Sorry no help. I think I said elsewhere that you're damned if you do & damned if you don't (get closely involved in trying to get them revise, or anything with teens, really).

Ragged, my son is not looking to just pass the exams. I have seem his mock exams and they are really difficult, so i am not sure what your home edder is talking about? Perhaps just passing a regular GCSE is easy - but there are no modules involved in IGCSE exams and, therefore, the tests are extremely in depth and gruelling. As well, there would be no point taking them if you got a D, E or f in any of them - that would only help you stand out as a bit thick in that given subject, right? Come on, are there any parents of children taking IGCSE's out there -if so, how much revision ate they doing?

*are the doing?

I think it is naive to think the minimum grades at GCSE is all you need. Yes, it's all you need now, in theory, to move on but what about....

1. Something happens during your A level years and all you are left with is GCSE results
2. You are going to a competitive Uni and they look at GCSEs too
3. You are applying for a job and the employer decides he wants to take account of GCSE results too
4. A level entry requires a higher than minimum pass (Maths, Chemistry etc)
5. You want to apply to a sixth form where minimum grades are not enough
6. You actually want to work hard, do your best and - in so doing - gain one of lifes most valuable lessons.
7. You want to start to learn how to apply yourself because, by gum, you'll need it at A level.
8. You want to learn and cover the whole GCSE syllabus in detail so as to give yourself the best base knowledge possible to move on to A levels with.

....anyway.....most children I know start revision now and build up to a lot of work from Easter. Easter holidays being the major holiday for revison. Obviously it depends on how many subjects the student is taking that need revision.

My last post was meant a bit tongue-in-cheek :).
If he's motivated, then doesn't he know how well he has mastery of the material? Don't you just revise & revise until you know you've got it down pat?

igcse's are MUCH tougher than gcse's. Fact.

I don't think it is a fact Laughing Gas; a lot of seasoned teachers think it's a myth. (Of course you might be a seasoned teacher with an alternative view :)). In a case where no early modules are taken, there's very little difference in terms of standard or quantity of work required to get equivalent grades, that's my understanding.

Five of mine have so far taken ordinary GCSEs OP, all eleven (or in one case twelve) in one go and with no early modules. None did any revision at all during the Feb half-term, they started earlyish on in the Easter holidays. Perhaps a little earlier if Easter was particularly late. They were all pretty much ready to take them by May; I think starting earlier might have led to revision fatigue.

2 of mine have done mixtures of gcse and igcse. They say the coursework element of gcse is a joke. Teacher gives the work back each time for it to be re-done until a very high standard, then just about write a few lines on the actual exam day and it is'pretty much ín the bag'.

IGCSE they had to have all the knowledge on the exam day. No back of of up to 50% coursework.

I am from the old ó'level days, showing my age now! So I can only take their and their friends words for it. Plus the schoool has said the same.

Clearly, anything that involves coursework as part of a grade is going to be easier. As well, testing in a modular fashion, rather than all in one go sounds much easier, since, in modules, you would be tested as and when you learned that particular strand of the given subject - you would not, therefore, have to cram your head with 2 or 3 years worth of syllabus on one given day. It is like saying, is it easier to test your recall and understanding of one episode of your favourite tv show at a time, or to be tested on not just one episode, or one season of it, but on every episode of every season -a bit overwhelming, I think. Anyway, it is all very stressful, as the last thing teenage boys want to do is study! If the tests were given when they were younger, kids would probably want to study...when older and more mature, they would understand the benefits of studying. But, teenagers, with their fluctuating hormones and busy social lives -this is the worst time to expect a child to want to prioritise school, lol!

Of course if you are at a school where the teachers follow the rules and don't cheat by marking coursework and returning it for a redraft then 100% examination is going to be easier (and fairer). If you are a child that is better at exams than coursework you will probably find iGCSEs easier too.

Not all iGCSEs are harder, some are and some aren't.

Dd's friends (mostly taking mix of GCSE/iGCSE for what it's worth) are treating this break as the last proper holiday before revision starts.

glaurung - you name a school who doesn't send the coursework home. They all do it. It seems to be an unspoken thing, but it happens everywhere. So the child is doing the work at home in their own time, taking as long as they wish. And getting it corrected as they go along.

IGCSE maths contains elements of calculus. gcse doesn't. You would not touch it before A level. So maths, yes much harder.

Science also more in depth subjects in IGCSE.

Agree about not revising in feb half term though. We don't. They need a break after jan mocks i feel. Then get going again after.

DS1 starts his GCSEs in May. There have been booster and revision classes galore at school since Christmas. He goes to several at lunchtime and after school. However he hasn't started full scale revision at home yet. He has done a couple hours each on RE and geography. The difficulty I have is in coaxing him to leave the maths and physics which he already knows inside out and concentrate on the "boring" stuff.
He says he will be starting proper revision in the Easter holidays. As far as I know there is no more course work in GCSEs. It has been replaced in some cases by controlled assessments which are essentially like exams.

No coursework goes home, it's all done in the classroom and is called controlled assessment. Some subjects have no controlled assessment (Maths) and only the creative subjects (Art, Drama) have assessments which count for more than 25%.

Schools which offer IGCSE always claim that they have more rigour, just as IB schools make the claim for that. Universities say different.

really? ds geography gcse is 50 percent controlled assessment.

DS has CAs in French, English and Geography. They are all done in school and there is no reworking allowed, nor are they allowed to have feedback.
They are endless and very demanding. Several English papers are over four hours.
I don't doubt that the amount of work gives a fair assessment of the pupil's performance but they have completely dominated Y10 and 11. DS would far rather do terminal exams which he has in all the other subjects.

From conversations with teacher friends Laughinggas coursework (or more correctly controlled assessment) cheating is indeed widespread but by no means ubiquitous. It can be very hard to make up the lost marks in an exam from a reasonably decent assessment score if the grade boundaries for the assessments have been pushed sky high by all the other schools that cheat, but that is what many children have to try and do.

Then I hear that in schools that are 'caught out' cheating the assessments are sometimes all marked at zero which also seems unfair as none of the children at those schools can hope to achieve high or in some cases passing grades.

The calculus in edexcel iGCSE maths is very basic and only worth a very few marks - ds got the questions right before he'd even been taught calculus by intelligent guessing! Aside from that there isn't much difference between it and many GCSE syllabuses - Dd's GCSE maths questions certainly seem no easier and not really different in style. Also no coursework in GCSE maths these days so really not much to choose between them (though I am told the Cambridge iGCSE is harder, and I have been told sciences iGCSEs are harder too, I have no experience of these so that's heresay only). It is said boys are significantly advantaged by terminal exams with no coursework, so it may be iGCSEs are harder for girls and easier for boys in general.

Well, I have had a go at DS for not working/revising hard enough lately - am I being a dragon mum for not letting him relax after his mocks, or quite reasonable, since he has a propensity to slack off (even though he got A's & B's in the mocks - this without much effort.) The problem is that most pupils are expected to get all A & A's. B's are frowned upon and C's are anathema - and I don't think he'll get the A's without a major push...

I suppose exam boards must vary then but DC6 is taking his GCSEs this year and he'll be the sixth to take Geography and all six have done coursework/ controlled assessment which has accounted for or will account for 25% of the final mark. None have done a subject where coursework counts for more except Art and D&T. Is yours an independent school Laughing Gas?

I'm glad to say our school doesn't go in for sharp practice and the fact that it does all exams as linear and in one sitting means that marks are well deserved and not a case of a pupil turning up and writing his name.

Mummle mine have got mostly A (51A and 6A) and expectations at their school is high but it can be counterproductive to push IME, your DS will probably do better if he has a bit of a break.

I am getting ds to do has h/w for half term tomorrow (broke up on friday), and spend some time over half term concentrating on languages and learning vocab and verbs.

Many of his courses have finished (syllabus completed), and so they do revision in school, which helps a lot. I'll also get him to draw and label geography processes (rivers, coasts etc) which should make it stick, and make him explain things to me as well; and give him some work on moles for Chemistry.

It needs a gradual ramp up on the revision, so they are accustomed to doing 2.5 hours per night by the exams.

25% for geography coursework here too yellowstone, but French speaking and writing are done as controlled assessments and together count for 60%, also English language is 60% cont. assessment (but only 25% for English Literature). 33% for each of the sciences. So that's at least 5 core subjects with more than 25% total not done as traditional exam, and they're mainstream exam boards. Only RE and maths have none for her, but that's a huge increase since ds did GCSEs only a couple of years ago - I wonder if your dc6 has more assessment tasks than you are aware of (because it's being done at school)?

Dd does better on exams so would prefer just an exam most of the time. She's been told the French topics in advance (which is allowed apparently, but means the controlled assessment is little more than a memory test) so for this an exam would be harder, the rest has virtually all been done at school ('low control' parts of geography fieldwork and preparation for a speaking English task spring to mind, but not much if anything else).

I really hate being told by my Head of Department to mark in pencil and give the work back to re-do

I hate it with a passion, but the HoD and HT say other schools in the area do it so we disadvantage ourselves if we stick to the rules.

I HATE IT!!!

I teach science IGCSE. There is no coursework or controlled assessment. 100% of the marks are on the end of course exam. No modules.

They are much tougher than the modular core / additional GCSEs that we were teaching before swapping over a couple of years ago.

I can't speak for other subjects.

The exams are in May, too. I told my students that they would be wise to spend some time revising over half term.

oh am glad i have seen others with over 25 percent course work.
Also glad i have seen that it is regular that schools give back coursework to improve.
And also very glad to have a science igcse teacher back up my earlier comments regarding igcse being much tougher,