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?

Also, as the exam for igcse is the whole course stuffed together into 2 exams at the end, they are harder to do.

modular is in such bite size peices it would be hard to fail if you wanted to pass. You have been tought a particular topic, the exam for that topic is sometimes 20 mins and even that can be multiple choice. I know becuase I couldn't believe when ds was telling me he had an exam and i got all churning up for him. Dont worry mum its only 20 mins. What?!

Useful thread, OP, because DC4 is taking IGCSEs this summer.

She did no revision in half term, which for us finished a week ago, though she did do some art, maths and science homework. Loads of art actually.

Anyway, my experience with her three older sibs, who did normal modular GCSEs in the UK, led me to think that the Easter holidays were the time to begin revision.

Hmm, think we'll start talking about exam prep. some more now. School is on the case, obviously, but a bit of parental back-up will do no harm.

My DC3 did no work over half term - the only work done by friends was in Art. It's the last chance for some time off, in my experience - they did modules in science last month so had worked over the Christmas hols so it was nice to just chill out. I remember it being this way for the other two, too.

You're right glaurung, I got it wrong :) The English Language and French have increased at the DCs' school since controlled assessments came in and coursework went out. We have so many exams in this house each year that it's fairly easy to lose track! (A Levels/ ASs/ GCSEs again this year, for the third or fourth year running). Tbh I let them get on with their work and don't intervene.

There's clearly a difference of opinion amongst educationalists about the relative difficulty of IGCSEs and GCSEs. No doubt it depends whether one comes at it from a perspective of taking GCSEs as linear with controlled assessments properly done or from the different angle of endless bite size modular with or without the pencil marking routine (pretty shocked about that). Done properly, there's no difference in the standard required for equivalent grades, even in Science.

My DSs too would find exams only easier. My DDs like coursework/ controlled assessment - very gender stereotypical. So, ease of format is relative. I think the quantity they have to do is tough and the quality is testing enough.

Marjorie I'd say that Easter was a good time to start revision in earnest even for those taking non modular GCSEs, provided always that a reasonable amount of revision was done for the January mocks.

Cheers, yellowstone.

Mine never read the gender stereotype handbook yellowstone! Not at all surprised you lose track sometimes to be honest, but your dc are evidently very together and thrive without too much parental involvement. Their collective results tally is mind bogglingly impressive - well done to them!

Meow75isknittinglikemad -It's very sad that some schools appear to cheat. It must disadvantage those who don't.
It isn't every school.
I know they don't at DSs school because he has never even been allowed to see a piece of work after it has been marked let alone "improve" it, he is told the mark / approximate grade and that is all.
Roll on terminal exams and a level playing field.
I would have gone along with the gender stereotype based on DS1 but DS2 suffers great anxiety at tests and exams and I suspect would do better at continuous assessment.

Just a couple of comments - OP my DD is not expected to start revising until around Easter. The school are doing a revision tips evening in March. She does GCSEs and goes to a super selective grammar. I was quite shocked to hear about the cheating allegations - she has experienced nothing like that in the controlled assessments she has done. In fact having done tradional O' levels at my grammar 30 years ago I really believe that the GCSEs test a wider range of skills. I was never tested in practical science ability, or analytical skills in history for example. The English controlled assessments also seem to test ability over a wider range of texts than I ever had to study. Frankly the old O' levels were a test of memory and the ability to write quickly - and while I did well, I did f* all for two years, except memorising parts of the book and the notes the teacher gave us, the evening before the exam and then spewed it back out. I dread a return to end of course exams, especially as DD2 is dyslexic.

It depends on when the exams start Kensingtonia; ds has the first of his IGCSEs on 08/05, so leaving revision til Easter is leaving it too late. He is doing little and often and being tested, so we know it has gone in. This is his chance to make sure he knows his stuff and to identify areas where he is not so confident and then has time to get his teachers to go over it again if necessary.

I used to run a weekly revision class for Year 11 from the October half term until the exams, including two full days during the Easter holidays, to make sure they had sufficient time and opportunity to catch up anything missed; to go over exam technique; to hear what the examiners are looking for; and to go over topics they hadn't grasped. This was any of the year group, not just my own sets.

I also did O levels 30 years ago this year, and I have to say (as a teacher as well as an examiner), I don't think GCSE content is a patch on O level, and the marking is positive rather than negative; we credit what they have got right, not mark them down for what is wrong. I did chemistry and biology practicals, and did lots of texts for O level Eng Lit; Chaucer, Shakespeare, Bronte and some poetry as well. Perhaps we did different boards.

From experience as a year 11 teacher and tutor, I have seen too many kids leave their revision until Easter, and then panic at the amount of stuff they need to get through, (the assumption of the ostrich position, head in sand, arse in air was evident) hence the revision classes I ran, and my insistence that ds does little and often now.

DS3 starts then too scaryteacher but he had mocks in the run up to half-term and would be horribly stale if he started again now. And resentful and cross if I pushed it. I can't see any virtue - and some harm - in revising before the start of the holidays: 30th March. That leaves six weeks and then the protracted period of the exams themselves, which is a further six weeks. That's a long time. I'd have thought the worst thing of all is to be completely fed up with sitting staring at books weeks before the exams even begin. They're all different I suppose, but I don't intend to push it with mine: he did some reasonable steady work of his own volition for these mocks and I think it would send a message that I didn't recognise what he'd done, whereas in fact I was pleased and surprised.

O Levels were bound to be harder than GCSEs; and CSEs easier. Having said that, we took less O Levels on the whole, with eight being the norm at good schools. And there's that old quip of Stalin's I think: quantity has a quality all of its own. I take my hat off to these young things juggling eleven or twelve different subjects all in one hit - it's a real challenge I think.

We use the Easter Holidays as the start time for revision here as well, any earlier than that and the whole thing becomes a grind. If a child is up to date with their work then Easter onwards gives plenty of time. If they have been daydreaming for the last year and a half then a bit of extra catch up time might be needed!

Mocks were after Christmas here, and it's identified the areas he needs to work on which is useful. As he's a bugger about revising and has procrastination down to a fine art, then little and often works for him, rather than massive chunks of time all at once. Some subjects I am not too worried about, as he should get A*, but it's the languages and the chemistry that worry me.