Year 11 workload

9 replies

secretscwirrels · 10/10/2013 15:50

DS2 in year 11 doing 10 subject at GCSE plus 1 BTEC.
Already he is doing after school classes 3 evenings and now we have been told there is another.
These are not intervention classes, he is able and hard working. It seems they just don't have time in the day to cover the curriculum.
I am fed up on his behalf. He does not need all those GCSEs and it's only October. He has homework as well. Heaven help him by the time it gets nearer the exams.
He did opt to do long course RE which he knew would be after school but the rest was quite unexpected.
Are other schools like this?

OP posts:

Leeds2 · 10/10/2013 17:10

My DD is in Year 11, also doing 10 GCSEs.

She doesn't do any after school classes (I don't think the school offers them), apart from 20 mins of Spanish conversation with the Spanish assistant.

cricketballs · 10/10/2013 17:14

we run them but as an intervention rather than teaching so if students are placed in an after school class its for catch-up, going over something that they haven't understood in class with a small amount of students rather than actually 'teaching' as normal

Hassled · 10/10/2013 17:16

The only after-school teaching mine gets is for an additional GCSE he's opted to do, IYSWIM - it's not core curriculum teaching.

How is he coping with it? If he's really struggling, could you pull him out of one his options?

Original poster

secretscwirrels · 10/10/2013 17:27

He's not struggling but he does seem to be overloaded with work. I'm not new to this, DS1 did GCSEs 2years ago.
I think the school should manage the time tabling better. He was forced to take a DT subject he didn't want and now they can't fit it all in.
Leeds the sessions are compulsory not "offered". Some are indefinite and some are for a few weeks while they do CAs.
I suppose he could say no but he wouldn't, he wants to do well and is hard working.

OP posts:

englishteacher78 · 10/10/2013 17:29

I suspect it may be the impact of controlled assessment, it can be very difficult to manage.

Original poster

secretscwirrels · 10/10/2013 17:56

Yes it's CAs in History and Geography. Ironically the English ones of which they have more, are being managed in class.

OP posts:

ICanTotallyDance · 11/10/2013 01:05

It's not very normal, no. How long is his school day?

I would expect maybe a couple of out of school classes in A levels but not at year 11.

If most of those courses a just for a few weeks I would say stick it out but the permanent ones are an issue and if there are a lot of them, I would say something. Can he not withdraw from his DT subject? He could use the time to do homework even if he couldn't get one of his other classes scheduled into that time.

AtiaoftheJulii · 11/10/2013 06:47

My y11 dd has two "sixth period" lessons - there wee only a few people who wanted to do two MFL, so they run a class after school for them. That's great, but they then made her do an extra GCSE to fill in the gap. We've got them to let her drop that extra one this year so she now has 3 private study periods and she's much happier. BUT the science dept decided they weren't going to have enough time to successfully cover the triple science syllabus, so have now laid on an after school "lecture" once a week to cover it. (Bit annoyed about this!) Fortunately though she doesn't seem to get loads of homework. In fact she said last night we wished she got more!

englishteacher78 · 11/10/2013 07:14

It maybe a shortage of computers that's the issue. It's certainly what complicates CA at our school. We've managed to avoid this but it's helped by English and the Sciences switching to IGCSE. At our school students are sometimes taken off timetable for it - and all because the vast majority of schools do not have the computer capacity to offer CA in timetabled lessons. CA is a complete nightmare and I'm so glad we don't do it.

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