Year 8 summer exams in 2 weeks

[mrsjavierbardem]

Ds is at an all boys secondary and I have no idea how much revision he should be doing, is it obvious to everyone else do you think? Ds keeps saying his mates aren't studying but a lot of them may not need to. I just feel so out of touch with the school and find most of ds's teachers fairly chilly with Ds and me. I know it's a very hard job but communicating with us can surely only help.
There's a new HT who just started and hasn't so much as emailed parents, oh maybe once. I don't have any close friends who have kids at this school to ask, also form tutor was pretty useless when I asked her.

Dds year 7 internal exams start tomorrow.

She's done a bit if revision, about half an hour to an hour a day over half term.

My year 8 has done 4 hours a day over half term and in theory 1 hour after school since he went back after Easter. School give them good revision guidance and make it clear this is the time when they need to learn revision techniques.

I know from last year he will be somewhere in the middle of the revision volume.

Four hours a day!!!!!!!

Silas your DS is exceptionally hardworking and I find it difficult to imagine that half his class mates are doing more especially for Year 8 (and boys!). What type of school does he go to?

This is worrying. Ds hasn't opened a book

Mine did about 2 - 3 hours over the whole of half term..

I'd consider 4 hours a lot for gcse or a level.

Ds has just finished s2 exams (he's just turned 14- not sure how this equates). The month before the exams he averaged 1.5 hours a day after school, with about 2.5-3 hours a day at the weekends/ holiday days. Seemed fairly well prepared, will get results in the next week or so. Fingers crossed! What did your school suggest?

DD2 has a maths test next week, I'm sure she will have other end of year test to. Her school doesn't do a proper exam week.

It's very annoying because you can't chase them to revise and the results on reports are only for the last class test and not necessarily representative of the whole year.

Basic the only rule for end of year tests is don't get put down a set for being lazy and work your socks off if you want to move up.

(Although DD1 didn't really need to, because the idiots fucked up her maths and science sets so badly she could do the exam in her sleep).

silas my DD yr 10 revised about 30mins a day in the second week of Easter hols for her gcse mock exams! she'd has her real statistics gcse in 3 weeks and hasn't even started yet although she is naturally high achieving but still

DS2 has his Y7 exams this week. He has done a few hours of revision over half-term, maybe five or six hours in total.

Better to learn revision techniques now (what works for them, what doesn't) than leave it until Y11.

For Y8 exams, DS1 did about seven or eight hours of revision in total. In some subjects (Science, Maths, MFL) there's two years of work to cover, so similar amount of content to GCSEs.

My yr8 has exams this week. We only found out because it was on the school calendar on the website. We weren't told by newsletter or anything formal at all. I think it is really shit communication as many parents do not just browse the school website (I do as I am anal and like to have everything in my diary!).

I have made him do an hour a day over half term but I have apparently been ruining his life at the same time.... apparently no-one else is revising at all.

We have only covered two subjects but they are the ones he needed confidence boosting in.

I am a mixture of shocked at the amount of work some on this thread have done and envious that the schools and kids seem organised and in control. DS is currently in top set for everything (state comprehensive) but struggling in a couple. He has really struggled with organisation and the school don't keep on top of them (it doesn't help that he has a largely absent form tutor so that end is crap).

We'll see how he gets on.

I think this is a really difficult stage with regards to how much dc are expected to do themselves, and communicate to their parents. We have had no communication from school about the exams- the dc are expected to be able to take the information on board themselves and pass it on- ds is at a selective independent. School is quite heavy in the subject of individual responsibility. Ds had a bad experience with his Christmas exams in s1, he did really badly which was a blessing in disguise. He's since pulled his socks up and is really quite conscientious. I do think by this stage they should be becoming a bit more self reliant, although I don't agree with the previous poster- I do think you can make them revise! It sows seem though that watching dc go through exams is way more stressful than doing them your self!

Also have a y8 ds starting school exams today. For the 3 weeks or so before half term they were told that they could do revision in tutor period on non-assembly days. DS always made sure he had a reading book with him so he didn't have to revise. He made a rough plan at the start of half term, and revised about 1 1/2 subjects on Wednesday/Thursday. I realised yesterday that that was all he had done, and had a bit of a moan, so yesterday he revised one of today's subjects (other is English that he claims he can't do any work for!). The rest he'll be doing each evening this week, plus they have a couple of private study periods (everyone is off-timetable for exams). So an hour or two per subject. He's done pretty well during the year and at end-of-topic tests, and has a good memory, so I expect he'll do ok if not brilliantly. I'm really not sure there's enough content to cover for him to have been doing as much as Silas's ds!

DS1 (Yr7 moderately selective indie) has been given a revision timetable of sorts. The school are suggesting between 2-4 hours of revision per subject; adds up to well over 20 hours in total. Exams are 45-75 mins long with 3 science exams and speaking and listening for languages as well as written papers. With past experience of prep school exams the amount of revision varies considerably between the children as do the results; 30% - 100%. Of course, if the exams are very easy then the spread of marks will be less noticeable. DC we know taking GCSEs and A levels this year have been revising since Christmas!

All these hardworking year 8s etc will I am sure go on to achieve great things but are they going to need to be working even harder for GCSEs and A levels? I am not alone in my experience of DC at very academic schools who have done fairly minimal revision for school exams during the holidays until year 10/year 11 and still done very well (I don't think the exams were particularly easy). This is nothing to do with brilliance of the child, just the norm. Is n't revising too much in the younger years overkill?

Just to add that I would rather they spent the extra time reading interesting stuff that was n't part of revision if they were going to work that hard.

My feeling at year 8 is that it's firstly not all that important and secondly a great opportunity to give him charge of his learning.

If he gets it massively wrong the fall is small and not insurmountable.

Sit down with him. Tell him what other boys do/don't do is immaterial. What grades does he think he should be achieving when he's doing his best? (if he's a solid average then you can't really expect to get 100% maybe?) .

See what he thinks he needs to do. Talk about covering all subjects and not just the easy ones. If anything start with the hardest in the " eat a live frog first thing and it's the worst that'll happen all day" mindset. Look at what he thinks is a good amount to spend and make sure he knows what will be tested.

Check he's got things straight in his head about what he has to do.

Ask him what help he would like and that if he needs more to say so. Otherwise leave him to get on with it with a light handed overview.

Trust him- that's hard. He may not need much revision. That's OK. THe results will tell him if he's done enough. Poor results- don't scream about them, sit down and revisit what happened and make notes of how things will be better next time!

My experience is that the kids know what they need to do, They have already got a guide to what needs much time and they get on with it.

Luckily for DS his exams haven't been too close to the holidays yet so any revision has taken up term time evenings and weekends.

4 hours a day is ridiculous for year 8 internal exams. Utterly ridiculous.

My dd did about 5/6 hours a day and she is doing A levels!

Good advice but my Ds went down a set in a couple of subjects based on yr 7 exams and unfortunately it appears that the better teachers teach the higher sets ( I know that is a subjective opinion but honestly he has had some very uninspiring teaching this year and also a year of trainees in many subjects. The experienced teachers seem totally focused on the big exams further up the school. I feel year 8 is a bit forgotten.

We had similar experience- left ds to his own devices for s1 Christmas exams. He failed miserably. We were lucky however, some of the best teachers take the lowest sets, and ds is expected to move up several sets. Some children get away with doing little revision, ds is not one of them. And not many get away with this right through school. The practices ds is getting into now will stand him in good stead right through to uni.

My Ds (selective indie) has Y7 exams coming up. They were supposed to start revising before 1/2 term, but didn't let up on the homework so that didn't really happen. The school recommended 2-3 hrs a day over half term with 2 rest days. Ds was at scout camp for 5 days .... Exams next week. Oh well!

Frankly if a year 7 or 8 fails really badly in internal exams, assuming they've actually been to school and paid attention in lessons, there's something wrong with the teaching- either in the actual subject or in exam technique.

My year 8 did 30 minutes of maths every day over half term because I think he is coasting and needs to push himself a bit. I did have to pay him, though.......