Has anybody got a dc who fluffed AS then went on to do well at A?

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

DD2 has got a B, 2 Cs and an E - we were hoping for better and she was predicted as better too. The E not a terrible prob, as she can drop that subject, but the C is the subject she had wanted to do at uni. Any success stories/tips would be v much appreciated!

[antimatter]

He is now urgently re-organising his vinyl collection. - I think this is called displacement activity
others will play guitar, computer games, watch tv

I don't know what are the deadlines for making any decision? Or can it wait for few days?

[Haffdonga]

Thanks guys. I do appreciate your virtual shoulders. I'm so glad I can talk to you. DS knows full well I'll be happy to have a non-judgemental chat whenever he's ready. I'm a careers adviser FFS He is now urgently re-organising his vinyl collection.

DS's school has said they will allow a maximum 3 retakes. The problem for ds (as I see it) is that he scored an average B across the board. Which 3 modules, if any, should he try to 'up' with retakes or shouldn't he? Actual answer is there none, of course.

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[FantaSea]

OwThatHurt I agree with you - DD had this problem this year as all retakes had to be done in the summer alongside the A2 modules.

[antimatter]

Haffdonga - your son is in denial and hopes by not talking about it he will hurt less. Tell him that you are here for him and he cn come to you to talk when he is ready.

I am sure he will if the ball is in his court!

[Horsemad]

I'd like to know if Michael Gove resat any of his exams!

[OwThatHurt]

I know the stories of students upping their AS grades while doing their A2 are encouraging but I wonder how relevant they are to the current batch of students who will not be able to resit anything until May/June 2015.

I'm not sure it's feasible for most students to retake more than a few exams especially stand-alone modules. It's more feasible for some of the maths modules. (C1 etc)

[FantaSea]

Haffdonga oh dear, sorry to hear you are having trouble. My DD has just got her A2 and at the beginning of year 13 they all had an individual meeting with their form tutors about the grades they had achieved at AS and whether it would be wise to drop a subject etc.. I suspect that this is commonplace in most schools and so your DS will have no choice but to discuss it with someone at school.

My DD did not get what she expected at AS and it was a very difficult time. She wanted it all to just go away but at the same time wanted it sorted out. It was awful.

[Haffdonga]

Just a vent here so please feel free to skip. Head stuck firmly in the sand here.

ARRRGGGHHH

DS is absolutley refusing to discuss even discussing his results. I tentatively suggested he might want to think about a plan B just in case Plan A (RG sciencey course) is not possible. I can't repeat his answer. So I tried to suggest that if he is still committed to the plan A he'll need to consider exactly how this will be achieved (retakes? tutor? working his socks off? which subject to drop?). Of course I'm interfering. I don't know what I'm talking about and he needs to relax.

He has to fill in an info form for a medical thing and he wont even talk about thinking about doing that. It's not even exam related. FFS

[circular]

Thanks for all the great advice.
Think she will speak to maths teachers when they go back. if its anything like this year with the applied unit, they won't start M1 for a while.
Did have a physics tutor for a few weeks leading up to mechanics exam, but as in school, she understood everything then went off and made the same mistakes.

Most of her practise papers scored better on C2 than C1, as she often makes careless mistakes in easier questions. But she did far better in C1 in the real thing, so much more marks to be gained by resitting C2.
S1 was about what she expected, so see no point resitting as not doing S2, so would add to workload.
The only other resit she has planned is the physics mechanics, which her physics teacher thinks will be much easier for her after studying M1.

May have a look through some of the D1 stuff (its in the AS CGP guide that we already have) with her to see how she finds it. I could help her, looks very similar to some of a 'maths in computing' OU course I once did.

[FantaSea]

circular my DD has just finished A2 and did a lot of AS resits at the same time as her A2 exams and I really would not recommend it. She worked very very hard in year 13 and improved all of her AS grades but it was at the expense of her A2 modules.

Saying that though, to resit C2 is really very doable as the content is covered in the A2 syllabus. DD did some past papers to make sure she could do the papers in the time and get back into the 'style' of the exam questions.

DD did D1 in an attempt to overrule her M1 score from year 12. Her school did M1 in year 12 and S1 in year 13 but they offered a few lunchtime lessons for D1 and the rest of the D1 was teach yourself. D1 was presented to us by the school as very manageable and the answer to all our problems with M1 so DD was enthusiastic about doing it. This sounds fine in theory but the workload for A2 is very heavy, especially if you are factoring in other resits. D1 is not like any of the other modules, it is a very odd branch of maths and takes a lot of practice to get it good. I have also heard that a lot of students who are doing Further Maths take it as an applied unit and as they are the better students anyway, this pushes up the grade boundaries.

DD did worse in D1 than in M1 and so the M1 went towards her final grade so all the independent study was for nothing, and would have been time she could have used to improve something else. In hindsight, I think she would have been better off having another go at the M1, as she already had some knowledge of that, whereas D1 was a module from scratch.

[ChangeIsNear]

Yes from D grade to A in chemistry. Re-sat all 3 modules and worked hard! Second time it was a lot easier too.

[BestIsWest]

DD got a C at AS in the subject she did at Uni ( in fact she got 4 C's at AS).

She got offers from all her UCAS choices (including one RG Uni) and got in to her first choice (not the RG one) so it is possible.

[frogsinapond]

circular, you really need noblegiraffe (maths teacher)'s advice on this, but I would suggest that mechanics isn't that difficult once you 'get' it whereas decision is a whole load of new learning and dc often score very low on that paper too. So I would be tempted to really work hard at the mechanics (would a few sessions with a tutor be possible?), and then hopefully get two good scores on both the maths and physics papers rather than tackle decision. As for maths resits, it's a bit different to other subjects because it's very synoptic, so I know (for example), that a lot of dc resit C1 at the end and find it really easy and get very good marks, that is definitely an easy way to squeeze extra marks towards a higher grade (not A*). I imagine it may be similar for C2, although I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the content of C2 - if it's areas of maths that aren't reused so much later on it may be more effort than C1, but generally with maths the more you do, the better you get at it and I'd have thought resitting C2 was a much better idea than doing D1.

[stonecircle]

Believe me if I didn't laugh about DS1 I'd cry! Thankfully, DS2 is the exact opposite.

Circular - from my limited experience I think the real problem with resits is that they are being taken after a year of no formal tuition in that topic. Not so bad when there were January resits. Students who have, for whatever reason, not done well in a particular module would have to work independently to resolve those problems (they may get some help from school but not formal lesson time) and improve their performance in a resit whilst working for and sitting all their scheduled exams. If lack of effort was the problem and the student finds the desire to work much harder then it could be OK. But if the problem was that they were struggling with a particular topic then it's a tall order to get to grips with it on their own in order to do better a year later (without having a negative impact on other exam results).

[Besta]

stonecircle you made me laugh :) thanks all, I rally don't know if she is the type to work her socks off, but she can't have it both ways unfortunately. She's very used to doing well without a lot of effort.......and that's bit her on the bum this time.

I hope everyone's DC gets sorted.

[circular]

Was going to post this on the yr12 support thread, but thought it may be better here.

Re the discussion on AS module retakes possibly bringing down A2 marks - would this apply to maths? DD1 was planning to retake C2 as she felt she could have done better. As all the core modules build on each other, is this really going to add much to her workload? Understand the A* calculations, but more in hope of bringing a strong overall B up to an A, and expecting M1 to be a struggle next year.

On the subject of M1, she failed Physics mechanics, but is being allowed to continue with Physics as her other modules OK, and her maths is good. She will be retaking Physics mechanics paper, hoping to improve after having learning more mechanics in M1 next year. I'm concerned, as gather M1 is more difficult than the mechanics in AS physics?
Will possibly have option to choose D1 instead of M1, but S2 definitely not offered. Wondering whether she should ask to do BOTH D1 and M1 if it can be timetabled, and keep the best score towards the A2. Would that be madness workload wise ?

[Horsemad]

@ stonecircle.

[stonecircle]

To DS1's gf, working your socks off meant going through the whole A2 syllabus for each subject during the summer holidays before the start of year 13.

It meant working for hours every evening and all weekend (DS1 I imagine just sat and gazed and her while she was doing this). It did pay off - she got AAAB at AS and AAA at A2. I don't know why, two years later, she's still hanging around with my lazy, feckless son and coming home from uni most weekends to see him.

[Theas18]

Besta to DS working his socks off meant...

Meeting up a few times with a mate of your mothers to talk about strategies and focus. That's was the important mindset change I think. She also checked that he'd covered all the areas she knows kids find hard ( she teaches at a 6 the form college). School would have offered this, it wasn't " tutoring" as such but this bit of one to one got him on track. And hearing it from someone who wasn't his teacher I think was good.

He very clearly knew exactly what he had to do to get the marks, how each format of question worked.

He then yup, worked in study periods. Re drafted anything that didn't go 100% well in assessed work. Did lots and lots of past papers etc. He even carefully balanced relaxation and work - at times handing over his console controller ! He still had a good social life, a girlfriend and extra curricular stuff but he ( not me) regulated them carefully with his goal in mind.

He is very grateful to the teacher who went against school policy and predicted him an A after a B at AS.

[secretsquirrels]

Soooooo, what exactly does "work your socks off" mean?
It means working during "free" periods instead of catching up with friends.
It means doing more work for homework than the teacher has set.
It means hours of work at night and at weekends. To be honest DS did little else but work in the last year and many may think he got the work / life balance wrong.
If your DC is dedicated as well as able and has a subject they love that's fine, but you can lead a horse to water......

[stonecircle]

Besta - "working your socks off" will mean different things to different students. The important thing for them to bear in mind is that they should be working their socks off in relation to how much effort they put into AS - that is the benchmark. There's no 'one size fits all' rule for how hard each student needs to work.

My year 12 ds2 (about to go into year 13) for example had a routine of coming in from school, going to bed for a couple of hours, having tea, watching telly and then, as the rest of us were going to bed, working for 2-3 hours at the kitchen table with nothing on it other than books/papers relating to the task in hand. But those 2-3 hours were exceptionally focused and productive. His older brother spent longer on 'revision' - at the library with his girlfriend, lying on his bed with a book propped up in front of him, sitting on the sofa with his feet up in front of the telly 'working' on his laptop etc etc.

DS2 applied himself but I wouldn't say worked very hard. He was still doing rugby training on a Saturday morning and playing rugby Sunday morning/afternoon. He managed A in Eng Lit (a very high A - astonishing for a boy who never reads); A in geography; B in Biology and D in Maths. Sadly he really tried with maths but it was a mistake him doing AS maths in the first place as GCSE maths was clearly his ceiling. DS1, who spent much longer 'revising' managed D, E, U .... Interestingly, I have always thought (and still do) that DS1 is cleverer than DS2 (but that's a whole other thread!)

[Horsemad]

Besta, read Mindgone's post (Page1) about how her son did it. He was totally determined. Mine says he'll work harder, but that remains to be seen.

DS talks the talk...