Year 11 GCSE Exam Support Thread

[Littleham]

Is anyone else fed up with GCSE's and the stress they create? Thought I would start a support thread for the following few months. Mocks start next week at my dd3's school.

I would keep him off. They are mocks, not the real thing, and I expect quite a few do fake being ill.

I would keep him off if he is feeling really ill - he won't be able to do his best in that state.

I'm another one who will have A'levels and GCSES at the same time in 2 years (if DD makes it through her GCSEs this year!) as will many of my friends. However, they all seem to have perfect Stepford children.

In addition to G&Ts, according to my DD's there's another AQA Lit on 18th May (am)

I'm not quite sure which board her chemistry is, it's some sort of IGCSE (14th May am, 9th june pm)

AQA Electronics and drama are both am 19th May;
OCR Computing and AQA German (Reading and Listening) are both 3rd June.

I believe her maths is AQA but it's the same dates as the Excedel.

Further maths (think AQA again) is am 15 and 19 June.

DD says that where there's a clash, the school can arrange different timing so long as the pupils are sequestered, but it has to be on the stated day.

LadySybil - hope your DS feels better soon but definitely would keep him off till he is. Better for him and better for the other kids.

Does anyone have a view on how much is 'a lot' of revision for mocks (and the real things), and how much is 'average' and how much is 'not very much'?

DD did around 100 hours for mocks. Which I think is quite considerable, until you divide it by the number of subjects, and then it doesn't seem so much at all.

I may need to 'defend' her results to the school, but don't want to be on shaky ground if everyone else's DCs actually do way more than she did.

He's at home. He has a raging sore throat and is coughing a little but everything else has cleared up (thank goodness).

Ds has done 'not very much'. He's looked at GCSE bitesize, worked through the questions, got 10/10 and decided that he knows enough I spoke to his tutor last week and she said he's done well in the exams he has taken so it must depend on the child. If there's a lot of gaps in their knowledge for whatever reason then they should do a lot, as in a few weeks worth ish.

TeenandTween - it depends very much on the child, the subjects and what the need is. If their attendance is good, they've worked diligently over the school year and they find it easier to retain information, there may not be much requirement for revision.

When ds1 was preparing for GCSEs most of what needed to do was already set as obligatory homework by the teachers. He never did the "sit at my desk for 3 hrs pretending to be working, staring aimlessly at a textbook, checking Twitter every 5 mins" kind of revision. Instead he did focused 30 minute slots, sometimes with one of us testing him on his knowledge, or writing an answer to longer exam questions, then checking it against the markscheme, etc. Sometimes the slots ran on a bit to 40 or 45 mins. He did just 5 hours of this per week for about 10 weeks in the lead-up to the exams (and got all A*s).

Over and above (a lot of) specific homeworks set, ds2 has done about 25 hours of revision for his GCSE mock exams over the past month. He thinks they are going OK. In addition, he's spent a lot of time doing music practice for his performance assessment.

roisin Thank you. I know it is a 'how long is a piece of string' question!

If their attendance is good, TICK
they've worked diligently over the school year TICK
and they find it easier to retain information, CROSS

And there in lies DD's difficulty.

Information retention is improved by repeated revision. Ideally after the first revision they should take another look after say 3 days, then again after another 10. Also I think that 'reprocessing' information can help. Don't just read through stuff - rewrite it, maybe say some aloud, make notes(which can then be used for subsequent reviews); for things that have to be learned in detail then whatever strategy suits (mnemonics, 'memory palace', mind maps...). Perhaps this is obvious, but there are some things they don't need to memorise -eg DD says the chemistry igcse they get given the periodic table; some subjects will have formulae sheets.

Useful to know the equations in various situations though, Errol. Like the speed = distance/time, it's useful to know that this can be reworked to work out distance for example.

Ds said in Spanish and German they were given a dictionary which had bits of Spanish and German grammar at the back, which was very useful.

Yes, but if a child finds memorising stuff difficult, then you don't want them stressing to remember more than they have to.

(And in that particular example I'd say that if you understand what speed is, then you don't need to remember a formula anyway.)

The subject I'm most concerned about is History. There seems to be loads of details to learn, coupled with question-answering technique, coupled with picture based questions.

The exam boards differ for history in what they expected. ds2 is doing a different exam board than ds1 did.

ds2 tells me that for his exam (OCR) 'memorising specific facts, details, dates, etc.' is mainly just required for the A* grades; below that it's about being able to interpret sources using overview knowledge of the curriculum.

Of course, I have no idea whether he is correct in this assessment!

ds1 did quite a bit of revision for history, it has to be said.

Retaining info is an issue here. Disaster with Maths tutor here just now, she had a Panic attack and burst into tears. Poor man looked very shocked. I could see she was hold g herself together for rest of lesson but there is no way that will work. I'm going to have to think of a way of saying thanks but no thanks nicely.

We decided that DS needs to be focused a bit more. Especially after his mocks as he said himself he got stupid things wrong in maths physics and chemistry.

We started over the weekend by downloading a past paper and setting him in the dining room no calculator no distracting phone or computer and asked for 30 mins of solid work. Paper was 1:45 long. so over weekend he's completed the paper and dh or I marked from the mark scheme. Friday nights 30 min he made stupid mistakes in that he'd worked it all out right then written something random!! And his attitude was a bit yeah whatever especially when sent away to correct said stupid mistakes Saturday we did another 30 min and this time his attitude was better as he'd struggled with some of the longer questions. But still stupid mistakes. Sundays 45 min was like having a diff kid. He's realised he doesn't know stuff, realised that DH DOES know stuff and can explain it in a way he gets. So this is our plan of action past papers and no holds barred telling him when he's been an idiot and made stupid mistakes. Also it's good to help him with his writing because of his dyslexia and dyspraxia his writing is awful and some letter/number formation is odd. A couple of times I had to check what the number was when I thought it was wrong and it wasn't so that scared him that the examiner would mark it wrong when it was right.

And tonight he asked should he download a physics paper so obviously he's seen the point of revising. For now!

That is the best thing you can do - get them to do as many past papers as possible. Makes a massive difference.

SugarPlum - would it be worth getting the maths guy to try some simpler problems and build up to the harder stuff? Might stop the panic attacks.

SugarPlum, will PM you.

Thanks BigTillyMint. I think I am going to have to find her someone else, she says something about him spooked her though feels sorry for him as knows he was trying.

She's just remembered another girl in her class has a tutor and they make maths cupcakes in the lesson, whatever they are. That sounds more like DD so she is under strict instructions to find out who tutor is.

It sounds like DS is making good progress Auntpetunia and you have has a bit of a break through

DD tells me that following a pep talk from one of the teachers, a friend of hers was sobbing about her mock grades (pretty awful) and the small amount of time left until the real thing .

auntp - when you're dividing up the time for a past paper like that, does it allow for the 'go back and check if you've got time left' phase? I think if my DD does any papers at home she'll probably have to do the whole thing at once, as she tends to go through quite fast but really does need to do the checking for silly mistakes.

Error. Yeah we said 2 30 min sessions with about 5/10 min for checking. He didn't check on Friday but Saturday and Sunday we had less stupid mistakes to be honest I'm just happy he's actually doing some work. Though he's refused point blank tonight "as I stayed after school didn't i?" He did the compulsory Monday stay behind and thinks that's enough. Am not going to fight with him as he's narked I won't let him go the new youth club tonight as he's out at drama and scouts on Wednesday and already goes to normal youth club on Thursday so I think 2 nights out is enough. Apparently I'm horrible and everyone is going and he's been treated like a baby!! I just told him any more lip and he wouldn't go on Thursday. He was reading his science file when I went up but now he's on Skype, so not everyone went the youth club or he'd have no one to skype

Cupcake tutor sounds good. Are they real cupcakes? Wish my maths teacher had used cupcakes!

Anyone know how much a Maths tutor costs ( south east)?

Think they are real - no idea how that works with learning Maths but if it works I wouldn't be complaining (and happy to eat them)

Dingit I paid £23 yesterday which was him coming here (south coast). Another friend paying £30 for A level. DD'S Japanese is £25.

Got mock results today. Not as good as she hoped, but all A-C, so I'm happy.