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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

Fuming at lack of information

19 replies

Ludoole · 06/05/2015 13:26

Ds1 is in year 10.
Yesterday i received a letter from school informing me of the dates he sits science gcse's. Next week!!!!
This is the first i have heard of it!! I assumed he wasnt sitting any til next year as he is doing triple science.
Turns out ds1 has been aware for some time but hes so laid back that he didnt think to tell me!
Im fuming at him and not impressed that there was no prior warning from the school.

OP posts:

TeenAndTween · 06/05/2015 13:38

I'm shocked but not surprised.

Unexpected · 06/05/2015 14:15

It's not great that you didn't know but, to be fair, your DS will have been aware since the beginning of the year (if not before) and they are his exams. He's the one who needs to do the studying for them. Was this not mentioned at parents' evening or any information evenings?

Original poster

Ludoole · 06/05/2015 15:03

Unexpected, parents evening is not for 2 weeks and there havent been any information evenings.
My ds should have told me and we have had a discussion about that, i just dont get why the school hadnt said anything. They send me a letter every half term about his 100% attendance but send nothing about the exams...

OP posts:

catslife · 06/05/2015 15:35

I have a child in Y10, we had a letter from the school in February asking us to confirm our child's details were correct before the exam entry forms were sent off (deadline was beginning of March.
dd is however taking Double Science and the exams next week are for Y10s taking the Core Science part of Double Science and Y11s taking Triple Science (or resitting if needed) so your understanding is correct if you live in England. I believe that Wales has retained the old system and all Y10s still take Core Science.
So if you live in Wales that's one explanation. Otherwise there may be something else wrong with either your ds or the school's communication system.

Original poster

Ludoole · 06/05/2015 16:55

Catslife We are in England.
Apparently hes doing core science exam this year and then the extended and the further exams next year. Finally makes sense!!

OP posts:

coppertop · 06/05/2015 17:19

Similar issues here, and not helped by the fact that ds has autism. He apparently knew he had "a test" but had no idea it was an actual exam.

I found out purely by accident. I didn't even get a letter or an email.

DeeWe · 06/05/2015 18:51

I was the other way. I was somewhat suprised to get an email from school detailing dd1 (year 9)'s external exams. I kind of expected once they were at secondary it would be their responsibility.
I'm sure we were given it at school and expected to sort it.

coppertop · 06/05/2015 19:17

I've had to sit through several talks and presentations about how the school needs to work in partnership with parents so that the pupils can reach their full potential etc etc.

It's difficult to do that if only one half of that partnership are sharing information.

Charis1 · 06/05/2015 20:58

How can you not know the structure of the exam subjects? This information would have been available during options, in year 9, if it wasn't, you should have asked for it.

LimeFizz · 06/05/2015 21:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TeenAndTween · 06/05/2015 21:03

Charis Only if you know you have to ask for it though! It isn't unreasonable for someone to believe that GCSE exams are taken end year 11 unless there is clear indication to the contrary.

OP - watch out for controlled assessments. Your DS probably won't tell you about them either but they are important and worth lots of %%. They appear randomly thoughout y11 (and quite possibly y10 too).

ragged · 06/05/2015 21:07

The information about exam entry is not generally available to us, but we've had about 10 weeks notice for DS's yr10 coming exams in June (2 letters, in increasingly garish colours...)

Honestly makes not a jot of difference, unless we had been planning a holiday then, and then it would have been too late I suppose. It's not like he's actually going to revise.

Original poster

Ludoole · 06/05/2015 22:24

Limefizz Hes doing core this year then additional and further in year 11.
Teenandtween Your correct that i didnt know any exams would be taken in year 10 and i will definitely talk to ds about continuous assessment, thankyou.
Charis Maybe i should have asked when he was choosing his options, but as i say i assumed (obviously wrongly) that they would all be in year 11 as school have never mentioned year 10 exams ever.

Anyway, ds seems calm about it all so i suppose i shall chalk it all up to experience. Thanks for the comments.

OP posts:

BackforGood · 06/05/2015 23:45

Charis - not true at my dds' school.
I only found out quite late in Yr10 that various exams she was taking in the Summer were actual GCSEs and not internal ones.
You can't ask for information unless you know that something might be a possibility though, can you - it has to occur to you that there is a choice that the school can make, which many parents wouldn't have known about, especially with the headlines been reported that all GCSEs were supposedly going back to 'one exam at the end of the two years' rather than modular approach.

That said, I agree with ragged - your dc knew. You knowing won't make any difference to them, except possibly bringing some pointless nagging down on their heads.

ErrolTheDragon · 07/05/2015 00:06

I'm very surprised you hadn't had any communication from the school about this.
Just on a practical note make sure he's got black biros etc and a clear pencil case.

Charis1 · 07/05/2015 04:25

Just in case you are not aware, the whole of year 10 and year 11 is peppered with GCSE exams.

This will absolutely certainly not have been his first. Look at the school calender, or the information you were given in the year 9 options.

titchy · 07/05/2015 08:01

It probably WILL be his first exam contrary as usual to what charis said. However he may well have done some controlled assessment this year, although he may be the first cohort for whom CAs are no longer done, at least for most subjects. Year 9 might be the first cohort though.

ErrolTheDragon · 07/05/2015 08:29

Depends on the school, Charis. My DD is in year 11 and will be doing her first actual GCSE exam (out of 12 subjects) this Tuesday. Of course she's had lots of CAs including project work for electronics, so for that and drama and I think computing she's already done 60%, for some of the other subjects 40%.

coppertop · 07/05/2015 10:15

To be fair to ds' school, they did send out the lists of when the CAs were. That's probably what makes it all the more surprising that the written exams weren't mentioned.

Ds seems happy enough though. He says they've been well prepared in class for it.

I blame my initial panic on my recurring nightmares where I turn up for an exam and it's something I haven't revised for or I don't have a pen. I wouldn't mind but my last exam was over 15 years ago.

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