How much notice does your school give for exams?

[BertrandRussell]

Year 10 Ds discovered yesterday that they are having mock GCSEs next week- which really doesn't give him much revising time. I've checked with the mother of a girl (joke- don't drum me out of the feminist club) and he's right. Is this how it usually happens?

My year 10 DS has mocks this week and next. We found out around a week before half term (week before last). They had science mocks after Feb half term with a similar amount of notice.

Some times teachers use their professional judgement to decide a class needs to do a full mock exam or even a section of an exam paper. This could be for several reasons for example, to assess knowledge and skills to plan the next set of lessons, to show students how much they have improved to give the students confidence or to give some students a reality check. As the teacher is doing this to respond to the current needs of the students then they can't give the students lots of notice.

mocks yes, maybe that little notice. I don't understand why it seems bad to anyone. it's a practice to find weaknesses.

Real exams we had months of notice because they were must-not-miss dates.

Yr 10 ds has mocks this week and last. They've been on the school calendar all year (they're always the two weeks after half term for year 10) and they got an actual booklet with the days/dates which subject fell on a full week before half term so that they could tweak their revision schedule to fit the order the subjects fell.

I'm amazed schools can hold mocks in the same time GCSE and A levels are taking place. All our halls and gyms are full of year 11,12 & 13.

DD's Y7 end of year exams (which happened just before half term) were on the school calendar published last September.

Year 12 are just about finished, aren't they? But, yes, they've been in a mixture of the proper halls and empty classrooms for ds. Private school breaks up 2/2.5 weeks before state, so they can't wait until the external exams are over on1st July!

The DC's school take exams pretty seriously - they are timetabled in the sports hall, so notice is a term ahead or more. However they also test in most subjects every half-term, towards the end of the term, in class - no particular warning for them but the students always know they are coming, IYSWIM!

And Bertrand, one of my friends (mother of a boy - friend of DD) always checked with me

Exams at DSs school are the same weeks every year - 2nd week after the summer half term plus the second week in January for Y10 and 11

Some year 12s still going, loads of year 13 exams and still a week to go with GCSEs (although most finish this Friday). We have 250 kids a year so that's the hall and gym, conference rooms and several classrooms used. We still have a sports hall for pe but it's a squash at this time of year. I would've thought year 10 mocks could be either before half term or next week to fit in better. Even private schools haven't broken up just yet (I am not envious of the long holiday at all)

DD's school the y7-10 summer exam weeks have been available since September. Details come out around 2 months beforehand.

No, they've not broken up yet, but they need a couple of weeks to mark the papers and give them back and (our) school breaks up 1st week in July!

If it's English or maths, there are Pre Public Exams being released nationally on Friday, for testing in the next two weeks. Results will be collected nationally to see how the new 1-9 curriculum is fairing. This was only sorted fairly recently - year tens here have been only given short notice too (would have been next week but other commitments mean following week)

"Tweak their revision schedule"

Trixie my school is doing those exams too. Incredible that a private company is having to solve the government mess of the new GCSEs.

Oi, what's up with that, Bertrand?

If physics is your last exam, don't you save all the last minute cramming until, well, the last minute?!

It was the idea of year 10s having a revision schedule..... Sadly there isn' a "hollow laugh" emoticon.........!

Tbh noble, I think schools are starting to look at that company for everything now. They must have made a fortune in their resources, websites, and data analysis systems! Though actually, thank god they do exist, as the published specimen papers aren't a great help.

I wonder if they know yet what the new sats scoring will look like and how it will feed into ks4 targets..... Now there's an idea, ask them instead of looking on government sites!!

Ahhh, well I think that's the point of mock exams...learning how to revise?!

Ps. Convo above between Noblegiraffe and Trixie is very interesting...

The exams happening around the country over next 2 weeks are in English and maths. They are for Pixl schools (google it as I've too much marking !). They are free to schools and are to try and give us some vague idea what the standard is for the new exams and then maybe we can stop guessing at grades. Because we have had no guidance from anyone else .