Starting Y11 support thread

[AtiaoftheJulii]

(Yeah, I'm procrastinating ....)

For all those with one or two (or more?) offspring going into year 11: controlled assessments, coursework, practicals, performances, GCSE revision (or not ...), being guinea pigs for the Maths and English 1to9 exams, choosing what to do next - schools/sixth form colleges/college/apprenticeships/BTECs/A levels and more - and generally being 15!

It's a tough year academically - in some ways harder than sixth form I think because there are just so many subjects and exams - and a tough year emotionally - not always mature enough to organise themselves, too old to have organisation imposed upon them!

Ds still has an MFL CA, a couple of science practical CAs, and two assessed drama performances, plus coursework to do for History I think. I can't see there's going to be much let up and he's definitely feeling the pressure I think he'll probably end up staying at his school for 6th form (he's very mathsy and his school is a good fit) but we may well look at a couple of sixth form colleges as he's already talking about whether he can go somewhere that won't feel quite so pushy.

Talking of maths- anyone else's
child utterly horrified by the absence of formula sheets? Or just my last minute Larry?

Thank you noblegiraffe for the valuable info!

Bertrand no idea, DS didn't mention it.

DS had his second maths mock and he came home so much more optimistic stating that even though it was hard, he felt he's done better. He has another one Friday. I can't wait for Friday so the mocks finish and we can focus a bit on Christmas for a change.

Hi I have a dd in yr 11 too. She is finding it all very stressful. She has high predicted grades but in assessments isn't coming out with these grades. I'm trying to be helpful without being pushy.
We went to a6th form meeting and I actually ended up shedding a tear in the cafe. The teachers are pushing and pulling her in all directions for extra revision in the core subjects.
She is sitting higher papers in maths and English.
I could see how much pressure everyone is putting on her and got upset because there's nothing I can do about it really. It's down to her. Kind of a big realisation that she isn't my baby girl anymore too and actually very nearly a adult.

Just to add my dds school are selling revision planners. You can also get these on amazon. Haven't received it yet but the reviews are really good

Revision planner. Hmm. Might that have stopped ds doing late night cramming last night for the wrong exam?????????

Just to say-having been here before- please try to help them not get too wound up, and don't get too wound up yourselves. They are (as I would never say to ds but said repeatedly to dd) only mocks.

Part of their purpose is to find out what you don't know. There's still plenty of time before the real thing.

Bertandrussel
My dd is also a night before Crammer. Usually for the right exam though. Bless them they get so stressed out don't they.
My dds mocks start the 30th of November. Fingers crossed she realises the cramming isn't really working for her.

bertrand if he's anything like my Ds it wasn't his fault
Wise words re stressing, I'm also feeling pretty taken for granted as I'm being so careful re letting things go I'm feeling resentful about the mess that's left in his wake. I do all the boring unseen stuff & Dh seems to do the fun bonding, just the way it works just now still, it's not about me & we haven't even got to mocks yet!

DS had his college interview today. Sat for 20 minutes, before we were told, "Sorry ,Tutor is in a conference all day", so interview cancelled! Bless him, he was so anxious and now has to wait another fortnight.

Oh hedwig what a pain in the arse! If the tutor was out all day, why did they even let you turn up at the college, let alone sit there waiting!

Hope your ds can forget about it in the meantime

Final day of exams here!
DD sat her third maths paper yesterday and said it wasn't as bad as the second paper, though as the results aren't out until next week this might be wishful thinking on DDs part.

error I envy you haven't got to the end of them

noble - thank you - I really appreciate the input. Having had along chat with dd yesterday she's getting so hysterical because she's worried they won't let her do chemistry A levels without a 7 in maths. If she ends up getting a 6 most of the rest of the top set will too & there won't be enough people to fill a science class so surely they will be more flexible.

Poor ds Hedwig ... what a pain :/

Thanks Atia, hopefully next time it will be fine. They do have an Open day on the same day, so I'm just hoping they don't cancel for that.

Grrr at interviewer not being there!

We just got the reference forms back from the tutor so 3 sixth form application forms submitted.

Well I called the end of mocks too early! DD had an anxiety attack 10 minutes before the last exam & was too upset to sit it yesterday. School have been brilliant and originally she was scheduled to sit it next week with others who had missed exams through absence.
But DD wanted to do it today & get it over with, so the teacher sat with her & got DD to do the exam today under exam conditions.
So 24 hours late, but I officially declare that the mocks over in the Error house.
(At least until next Friday when the results come out)

Well, if anyone needs a new motto, my ds can supply one. When asked how the week went, he said

"I had a pretty good idea of what I was doing almost all of the time"

Which, frankly, is more than I can say about my life.............

Could someone link to the other Maths GCSE thread that noblegiraffe has posted on please? DS1 is an A/B grade ( in old money) student in everything but is scraping a 4 in maths at the moment. He has been working really hard with a tutor and endless Hegarty maths sessions and had his mock today - am waiting for him to come in as I type! Any advice welcome!

DD said the school are sending their mock maths papers to Edexcel in January. Anyone know anything about this? I assume it's to do with seeing how a group of students do with the actual papers.

Thank you tiggytape

bertrand sounds like a lovely balanced attitude to have

error because the 4 and 7 grade boundaries will be set at the proportion of students who got a C+ and an A+ this year (although we don't know if that's Y11 data only or includes resits), attempts are being made to collate large sets of data so that schools can get an idea of where their students fall in the cohort.

Edexcel have asked their centres to enter their mock results into their ResultsPlus system and then they will release data showing where each candidate falls in the cohort. They (unlike PIXL with the Y10 exams) won't give grade boundaries because it will show where the student is performing now rather than how they would perform in the summer, but it does give an idea of current comparative performance. Schools will then be eyeing each other up to try to guess how much revision/exam prep other schools will be doing before the real thing because if any student improves massively, then that means that another student somewhere else will be falling in the rankings.

It does require schools to enter every single mark for every single question/part question on every single mock paper into Excel which might put some schools off, although my school does this already anyway. Hopefully they'll get a good response as the more schools that return their results the more useful it will be. I imagine that Edexcel will be using it for a test run of grade boundary setting too, and then going 'shit' when it turns out you need 10% for a 5.

just got in from sixth form night. No As levels at all, they are strongly suggesting that students do not do 4 A levels - for the last few years 40+% of students have done 4 but the school are saying that they expect the workload to continue to increase as more curriculum changes come through. Also changed to level 6 required in maths for science A levels rather 7 which is what we'd heard on the grapevine.

Mocks start tomorrow - maths paper 1 & English lit.

Noblegiraffe - thank you. Is there a danger that only well performing schools will enter their data, and possibly skew the results?

Also, does it mean that the Edexcel students are all sitting the same mock exam?