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.

Feedback from day 1.
Was up in time to have breakfast, a rarity.
Got a phone call asking what his seat number was, managed to find the relevant form amongst the dirty clothes, clean clothes, sweet papers, Christmas presents, school bag contents & rugby magazines on his bedroom floor.
He called after the exams, pretty chipper, thinks it went quite well. It's not really an indicator as he always thinks it's gone quite well! He found the non calc maths ok but said some was quite hard, English was challenging but he feels it went well. He's strong in English.
He spent the evening revising for today's biology exam. This is the first time I've seen him revising effectively. This totally proves your theory pasanda on the tsunami effect!

Hope everyone had an enjoyable break & good luck to all the mocks people!

DD is back today - nothing special happening. Official 'results' day & reports are next Friday, parents' evening the Monday after, then A level taster day & 6th form applications due in the week after that.

DD managed to finish revising B3 (& did some B1 papers), geometry (except vectors & trig graphs which they still haven't done), geography (apart from some case studies), do 30 mins of tassomai a day over the holiday & get up to date with production paperwork. She's feeling okay starting again & can see she's making progress with maths - still needs masses of repetition or she forgets it. A bit anxious that they won't let her do the A levels she wants as there is no back up plan. She's planning to start P3 tonight though she's working on Friday night & Saturday so won't have loads of time.

This term is always long & gloomy - I hope the good mood lasts more than a day or two. I'm expecting knackered & grumpy tonight!

Laniakea I am impressed that you even know what your DD is revising, I have no clue whatsoever. Back to school tomorrow and parents evening the week after.

Had "the speech" last night when I told him I am taking a step back, all in his court now. He said he'll prove me wrong and achieve the grades. I said I hope so but I am tired to always nag, even if I get him through to GCSEs I won't be able to nag for the next two years during A levels and he needs to motivate himself.

This comes from a moment during the Christmas holiday when he came home and I could smell weed. He obviously denied it but stated weed is not a big deal, everybody does it. I felt so disappointed and to be honest I haven't got the energy to reason with him anymore.

Rant over.

fleur I really feel for you & for what it's worth I think you're doing the right thing. I feel that Ds almost uses my stressing, which of course is supportive & not at all nagging as a pass to opt out. It is so hard but the more I leave the consequences of his own actions to him the more he has to take responsibility. I give my suggestions, show him outcomes of his choices/actions but feel ultimately I can't make him do anything, only he can do it, but it's soooo hard. I hope you can take some care of yourself, you ve been so good humoured about this thread weed is such a worry & despite what they all say about everybody doing it & that it helps it really does seem to have such an awful effect on their motivation. Fingers xed for you both x

Good luck to all the DC taking mocks from tomorrow!
For us, mocks were before Xmas. so DD has enjoyed Xmas in Spain (so did all of us actually ). We just have to wait to parents evening in 3 weeks (after 6th Form application). Hopefully then, will know all the mocks results, and know how bad or not the situation is. She has been quite pro active after the really bad result in maths, and has already talked to her teacher and work a plan to achieve grade 8! She doesn't want to do maths at A level, but she wants to achieve grade 8, which it has been her target since beginning Y10.

ready thank you for your kind words, I have no proof of him doing it, he says his friends do but he doesn't as he doesn't think it is something he wants to do, I am finding it hard to believe him though.

I do think the nagging needs to stop though, I just hope I can keep my word. Looking forward to parents evening.

Well he would smell if he's hanging out with mates smoking it I suppose. Ds has a lot of 'mates' who he says use but not any of his close friends. It seems frighteningly common at quite a young age, led a much more sheltered life!
Ambitious girl cc!

DD has mocks starting on Monday and is stressing that she won't be able to learn everything throughly in time. I've told her that it's alright not to do amazingly in her mocks, but they will help her to find what she needs to work at more, and from mocks onwards I'm going to encourage her to do revision on a weekly schedule so she doesn't have to cram again

Fleur - my ds has dabbled in weed so I feel your pain It's so hard to know what to do when you can smell it but they are adamant they haven't done it themselves. You can't keep them under lock and key but at the same time...

Despite ds's keenness on Monday, things are typically not looking so great since then. Tuesday he got back from school late, had football training then watched the Arsenal match.. no revision. This is despite having a Business Studies mock the next day for which he had done nothing over the holidays. He claimed he was going to do some on the bus

Last night he did actually stay late at school and went to the library to do some biology but this would have been half and hour at the most and after spending some time with his girlfriend, got home and decided to watch the Chelsea match

Tonight he has his maths tutor which will at least be an hour of something but after that I won't be surprised if there another 'really important' fucking match

I'm staying quiet and not stressing. It just makes me wonder what on earth is going on in his brain

DD1 started back today - I told her no revising or homework allowed until the 27th, which she stuck to, and she's kept it low key and had a proper rest. Next lot of mocks is mid-February. Apart from that she seems to have given me her cold and I am feeling really ill...

I'm thinking of getting ds the tassomai thing for maths but when I look at the website, there are no examples of how it looks on the phone. The maths course is £30 so I am reluctant to spend this amount without knowing more about it.

Does anyone have experience of tassomai? DS said he would be up for doing it on the bus (40 mins each way when he usually just sits there doing nothing). Or is it too late to start using it do you think?

many thanks for any info

My son uses Tassomai for science. Gets on well, when I nag him to use it!
I spoke to Murray Morrison, who runs Tassomai, about the maths. It is not designed for the new style Maths gcse. It is worth ringing Tassomai with any questions, they are very helpful.

Get well soon pointy
I had never heard of tassomai until this thread, seems like lots get along well with it though. Ds has no exams today so spent the evening using his highly honed negotiating skills to get the day off to ' revise'. To be honest I think he has a pretty good argument except he lacks any evidence to support his good intentions to revise all day. He has just had 2 weeks holiday that has been largely spent asleep, semi dressed, x boxing & unshowered. He says it's different now

Hope you're feeling better pointy!

Well as I understand from the other GCSEs thread (the maths one) a lot depends on the private schools if they will enter their pupils for the GCSEs this year or not. A work friend with a DD in year 10 at a private school just told me they got an email stating they are moving to igcses for maths as these are more straight forward. So hopefully all the other private schools do the same.

Why can't the state school move to igcses? Does anybody know?

ah Fleur much sympathy, I think you're taking the right approach too. It is almost unbearable to watch them being idiotic & knowing that we can't actually make them see the light :/

(dd likes to dump on me - I get a running commentry on pretty much everything that's going on in her life, whetehr I want to know or not)

Pasanda dd uses tassomai a lot. The science ones are really good, would definitely recommend them. French didn't work for dd at all & we stopped it (mainly because tassomai was too advanced & well organised - lots of grammar etc - which isn't how they are taught at school. If you actually want to learn French or love it it would be great, to scrape through the exam you're probably better off just rote learning essentials rather than go for any actual understanding ). Maths depends what you want. It is GCSE skills rather than following a curriculum - lots & lots of basics, lots & lots of repetition. It was exactly what dd needed (zero confidence, quite enjoying being 'shit at maths', constant slapdash stupid mistakes) & has really helped if only to prove to her that she's actually okay at maths & can't use lack of ability as a justification for doing badly. If you're looking for the higher skills for an able child who doesn't have a massive attitude problem I'm not sure how good it would be.

And obviously they actually have to do it too - it is easy to get behind - dd does 30-45 minutes a day (that's the three sciences & maths) in order to kept it on track. Maybe try for a month & see? You'll know quickly whether or not it is helpful.

As predicted the good mood didn't last more than about 10 hours

Fleur iGCSEs can't be counted for league tables, I think that's why state schools choose not to do them.

Ah ok!

For the those using Tassomai I had a look, did you buy the guaranteed A in sciences course? And I assume if DS is doing triple science it is the triple award subscription I would need. That comes to £59.50 a month which I don't mind paying if he would use it but do your dcs really use it?

And the question I had I guess about tassomai is how long would he have to use it across 3 sciences dayily to keep up?

Hope everyone and your dc are doing well!

Day two of mocks here. Dd had RS (really hard, but everyone said so) and English (easy) yesterday.

Today is History and Chemistry. I was going over some History dates with dd last night, the syllabus sounds very interesting. A lot about race relations in the deep south of America. I didn't do Histroy GCSE so my knowledge is sadly lacking

Tomorrow I'm going to make dd tackle her room which is a tip. She's not exactly killing herself with work and her dance classes don't start till next week, so I don't think it's unreasonable to make her to it. Will take an hour at most.

Arrgghh, now we're being affected by the bloody tube strike!

Dd usually gets the school coach to school but has asked dh to take her by car on the days she has an early (8.45am) exam as sometimes the coach gets in late. No problem says dh. But he works in town so getting into work will be a nightmare for him tomorrow and says he can't take dd. She has Maths at 8.45am and it's her weak subject so doesn't want to arrive all flustered. I can't take her as I have to get dd3 to school in the opposite direction.

She'll have to get the school coach, I imagine the traffic will be worse than normal because of the strike.

Nightmare dancer
Could it work for you to drop her early then take dd3 a bit late? We had a late train last week but luckily no exam first period. Have been checking Trainline very morning!

urgh just has an email from school. They are doing a resist week - every night after school - next week for any student who didn't meet their targets; but we won't know until Friday I wonder if dd will have to re-do maths. Cannot see the point - it is way too soon, after half term would seem to make more sense.

Fleue I'm not sure tbh - I'm sure they'd give you some guidance. DD has been doing 30 mins a day since September & is ahead in everything (they give you a schedule to stay on track). With less time to cover the material it might need that much to stay on track?

Sympathy Dancer - we're reliant on public transport (school is 20 miles away), the week of dd's mocks it was a disaster with delays & cancellations & she ended up missing half of a maths exam :/

Very bubbly & highly productive daughter yesterday - turns out she'd been up all night writing & drinking coffee!

Dd was getting quite nervous last night. She's got a full day of mocks today and first GCSE Biology paper tomorrow. Good luck to those sitting exams and waiting for results.

laniakea I thought your dd had done really well in maths, or have I muddled you with somebody else? Is she now already revising for the GCSEs if she's up all night? Ds is def planning on taking a 'break' (from Xbox?!) until close to Easter.
I'm pleased that he is showing signs of actually giving a.. re results & that he's been upbeat when things have gone well. It's the apathy that I really struggle with. He has done very little effective revision I feel but I do feel some hope that he may switch on & is weirdly enjoying the challenge of the exams, almost like it makes it more real, has a point to the work?

sunshine that might have been my DD. Her next lot of mocks is mid February. She got an 8 in maths first time out but wants the 9 so is revising daily. School have said half an hour a day in addition to homework, she feels this is reasonable on top of a school day. She does more on weekends.