Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Secondary education

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

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

Year 11 support thread

999 replies

pasanda · 10/02/2017 09:37

I can't find a new thread, moving on from the old full one, so I thought I would create one (please tell me if I'm wrong!)

Last night ds stayed up till 4.30am doing his biology coursework Shock

This time the tsunami affect didn't work and he left it far too late to do a reasonable job. Which is a bloody shame because he wants to do biology A level and he has done so well in his other controlled assessments.

I wait with bated breath to find out his mark

Oh well, thank God for half term!!

OP posts:
Dancergirl · 04/05/2017 15:23

Why draylon?

Dancergirl · 04/05/2017 15:25

lania good luck to your dd. Just keep her plugging away at practice papers which I'm sure you know anyway. Are there any particular topics she finds difficult or is it more general? Is her Maths teacher good/supportive?

Draylon · 04/05/2017 15:34

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Laniakea · 04/05/2017 15:59

Are there any particular topics she finds difficult ...? Is her Maths teacher good/supportive?

Not really to both! She usually does badly on the non calculator paper, middling on P2 & well on P3 ... we're trying to get bad on non calculator up to middling.

She has two maths teachers this year, one is pretty good but they don't work well together & there have been issues with lesson planning etc. In year 7 she had a great teacher but for y8/9/10 she was stuck with maternity cover, teachers leaving, job shares etc ... she had 8 different teachers over those three years - no homework, minimal tests etc. Not good. At the end of year 10 I realised how behind she was (top set, good reports blah blah) and have basically re-taught her the whole of GCSE maths between the end of y10 & the end of the Christmas holiday. It has not been fun, but she's gone from would be lucky to get a 4 to stands a chance of a 7. She just had so many gaps to make up & not an awful lot of time.

The school are currently advertising for a new head of maths, a maths lead practitioner (whatever that is?), a maths teacher & maths support staff - they've had a bad few years. All but five of the GCSE further maths students in dd's class have decided not to take the exam (dd is the only one in her maths set who was not doing further maths to start with).

AtiaoftheJulii · 04/05/2017 18:41

Can I ask, are we expecting a Grade debacle on Aug 24th with English and Maths? Or do we think the government won't allow that to happen? Do we expect that pretty much the same proportion of DC will get the new equivalents of B/C/D as before , the same proportion will actually pass but that the big difference will be with the percentages getting A/Astar (8-9 in new money) and E/F, (1-2)?

The proportions are being matched so the same percentage will get a 4 or higher as got a C or higher in previous years, and the same getting a 7 or higher as getting an A or above in previous years.

So no, I don't actually think there'll be a debacle. I think the grade boundaries may be embarrassingly low!

AtiaoftheJulii · 04/05/2017 18:43

I think there may be a lot of A star students who will have to get over themselves and come to terms with getting 8s Grin

And I think it's pretty crap for the D/E/F/U students to all be squished into 1/2/3.

Laniakea · 04/05/2017 19:20

yes & yes Atia ... god know how low the boundaries will be. They've been managing expectations by saying A*=8 not 9 at dd's school ... 9 is for the super duper extra special!

Original poster
pasanda · 04/05/2017 22:07

Thanks for the explanation Laniakea I discussed it with ds tonight over a banofee (sp?) pie and he tells me he is learning 5 poems and his 'cluster' is about power & conflict, rather than love & emotion. Probably the right way round for ds! Grin

He has been better tonight and did a specimen paper for maths and got 65% which he is pleased with seeing as he got 23% in his mock (but didn't revise for this at all).

And.....as per my OP many moons ago, he got an A* for his biology CA (for which he stayed up till 4.30am) and an A for his chemistry CA.

It seems it's all heading in the right direction Smile

Not sure what the his school are doing about 8/9's because ds isn't predicted one!

OP posts:
HappyMum543 · 04/05/2017 22:08

My ds would be really happy if he gets a grade 5 in maths gcse he's currently on a grade 4 but his targets are 7.

His teacher Said ignore the target because no one really knows this year's maths and English's grade boundries every student in this country are competing each other so if the papers are hard and alot of students get low grades the grade boundaries are going to drop for the DC sake hope they do.

Good luck to all the students that are sitting their exams and that who will be Starting on the 16th

HappyMum543 · 04/05/2017 22:12

My ds just done 1 hours of English Literature in (love and relationships) he needs to memorise 15 poems gosh that's alot on top of that Macbeth, Blood brothers and unseen poetry.
English language is a different story....

Laniakea · 04/05/2017 22:28

65% is brilliant! I'd be chuffed if dd got that!

She's doing conflict too & is learning Catrin, Extract From the Prelude, What Were They Like, Cousin Kate, Half-Caste and No Problem well & then The Poison Tree/The Man he Killed/Destruction of Sennacherib as back up (I only know this as I had a complete panic about it on Tuesday & she sent a long text message explaining why I was being an idiot). She reckons that will cover the major themes (war racism memories and nature) and will have 4-5 quotes from each.

She got 45-54-64 on most recent maths papers which is encouraging but on previous form she will bomb the next set!

GiraffeorOcelot · 05/05/2017 08:09

Those science controlled assessment marks are great pasanda. DS got B,C,C/D in his so has some making up to do in the exams. Thankfully his past papers indicate he will do better in the exams but I don't think will quite make it up to the A,B,B he ideally needs to do his choice of A levels. Hopefully he can pull them all up a grade or so though.

DS is also doing war and conflict and I need to check what he is doing poem wise and ensure he knows a few of them.

We haven't done too much maths as that and Geography are his only 'safe' subjects. Science has overtaken as it is 3/9 subjects. It's hard to sort the balance out, economics has been largely left too as it is a later exam.

He is working hard though and finally seems to have the work ethic we were hoping for.

I like draylon's sky will not fall mantra. Important to remember in this stressful time for all. We are not a greetings card type family but I did suggest to DH that we write DS a good luck card telling him how proud we are of him working hard and that we will be proud of whatever he gets, he'll know he's done his best. Need to think of good wording though.

Original poster
pasanda · 05/05/2017 09:34

Giraffe - I've been thinking of a good luck card too and am wondering what to put. I also like Draylons mantra.

I think my ds is working as I expected him to tbh and I'm happy with that. He has never been an academic child, will always do the bare minimum if he can get away with it and hasn't had a great work ethic these last two years. I would never in a million years expect him to revise like some dc do but he is doing well, for him, and seems to be pulling it out of the bag when it counts. He's not stressed at all, sometimes hyped up about it all, sometimes can't be bothered but is just being him.

laniakia - good on you for knowing the names of the poems!! I can't stretch to that Grin

OP posts:
Dancergirl · 05/05/2017 15:25

Good luck card is a great idea.

Hatethegym · 05/05/2017 21:18

Anyone else's child sit the Cambridge IGCSE English language paper today about the parrot? My dd was very unimpressed!

havinganightmare · 06/05/2017 00:13

My DS didn't sit but his mates all said it was CAMBRIDGE igcse English was very difficult paper and the letter they had to write - half of them signed it themselves rather than from Harold (not sure if one or two "r's"!) 😬

noblegiraffe · 06/05/2017 11:41

Can I ask, are we expecting a Grade debacle on Aug 24th with English and Maths? Or do we think the government won't allow that to happen?

There was going to be a debacle over pass rates, they were going to drop by about 23%, but the government decided at the last minute to avoid that by suddenly declaring a 4 (old C) to be a pass after all. So officially the 'pass' rate for students won't drop, but it will for schools (who will still be graded on a 5 - expect that debacle to hit when the league tables are released next January).

In terms of top grades, proportionally more students will be awarded an 8 or above than were awarded an A*, as an 8 also covers the top end of an old A, so there may well be some unexpectedly pleased parents and students out there.

There will most likely be a debacle about the quality of marking in English - AQA were desperately advertising for English poetry markers a few weeks ago and have lowered their criteria for markers to include NQTs and even PGCE students.

Grade boundaries will be on the floor as the proportion of students getting a 1, 4 or 7 have been pegged to last year's results for G, C and A.

Merrylegs · 06/05/2017 12:40

Yup, Hatethegym, DD also unimpressed with the Eng paper (as are most of the internet if you google Beryl the Parrot!). Some of her classmates cried apparently. Oh dear. Let's hope the good coursework can save the day! In fact so far the igcses have been rather odd - deviating from the usual format/ subject matter and being rather obtuse. Onwards!

Laniakea · 06/05/2017 14:25

There will most likely be a debacle about the quality of marking in English - AQA were desperately advertising for English poetry markers a few weeks ago and have lowered their criteria for markers to include NQTs and even PGCE students.

Christ that's not good.

noblegiraffe · 06/05/2017 14:36

Just looked and it's not just AQA and not just English that they can't get experienced marker for:

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/exam-boards-ask-students-and-nqts-mark-gcse-and-a-level-exam-papers

errorofjudgement · 07/05/2017 10:24

Did I read correctly that 50% of the marks are for coursework?

Draylon · 07/05/2017 11:12

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Merrylegs · 07/05/2017 11:18

Do you mean for igcse error? I thought it was max 50 marks for Beryl, 50 for coursework and 30 for speaking - so 130 in all. I am not totally sure though and may have got wrong end of the perch, um, stick.

errorofjudgement · 07/05/2017 11:25

Not sure really, I was looking in the Student Room and struck by students commenting they already have 48-50% of their grade through coursework. I was really surprised as I thought coursework had been phased out.
I guess I'm getting confused with GCSEs?

Ontopofthesunset · 07/05/2017 11:32

You can choose different options to make up the full CIE IGCSE English so DS has had no coursework or speaking, but just the reading paper (the parrot one) and a further 2 hour 'directed writing and composition' ie descriptive writing or a story, which is next Wednesday. I guess each paper in his case is worth 50%.

For balance, he and his friends thought the parrot paper was very similar to the others they had practised and pretty straightforward. He is usually quite good at English though.

Swipe left for the next trending thread