GCSEs 2018

[DoNotBringLulu]

Hi all, I am sure many of us with dc going into year 11 this year are trepidatious about teachers and pupils thrown in at the deep end due to the new GCSEs.

There is one thing I can do which I hope will help my ds (even though he thinks I'm mad!), which is to get hold of this year's GCSE English Language and English Literature papers, read the books and work through the paper myself - I studied English Lit at university over 20 years ago. I will know for myself after I've done this how difficult the exam papers are at least - I'm not sure who I can ask to mark it for me though!

Can anybody tell me how challenging the Maths and English papers were for their dc? I understand these were the two subjects introduced with the new format.

They had subject talks at DS's school and the room was 2/3rds full for FM. Looking around the room, DS said that of the 15 or so students there, a few weren't in his set and another couple are in his set but seem to be struggling with his GCSE

I guess you don't have to make a decision to after results as I believe you can hold as many sixth form places as you like.

That's true for the school, but not for the sixth form college. If DS gets offered a (provisional) place, he needs to accept or decline in February.

The sixth form college offers much better opportunities, but it means leaving friends behind and DS values familiarity more than most. If only the school had a better maths offering, then it would be easy to decide to stay!

We can do as many applications & hold places as we like in Hampshire. DD ruled out further maths, despite taking it at the moment alongside her GCSEs. I think (with the benefit of hindsight) that there's little benefit in taking FM if you already know you don't want to take maths or engineering at uni. She's opting for humanities instead. If you don't really love the subject, you lose the will to live with it quite quickly.

What would happen if he accepted both places and then decided in August?

I don't know. Would the six form college tell the school? If he got offered the sixth form college, he'd have to keep the school option open until he got his results.

i don't really know how all this works. It is my first time as either a parent or a child. I've never been through the English system before.

It's quite common for students to accept two offers then decide after results day. There's a lot of sorting out who actually turns up in September.

We have separate 6th forms here. Each 6th form must contact the school to get a reference. I would simply tell your DS's current school that they may be contacted by another 6th form, because your son is considering taking subjects they don't offer at A level and It's an insurance place. If they cause a scene, do you really want D'S to go there?

It might actually just be a tactic deployed by the college to dissuade people holding more than one offer, unless its private and you have to pay a deposit I really can't see what they can do it you later decline? I can see from their point of view that its better for them knowing numbers for subjects etc, but I really think you have to do what's best for you not the college.

None of our local sixth form open days are until after half term. Im assuming DD doesn't need to do much until after them - the last one being at the end of November. Nothing's come home from school and DD hasn't said much. We know a lot is done online and DD has a password to the website with the city's offerings on it. I need to investigate with her further really. She's still not 100% sure which A levels she wants to do - ideally Drama and possibly Computing, then maybe History. At the moment she wants to do primary teaching, so she is fairly open to what she chooses and needs to go with subjects she likes and is good at. It definitely won't be Science or Maths though.

Not half term here yet, not until next week. DD has a History test in the first day or two back. She's already done some revision for this and will do more on Friday (INSET) and has some on-phone revision cards she has made. She also has some English homework (an essay I think) to hand in the Friday they go back. Im hoping there is nothing more - we are going away for a week and intend for it to be a complete break for us all.

Mocks are straight back in January as said before, so she will revise for them - has already been doing ongoing bits of revision whenever she's not had other homework to do.

We are then away for February half term, for our last proper holiday before exams. We're having 3 nights in DLP over DD's 16th birthday in the Easter holidays at the very beginning of April. But that's it for Easter and obviously nothing in May. Rest of the time we will start to become a little more restricted in what we do especially over weekends - they'll be no sleepovers, etc in the few weeks run up. Going to keep up with the gym as I think it will do DD a lot of good to keep going 2-3 times a week for an hour, get out some stresses and have an hour without thinking of exams and school work at all. She will keep up with her Singing and Drama groups too, once a week for a couple of hours. Plenty of time for revision around it all.

Off to the general college open evening tomorrow evening - there's another one specifically for A levels in January, but sounds like most of the subject teachers for sciences/maths will be there tomorrow, so will give dd a chance to have a chat. Not sure how much it's going to help her though!

I wonder if the indy 6th form will demand forms of payment to hold a place open for DD until August. Hmmm

I didn't realise this had become the Y11 thread. Oops!

DS3 is starting to think about a bit of gentle revision. Sigh. He has his mocks in November, so leaving it last minute as oer usual.

He want to do maths and FM A levels but the better sixth forms that guarantee to run FM require minumum GCSE predictions that DS3 might not achieve. He is right up there in his school for maths, second or third best in his year, (from reading the class results list upsidedown at parents' evening!) But he's set 3/5 for English so who knows how he'll do in the new GCSE.

Sixth form open evenings are in January here. He can hold as many offers as he likes, but I'm not sure how many he'll get. They all seem to be based on predicted grades. The local college does do A levels but mostly caters for those DC for whom school sixth forms aren't the best choice. My DS2 for instance, who is doing a BTEC in computing.

His own school may well do FM, but often the best mathematicians are poached by other sixth forms, so it's not guaranteed. They'll need enough able candidates to offer a class.

Right, I'm going to try to catch up with the thread. I thought it was about trying to find past papers for parents to try at home!

@notsomanky Have a look at that Russell Group informed choices document I linked to yesterday. It really helped us focus on what's important. DS is good at both essay-based subjects and science-y ones.
He likes the essay based ones, such as History and Geography better (although it depends on what is being studied I.e. not so much the rise of feminism. However, he's better at maths and hand on heart he will be happier in the long term doing something that he is better at and which happens to be more employable. It would be a shame to choose a degree in History for example, work really hard and then afterwards only be able to get a job that had no connection to what you'd studied at all.

I remember reading some advice from a "super head" to other schools about recruiting: if you can't get a teacher for your English department, then advertise for a History teacher instead. It made History teachers sound like they were in over-supply.

I used to think keeping your options open meant the ideal would be to do a mix of A levels like Maths, History and Biology but that would prove all-roundedness whilst qualifying you for nothing at the next stage.

mmzz thanks the link, really useful
DD school tends to take the softly softly approach when talking to parents, noblegiraffe gave me some useful advice regarding Further Maths. I just want the reality of DDs abilitity and what is best for her not the school.

DH and I didn’t go to uni, DH anti-uni, partly fuelled by the fact that his sister went and never used her degree. He thinks it is an expensive waste of time and leaves all research to me

Welcome to EllenJane
Back in 2013, when DS2 was about to start Y7, I did a search for support threads. Your comments were v.helpful.

Hi Second! Can't believe DS2 is now 18 and in his last year in education, possibly. Your DS is the same age as my DS3 who is quirky but not DXable. Maths has been the strongest subject for all 3 of my DSs. They definitely make that stereotype.

I've read back a bit on the thread. I think DS3 is heading for a 8 or maybe 9 in Maths but a 5 possibly 6 in English so no dilemma choosing his A levels.

My DS1 was lucky enough to be taking the old A levels so could do 4 in Y12 and still get an AS level for the one he dropped. He enjoyed all 4 subjects but decided to concentrate on 3 for A2, wisely as it turned out. Doing Maths FM and Physics really well didn't limit him as he was always going to do maths at university. Would have been a fine combination for Computing, Engineering and Physics as well, all of which he considered. Computing A level isn't essential to do the degree in it, generally, but Maths is. I think Computing teaching in schools is pretty flaky often, as the best people are very well paid working in that field and teaching isn't anywhere near as financially attractive.

Anyway, back to worrying about DS3's lack of effort...

Ellen yes, we've been lucky with computer science GCSE teacher but I'm aware of the risk she could leave at any time and it would be a struggle to find an alternative.
DS1 was really keen to do it at A level but a combination of realising you don't actually need it for the degree and a growing interest in other subjects means he may well not bother with it now. They don't do it at the sixth form college that's offered him a place and he doesn't seem too concerned.

Computing teaching in schools is pretty flaky often, as the best people are very well paid working in that field and teaching isn't anywhere near as financially attractive.

I suspect there is a lot of truth in this. Obviously, you don't need to be a systems architect to be able to teach the basics of coding, and good "do-ers" don't always make good teachers but I was surprised to find out that they don't teach one of the standard languages. I think they teach one that has no use in the real world and is used exclusively for teaching how to code. If school is about gaining skills for real life, then Visual Basic might prove more useful instead.

mmzz Cambridge University teaches principles of coding rather than a specific language. Apparently the reason is that everything moves so fast that particular languages or versions of them become obsolete so it's important to be the person who can learn anything (that's a gross oversimplification, obviously!) GCSE teaches Python, though, which is useful.

Where does Python get used (outside of the classroom)?

I learned the basics of coding(now largely forgotten) with Fortran 77. God knows it was probably named after the year that it was invented! At the same time, everyone was very excited about "C".

I lost this thread.
Interesting to read careers discussions. Dds School is weak on careers. Ok if you know what you want as dd1 did but no idea which way dd2 should go. She likes pathology type things but won’t be Dr standard and not caring enough. Lab work I think would interest her but science in class is very mixed and I’m dubious about her grades in relation to that. She also loves law and has a good memory for that sort of thing but again not sure what to support it with.

If its any help...

Law: you need to be really good at writing and things like History. Also maths helps (bizarrely enough) as law is about tightly defining things and leaving no gaps.

There are a host of biological science. generally you need to be good at Biology and Chemistry and passable at maths (to be able to do the calculations and understand the statistics)

That's interesting about computer science.

Dd has loved the GCSE and it has converted her from a planned career in social work / charity relief work to computer programmer. She is fairly sure she wants to do CS as a degree.

She's doing python now. First choice sixth form uses C# but second and third choices stick with python.

She knows she doesn't need it for degree but she's fairly sure she wants to do it anyway just because she enjoys it and it comes easily.

Other A levels will be maths and geography. Possibly further maths AS if grade is good enough.

Slight concern that it isn't a facilitating subject and any degree course will probably start from basics but the alternative is German and her heart isn't in that the same.

Not sure generally where Python is used but I know someone who applied for a software job that required Python programming and he just read the manual before the interview. He got the job!
I wouldn’t worry about computer science being facilitating if the other options are, especially if likely to get a good grade in it.