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.

@charlmum60 if that girl can improve so much with a bit of tutoring, then it just shows you how poor the lessons are.

My ds was offered triple science but he decided not to do it because he felt workload with both history and geography would be heavy. He got a big telling off yesterday for walking into school wearing his hoody, whoever it was told him to be more organised. He reacted by refusing to go to RE revision at lunch and maths after school. I would like to contacy his tutor...he gets really annoyed if I contact school about him and says he won't tell me anything if I do!

How did those of you when working out revision timetables with your dc organise this? I am going to make a start listing every topic needing to revise, breaking down into bullet points then trying to get him to engage how he wants to do this....thinking taking pointers from the list and working out weekly timetable. It is hard when all this comes at a time when he is feeling a bit rebellious and not feeling ready for decisions about the future.

....and didn't eat his lunch....not hungry he said!

mmzz you might be able to answer this, am I right in thinking the difference between combined and triple is that triple cover slightly more topics and in more depth? If so then my concern with DS doing combined science in the mocks is that the questions are not going to be as challenging as what he will face in the summer or have I got this completely wrong?

DS tells me that - you are right - it's the same topics but with less depth in combined. Eg recently everyone in year 11 at DS's school were doing homeostasis in Biology, with the difference that the triple scientists included the kidneys whereas the combined science sets didn't.

One thing I'm not clear about is how much the teachers know about the difficulty of the June 2018 exams. I know the exam boards have provided sample questions but I don't know if they were accepted or rejected by OFqual. Ditto the grade boundaries. To me, it all seems that everyone is just making educated guesses for this first year.

I agree mmzz but some schools will make better guesses than others and I have a horrible feeling that DS's school is not good at guessing
In fact one teacher is so bad that their mock was made up of questions he had asked them in their year 10 exams and recent assessment, no new questions at all!!!

That sounds like they aren't even trying!

I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) there are sample papers from the exam boards.

not quite with it at the moment! mmzz just noticed you already said there's sample papers available.

The trouble with being the first to do a new specification is that as there aren't the resources available so much more hinges on the school and teachers getting it right. In a few years time it won't matter so much if your school isn't great as you will be able to access so many more resources on line like past papers etc. Unfortunately DS's mocks has shown that the school appears to have done very little themselves to prepare them for next summer. I was expecting his maths exam to be one of last year's papers.... but no, I can only assume they haven't covered enough of the syllabus for them to sit it !

I am now seriously worried for DS, I thought the mocks were to highlight the DC's weaknesses not the school's!!!

In fairness mmzz - the girl who seems to have really improved is one of a set of twins ...her sister has always been top set in everything and she has always been in a much lower set (bottom set still projected 5-7 grade) ...not sure what has happened in the last 12 months but she is outperforming her sister now in most subjects (could be that she has become allot more focused now but given that parents are very wealthy I dare say that they have used a tutor). Although I think the school have been TOO laid back on the back of last years GCSE's which saw over 70% of all GCSE's at A*/A and its not a super selective Indie either (far from it - so teaching is good in terms of value added)- there are girls that could not get into the co-ed within the same group which has always been viewed as the "better" school. I'm just pleased that they are providing extra classes because they did take their foot of the peddle - my DD is in the 7/8 forecast and I'm keen for her to meet this forecast because she wants to take Physics ...

Ds said he had walk and talk mocks today, he said the teachers talked them through how to answer questions on exam papers, they were in the exam hall with exam paper in front of them. All good preparation.

Is it like a dress rehearsal for the actual mock? I guess its good for those that get very anxious

If anyone is buying the CGP revision guide for history, please check that it covers the topics your school has chosen. The school library sold everyone copies and they've now discovered that it only covers a limited range of topics with more being published later. A fat lot of use for the GCSE mock next week! (I have checked the syllabus to confirm that the school is teaching the correct topics - last year a local school taught an English Lit text which was no longer in the syllabus.)

Thanks Stickerrocks, that makes sense as I was going to buy DS a CGP revision guide for history and all the ones we looked at he said they didn't cover everything he was studying, I was really concerned and thought the teacher hadn't been teaching the correct topics....not that I'm quick to jump to conclusions

Either DD is the only one brave enough to mention the issue to her teacher or nobody else has opened the book yet! We bought all the books when they were on special offer in Waterstones, thinking they were a bargain, then her school bulk bought them and resold them at cost.

The CGP guide doesn't cover the Cold War. Ds searched on Amazon and he found another guide that covers modern history, another £6 from Amazon.

A bit of progress with DD opening up to DH and I.

She had a walking talking English mock (thank you to those up thread who mentioned this as I wouldn’t have known what one was otherwise). She wouldn’t share her mark but it was really low.

I’ve told her to speak to her English teacher, apparently Head of English gave advice at the start of the walking talking mock which seems to have contradicted what DDs English teacher said in class.

DD struggles with the subjective nature of English, she is a maths girl.

The mock was an AQA specimen paper: An Inspector Calls, Ozymandias and unseen poetry. She said she was really pleased with what she had written but clearly not what is required. Teacher had made comments like “don’t state the obvious” and then “give more information” or something similar basically the comments in DDs eyes contradict each other.

After the tears, i started looking online for advice on how best to answer the questions. She has a load of study books, I’ll have a read of those too if DD will let me.

Anyone here that can advise? Any English teachers here?

Oddsocks sympathy to your DD. I think a lot of DC really struggle with this issue, my DD included.

There are definitely English teachers on MN but you might target them better with a separate thread.

Thanks Traviata I’ll start a new thread! 👍🏻

It's missing USA until 1960s as well.

Which exam board is your dd/ds taking Stickerrocks?

Oddsocks I find the CGP revision guides good - is your dd doing Jekyll and Hyde? I have it on Audible read by Richard E Grant if so, he really brings it to life. My ds has to reread it again will get him to listen.

History is AQA Modern World Shaping the Nation I believe. Off to see J&K at a local theatre next week. Tickets booked for RSC Macbeth Live to the Nation in April.