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.

www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Product/9781471862946.aspx this is good

DS2 has persuaded us to buy tickets to see Festival of the Spoken Nerd. Quite pricey, but I enjoyed the mini-show they did at the Big Bang Fair last spring.

Thanks for the link mmzz. DD has brought her teacher's copy of that one home this weekend, so it must be recommended.

DS1 is shattered - he’s had tests every day this week and it’s not even the mocks! It’s his birthday tomorrow so hopefully he’ll feel a bit better. I reckon cake will do the trick!

Loose Happy Birthday to your DS for tomorrow, cake is definitely called for!

Tests everyday sounds very tough, although good prep for the mocks. Ds has finished his mocks, just the results to look forward to, if seemed to think he did alright so fingers crossed!

At last a good day! First music composition finished and submitted, solo performance piece recorded and unexpected Physics test aced.

Almost enough to forget Tuesday's 13/30 Chemistry block test...

Happy birthday, Loose's DS's. 16 is quite grown up, isn't it? It seems like just yesterday that they were all babies!

The school held a meeting yesterday for about 10% of DS's year. They are the ones who are expected to get high grades in everything. (mostly 8s and 9s with a couple of students who are targeted for one or two 7s).
The students were asked how they felt about the expectations on them and, according to DS none of them felt proud. All of them were worried that if they end up not meeting the expectations, their families will just be disappointed even though they still got good grades.

The group were mostly girls, even though boys outnumber girls 2 to 1 in the year. It made me realise how important maturity is when it comes to exams.

Do people know their DC's predicted grades?

DS's certainly haven't been shared with us and he says he doesn't know them either. He has mocks in Jan and Parents' Eve in Feb, so I guess we'll be told then.

The predicted grades are on the school reports - every report since the start of year 10. There's 3 columns - target grade, predicted grade, and a score for effort.

Doesn't your DC's school do that?

Ds's school issue a 'tracker' every term with predicted grades. It seems a little vague e.g. For RE he's predicted a 5+ which I take to mean he could get a 6.

Happy Birthday to your ds Loose!

Ds's mocks are next week. We just have to treat them as diagnostic as not much revision done even though he worked hard over half term on a maths paper, writing up a field study for Geography, an Elizabethan travel guide and chemistry. A lot of them are stressing, my friend's dd thinks she's not done enough.

We've had predicted and target grades every half term since the start of y10.

Targets don't change but predicted grades change sometimes. We also get a "currently working at."

It doesn't seem to have a lot of logic to it. Sometimes she's working at her target but still only predicted her target. In other subjects she's working way below but predicted to improve by 3 grades. A bit of wishful thinking probably!

Dd is enjoying a weekend off after 5 exams in the last 2 days.

It's her birthday on Tuesday so that will keep us busy next week.

Happy birthday to looses ds

Thanks for the birthday wishes and in advance to TheDonald’s dd!
We’ve had predicted grades on the termly reports. I agree with mmzz that they can be counterproductive - children can either get complacent or they can get worried about ‘failing’ if the prediction is too high.
Unfortunately the working now at figure is guesswork as these are new exams and a new grading system.

I think I have predicted grades for DS in yr9, even. The predictions are all good enough so my concern is keeping their attitudes good.

My children are only given target grades on their school reports.

DS2 just applied to a sixth form which required current predicted grades on school headed paper. The school provided these for him, but they seem very high (one 7, three 8s, the rest 9s).

In Maths & English, they have one year group of data to work with. In the other subjects, it'll be the first year, so I suspect those predicted grades might be mostly extrapolation and guesswork.

Wow - DS's school is clearly in the massive minority in not tracking specific level targets/attainment each term.

We get effort grades each half term, which refer to:

taking care over written work;
demonstrating high levels of personal organisation
being alert and engaged in lessons;
contributing to lessons
showing evidence of independent study beyond the immediate demands of the syllabus.

Then we get attainment grades:

(5) Excellent. He has produced work at or above the standard of the highest grade for this stage.
(4) Good. His work is at the standard of a very high grade* for this stage.
(3) Fair. His work is at an acceptable standard for this stage.
(2) Unsatisfactory. His work is below an acceptable standard for this stage.
(1) Concern. His work is of a quality which causes concern.

high grade means A or A / 7-9

So quite a lot of variation possible!

those predicted grades might be mostly extrapolation and guesswork
I agree!

I agree. Especially this year....I know a boy who was predicted a 5 for English Lit but got an 8, thanks to Mr Bruff on YouTube apparently.

DS's report has four columns, first is computer generated grade mainly based on SAT's, the second is aspirational grade, one above previous grade, these grades always stay the same and I ignore these for obvious reasons
Then you have his current working at grade and finally expected grade at end of year. I personally don't take a great deal of notice of any of the columns although if his effort drops then I would be asking questions.

Ultimately I am of the opinion that so long as I can see him working hard and doing his best that's fine by me, and in the summer he gets what he gets I will not be fixating on those number grades!!!!!

We have also rewarded him for the effort he put into his mocks (before we know results). Stressing that we don't mind how he has actually done because we could see that he worked hard, as ultimately I hope that his hard work will pay off!!

I think hard work genuinely does pay off in the end, irrespective of whatever grades you get at GCSE.
If you were recruiting (or looking to make someone redundant), who would you chose: hardworking and diligent or really clever but lazy?

I also want him to feel proud on results day, due to his effort and not disappointed that he didn't get a particular grade, which lets face it no-one has an idea what their grades will be, some schools predict 9's others predict 7-9's and so on....

I don't care about feeling proud on results day, I'm in a different place from you guys. DD would have to have a terrible crash & burn for the results not to be good enough for the path she wants, a crash so bad that the results would not matter at all (to me).

Late June (roughly) I love to celebrate the end of exam season with DC, though. Take-away pizzas and Relief! We have the prom to think about this year, too, of course.

Where do you think we all are, Lljkk?

lljkk sorry I don't quite get what your post is implying, can you please explain?