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.

LooseAtTheSeams thanks for your PM, I've replied.

Re your post above, I really hope you are right that school will do plenty of practise between Jan to exam day, I am so worried about English exam especially as teachers for this year's cohort have not had much time with new curriculum.

I'm worried sick as we can't afford a private tutor, there is only my DVD single working mum and me and I'm disabled so very low incomes... her whole future depends on the damn English result! Maths not a problem she is a level 9........

I just did 30 mins with a reluctant ds2 using the Unseen Poetry CGP. It is really helpful. I suspect that your dd being far more literate than my ds or even my dd could go through it herself, just to acclimitize herself with the techniques. There is lots of breaking down of the process, and answers at the end, and then you can test yourself on some of the poems once you have worked through the exams.

Neither of my dcs have a private tutor. There is not time to fit it in. Dd had a local friend for Spanish last year, but now she is knackered and cannot fit it in, and the same with ds2 - he was really low in Maths (think level 4 or lower) so had a non teaching tutor (graduate) who has not really helped much, but at least he works through some examples with him. Tbh I think your dd will be fine, once she cracks the method, which she sounds very capable of doing without tutoring.

Or just read some poems with her for the enjoyment of it, and make it seem less overwhelming. I like reading examiners' reports (on the exam website - you'll find reports for each year) but maybe that is just strange of me, but again you see the breakdown of why they approve of some answers and not others.

dd came back from Geography exam today saying she had forgotten the name of the coastal town in their field study, AND she couldn't think of a river that flooded!! The THAMES darling...rivers in Cumbria that flooded like in Cockermouth..or York?.oh she said, I put Sheffield. Is Sheffield even a river?? She said last two weeks had been deeply stressful and she couldn't go through it again for a long time..

Thanks noble - I knew you'd know!

knitting I love examiner's reports, but I teach professional exams at post grad level, where the examiners can be extremely scathing.
sostenueto DD isn't tutored at all. Her school is running drop in sessions and revision classes at lunchtime & after school each day. She uses these a lot.

I definitely agree they should all be fine using the CGP books without a Tutor - it's spending time on it that counts - and definitely look at the samples on the exam websites.
Mocks are nearly finished here - computing was apparently easy today. We shall see! Physics and geography tomorrow and music and maths paper 3 on Friday. So glad it's nearly over!

No tutor here, either. But I did buy CGP books for quite a few subjects. Mr Bruff (free, on YouTube) is extremely good for the poetry. He's probably good for lots of parts of English literature and maybe language but I've only watched the poetry videos.

Maybe your DGD is so stressed when she does English that the stress is preventing her from being able to make sense of it and see that it's not as unattainable as she thinks??

Yes that is it. You only have to mention English and bam! All hell breaks loose. She was doing brilliantly till year 10 on track for a 7 and 8 but then it seems she got a ' thing' about it and could do nothing right in English. I think it was one bum assessment started it off. She has all textbooks and masses of other info, but tbh, the poetry just not her I think. Now Shakespeare she loves??? just don't understand at all . But have told her a solid 5 or 6 will be great, map has helped a bit advising relaxation and breathing exercises etc which she has duly took on board. Teacher doesn't seem to understand why she has problem during exam/tests because her homework and classwork is great. But I know what its like when you get a ' thing' about something, like when you play a piece of music and always play a wrong note. You fret about it till its almost impossible to hit the note right......and Mr Bluff has helped too. Ah well, see what mock results are after Xmas ...........

Sostenueto totally understand how you feel, my DD got Grade 8 in maths and Grade 1 for English in mocks recently. She wants to do Maths at A-Level but she needs to pass English to get into 6th Form. Have bought the CGP books but DD is fiercely independent and refuses any help from me or DH.

Did some more revision last night with dd, and her approach to English is even worse than Ds2 (who has Aspergers and is very literal). She seems to have learnt various technical terms and then applies them at random to the text. We did Tony Harrison's Jumper and she was convinced that he hated the "jumper" because it was handknitted (her assumptions about parents forcing children to wear horrid clothes). She just doesn't read the information in front of her. I think they are always in such a rush to get things done, get an answer down, or alternately so bored by long winded explanations that they just tune out. Yet she is good at embroidery!!

Ds is off today, and talking about Star Wars - am going to force him to do 30 mins of poetry/opinion again, he seems happy enough, it is just getting him to sit down and fit it in as it is not a flashcard, he likes those

There was an interesting Ofqual investigation/report about the CIE English language igsce (?)in 2015, how the grade boundary between C and A on one paper was about 4 marks, and how this adversely affected a lot of entrants (many of whom got D's, partly due to being entered for Higher instead of Foundation) It is written in very technical way, but I wonder whether any English teachers on this thread have any direct experience of that issue?

Not having an easy time at the moment ...

I have not yet seen DD's end of term report but she did state her DT projected grade has dropped to a B....somewhat miffed because last years end of year exam was an A with predicted grade A (they will not predict an A in any subject at school). Ht report was 3's across the board (so hitting performance, contributing etc- top level is 4)....so why has grade gone down in just a matter of weeks ?

French - meeting a school 3 weeks ago when she was not allowed to drop the subject - support package but in place - not been great because 2 out of 3 Monday's HOMFL not made the clinic...however I engaged tutor (who is lovely and DD really likes). French teacher started to improve attitude towards DD (these 3 weeks were supposed to confidence building) but this week teacher has reverted back to making demoralizing comments on DD's work - even corrected the piece of writing that the MOMFL had worked on with DD and stated that she didnt think that the chosen pictures/presentation would work in the Oral even though this had been agreed with HOMFL in a clinic. The comments teacher has made this week are really negative - not quite sure how to handle ...the meeting three weeks ago was with DHT /HOMFL and T so feeling that perhaps an email to DHT with progress report maybe the best line to take ...quoting the comments made - especially the lack of consistency with HOMFL and Teacher ?

On a plus point History and Biology grades have gone up to A...mocks not until January.

Joining in here! DS2 doing GCSEs this year.

The threads for DS1 from GCSEs though to uni were really helpful and informative so feel like I'm joining in for next round.

Having had a child who has already done GSCEs and not done particularily well in them has been illuminating.

Predictions are merely that, they don't guarantee that mark. I think ds1 imagined that with the minimum of work he would make all his predictions, and with lots of work he would surpass predictions. He failed his geography because despite doing all the class work he just did not revise any of it properly, and subsequently did not understand the gist of most of the questions. In a welter of other subjects it just was one of many subjects he floundered in, but that was a spectacular failure of judgement, as to what he could "get away with". Ds2 learns everything and has more difficulty applying it, but at least he gets marks for his factual understanding.

Did you learn anything from the previous thread Eve. I am also remembering the other extreme, people who worried terribly about each grade being an A, and it not really affecting their child's progress on to A levels and uni, if they at least had a good spread of grades, and those grades facilitated A levels.

It seems to me that 15 / 16 is a very young age to make a mistake through naivety (ie not writing hard enough or of school for the GCSEs) and then have to suffer the consequences, perhaps never fully recovering the lost ground of missed opportunities.
The only answer that I can think of though is to make the children take the work very seriously from a much younger age so that anyone contemplating not fully applying themselves in year 11 will be going against everything they've ever known.
I know that would be anathema to many / most who even resent the imposition of the year 6 sats

mmz I disagree. I think there is always a way back or way forward...retracing your steps can be perfectly fine, as long as you don't feel yourself relegated to failure status. Life will present numerous examples of not quite making grade, something going wrong that should have gone right, and perceiving that as a make or break moment rather than yet another opportunity for change, reflection...well I think resilience comes from "failing" and "succeeding" whatever forms those failures and successes take, in equal measure. No one can possibly get every step of their life right.

No one can possibly get every step of their life right. I agree with this, and I know lots of people in the last 10 years or so have been retaking school exams and going to uni as mature students, but it has to be better to not have to do that??

The amount that parents and family worry plus the actual children taking the exams is phenomenal!..... Pity you can't make money out of worry!

ODDSOCKS we are in the same boat!

My dgd could take easy option and do an accounting apprenticeship, within 5 years she could be earning £30,000! And £170 a week all exams paid at 16. But no, let's do the hard thing and aim to be a neuroscientist! Better than her first choice of forensic pathologist (coroner etc)! Anything for a hard life.....

Neuroscientist does sound pretty cool, though!

Loose thanks!

Last day of mocks today! And two days of solid art coursework next week instead of sitting around watching dvds. Dare I hope that we'll have seen the last of art coursework by the start of January??!

Mock results are out: 2x Grade 5, 2x Grade 6 and 4x grade 8. She's delighted with the 8s and snarling about the rest. I've reminded her that all grades can change over the next 6 months and the only grades which actually count are the ones she gets on 23 Aug. Time to start going to revision classes for the grade 5s and 6s.