GCSEs 2018 (2)

[Stickerrocks]

Pre-empting our 1000th post.

Nite nite from Cleopatra and myself!

And while the teachers are busy doing that, they aren't just not teaching the children in nappies, they aren't teaching the ones who got to school knowing how to read, write, count and do basic sums.
This is why I was glad to move on from primary school.
Now the kids deal drugs in year 11. Deal drugs, not just take them but try to sell to the rest of the school. I despair!

Unfortunately I dont think you can avoid drugs in any school - certainly there are girls who take drugs at DD's school - worry being they have the money to move into the harder drugs not just weed....

They have a drug unit at dgd school! Its everywhere. I worry about it constantly but thankful my dgd is aware and I don't think she would use them or at least I hope she wouldn't. She's quite different in the sense she does not do things because her friends do etc.

More worrying than drugs is the mental health issue. In my dgd form there are 2 self harmers another with anoerexia and one with anger issues. And that's not counting exam stress!

just filling in Ds2's acceptance of a conditional place at Sixth Form (elsewhere) and last night we finally did the electronic registration for his internal Sixth Form (existing school) The A levels keep changing!

So far we are at: Politics, History and Drama. And other school is Classical Civilisation, History and Politics. I spent all day yesterday discussing "facilitating" subjects with a friend who has very academic daughter who wants to do only I fac subject (Maths) in the mix, when well capable of three fac subjects let alone 4. So we discussed all the things that we have been discussing on here! Mother not really aware that it mattered so much to keep subjects "open".

Sostenueto teenagers go through bad times. It was the case in the past and it will continue to be so. Schools usually are quite helpful; they know what can and will happen, regardless of parental love and support and all the best intentions. Some teenagers work too hard, and some not hard enough, it is very difficult to get it right. I think all we can do as parents or grandparents is adapt to what is thrown at us, even if we planned something quite different.

I remember one of my friend's sons wanted to be an architect (her eldest). He planned his A levels accordingly. Parents encouraged him. But then the A levels didn't go that way, he did badly in the hard science bit, but he was brilliant at art, so now he is an artist (and did that at uni/college) Her second was destined for Oxbridge, he didn't get in, but did brilliantly somewhere else. Her third was incredibly lazy, but by this time she adopted a wait and see approach, and found he was a Maths genius, so now doing Maths at prestigious uni. She said any pressure would have been lethal on any of these students, the motivation came from within but she had to moderate it too, and keep giving a wise balanced perspective on what did and didn't matter long term. Doing something you love, and not worrying too much if there are blips along the way, or a bit longer to get there.

Never a truer word spoken nettleskins!

I know what you mean about A level choices changing Nettleskeins! DS1 has a taster lesson/interview at first choice next week and a sixth form college interview a couple of weeks after. His supposed choices for both were different and may possibly change again! Hopefully he will be guided the right way!
Mind you, I remember dithering over my third A level! all worked out well in the end.

Some of you who are also on the current Y13 thread may remember DS1, the king of changing his mind about A-level subjects. He finally settled on his choices in the November of Y12.

It makes an amusing anecdote in retrospect, but I was completely exasperated at the time.

Dd has very limited A level choices at her first choice school. She's really hoping the school put on philosophy & ethics which she will do with English Lit. Otherwise it will have to be maths I think.

Just looked up DS school's progress 8 its 0.02, not surprised. He has been chosen to go on a scheme its all about encouraging DC to think about higher education (we live in an area where there is a low uptake rate). I guess it will be interesting to see what they are going to do, although not sure why they chose DS as they know he wants to go to Uni.

we live in an area where there is a low uptake rate
This may qualify him for entry to summer schools etc (e.g. Sutton Trust) so if he's interested in going to university, that might be something to look into.

Thanks TheSecond I'll look into that.

Can I post about my DS (twins), Y9, completely different to DD.

Report came home ahead of parents meeting next week, their predictions are pretty much the same, mostly 3 and 4s across all subjects for Y11. I know there is still a way to go, they are so different from DD, they are so laid back, uncomplicated.. No idea of what they want to do for the future... Just some reassurance required

Meanwhile DD had an interview at super selective 6th form today (the one that I’m dead against), and they can’t offer her the A levels she wants because of timetable clash. They are going to give her a conditional offer for 6th form but sounds like she won’t accept (unless of course, her only offer)

I did a mix of GCEs (O Levels) and a couple of CSE's - think I got 7 or 8 plus an RSA in typing!! I did CSE English Lit and Language and got a grade 1, which was classed as a C at O Level. We were the second to last year to do O Levels, my brother who is two years younger did 16+, which I think is like the EBAC now! It all goes full circle really.

I cant see who mentioned it but DD school has signed up to that tassomai science thing - cost of £25 as a one off payment for access in Feb upto the exams - hopefully it will be of use to her.

I also looked that the league tables for the three high schools in our town - ours is the best, by a small margin, but definitely the best choice for DD. We are up north, so standard academy or state comp schools, all oversubscribed, with three independent schools about 4 to 8 miles away, who are top performers in the county. I don't set much stall by these, we have had no issues with the school of note, but I know others who have. High turnover of young teachers but it is also a teacher training school as well. Having said that, DD has had the same form tutor (who she likes) since Yr 7.

DS is in Yr 6 so moving to high school next year and picked the same school. He is a different child totally and more maths based and very sporty - plays football at academy level, so may present more difficulties if he is still doing that in 4 years time. Oddsocks - I would hope that your younger boys will fare better than our cohort, as there will be more data available from actual results. You will also have been through these exams once already, and know how it all works. I don't recall as much school intervention in my day or even parental intervention back in the 80's.

Saturday school tomorrow, followed by breakfast at local pub, before visiting family. Sunday is revision timetable production and looking at weaknesses in maths. Anyone got any top tips for preparing revision timetable? She def wants to do one, but not sure how it should look with all the different subjects.

I saw a free timetable maker linked off student room. It looked quite good, I thought

www.thestudentroom.co.uk/g/planner

Oddsocks15 I also have twins in Y9, both of modest ability (although DS3 seems to have a flair for Computing). Y9 is very early to be making predictions about GCSEs grades. I'm asking mine to focus on keeping the Maths, English and Science grades up. I'm hoping both will be streamed into combined science rather than triple science.

My hairdresser proudly told me that her son got a level 6 for maths and English on a test he did in his first month of year 7! She said it showed that if he'd reached level 6 already then he would easily get 9s five years later. (This was at the start of last year before anyone had ever actually sat the new GCSE and the work standard and the grade boundaries were completely unknown).
What were the teachers at that school thinking of when they started getting work 5 years early??!

Do you think that might have been the 'old' level 6? The one that was tested in the extension 'Level 6 SATs'?

It's still impressive for September of Year 7, just not as impressive as a 'new' GCSE grade 6 would be!

Thanks for the link to the planner- this may appeal to DS1!
That level 6 sounds odd - SATS changed 2 years ago - DS2 was one of the guinea pigs! - but it could be the teacher had given them old SATS papers.

It could also have been a Level 6 in just one topic in the maths curriculum. Something similar happened to Dd in music in Year 7. Her composition was gcse standard. But she's still got to work on the listening/writing/performing elements.

I think as Kingscote pointed out it was a level 6 not a grade 6, as GCSEs are grades it wasn't referring to GCSEs at all. Mmzz you will have to have your haircut again to get to the bottom of this.

Second not overly worried as such about twins, just more about their confidence getting a knock seeing their “low” grades. Youngest twin was disappointed with his maths and science grades and talking about not bothering working hard any more as not worth putting effort in

Oddsocks are your DTs competitive, can you make it into a game ie lets prove these teachers wrong sort of thing. Were the grades based on SATS in which case they are much more likely to be inaccurate. Where grades are concerned I tend to pay very little notice and concentrate on what's happening now ie mini tests will highlight weaknesses work on those, far more concrete than some arbitrary grade