GCSEs 2018 (2)

[Stickerrocks]

Pre-empting our 1000th post.

@Oddsocks15 its a pity that the mock results have left your DTs feeling deflated rather than challenged to improve, because I'm sure that was not what was intended.
What usually gets them motivated? Does it tend to be more gentle encouragement and carrots rather than sharp words and sticks?

Maybe you could provide the words of encouragement (ask the teachers to find some positive things to say too) and offer some sort of reward for every grade point rise?

Ok. So all mocks results are in and it's a bit of a mixed bag...

Excellent grades in some (all the potential A level subjects), but 5/6 in Maths, Biology, Physics and Geography.

However, we are determined to praise the effort in, rather than the result out, and he did work hard on those 4. Next steps are to attend the support sessions for Maths (8th set out of 8...), plug on with Tassomai for the Sciences and actually learn the Geography case studies!

I am making sure DD (Year 9) who is choosing her GCSEs notices what hard work Geog is - both she and DH seem to think you draw a picture of an ox-bow lake and a glaciated valley, then pick up your A*...

Regarding Geography, it's been the one subject that has been surprisingly hard work for DS1 and he has struggled to get good grades at. Now Ds2 who is in year 9 wants to take it too.

Academically, my two DC are almost cookie-cutter identical. They both excel at maths, find science easy, do well in English but only through hard work and enjoy History. They both have dysgraphia too.

DS2 wants to take exactly the same GCSES as DS1. I have tried to change his mind and point him at something else because GCSE Geography is hard to crack! He won't change his mind though and I'm having to accept defeat. I don't know why it's so difficult. It just seems to be that DS1 never delivers the full answer the teacher was looking for. It can't even be the dysgraphia because he's doing fine in English, History and RE.

Actually I do know - it's a weak teacher. But DS2 could get stuck with her too.

My DD (year 11) has targets of 9 for everything apart from French and music (both 8’s), which we always knew was unrealistic across the board. But she has just got her mock results and they are truly terrible!

She got a 7 in maths, B in further maths. Teacher still confident of a 9.

7 for English language....but a 5 for English lit ( usually her better one).

Then 5’s for biology and chemistry- both chosen A level subjects. And a 2 for Physics!!!

Rest were all 4’s and 5’s.

She is absolutely devastated, school shocked- but offering extra support for her.

I am mainly just confused as don’t know what has happened. She was a little poorly during the mocks with a cold, but appeared to have revised well in advance so we were not worried.

She has all her papers back now and I have offered to go through them with her, but she says she is ‘fine’ to do on her own.

I have arranged a Physics tutor to start next week.

Not sure how to help her....

I’m not on a retainer for Tassomai, but..,

DS got mid 50% for all 3 Sciences in Year 10 exams. He started Tassomai for Chemistry in October. Just got A* in Chemistry mock and Bs in Biology and Physics.

Currently signing up for the other 2 for a couple of months to see if it helps. He has 45 mins in the car twice a week ( sports training) so will do the practice on his phone then. I hope...

Will look into Tassomai now... thanks

Well I have just made myself depressed I have looked in more detail at DS's school progress 8, on the basis he went in as a high attainer then for boys only 45% got grade 5 or above for English and Maths and it goes down to 20% for the ebacc!!! .However, if you look at the grade 4 and above for English and maths it shoots up to 71%, but ebacc is still 20%. The school clearly puts all of its efforts into pushing pupils over the old grade C threshold.

Sorry I need to qualify what I have put above those stats were for all the boys, high attainers is 79% grade 5 maths & english and ebacc 42%(for boys and girls)Still not great as these would of come to the school with grade5/6's

mmzz that planner you linked to is great - we have filled in all subjects and exam dates and it needs some tweaking to move subjects around based on school revision sessions, but DD is happy with it. We are printing out a weekly schedule and will adapt as required as time goes on, but its definitely a good base to start from. Thanks!

Also, does anyone have any views or advice on extra curricular activities in the run up to gcse’s (DD is our eldest)? She does a lot of activities (sport, drama, musical instruments etc) both in and out of school. She is reluctant to drop any, but I am torn as whilst I accept that keeping balance is really important- she does have limited time to revise....which I was happy with when she was keeping on top of everything. But will recent exam results, I am not sure that she has got the balance right.

@Swarskid2184 I can only answer that question by thinking what I would do if it was DS. I'd be saying that yes, your Dd probably needs to drop, some of or drastically decrease all her extra curricular activities.

Also, I'd be pointing out that its only for 4 1/2 months - just 20 weeks. So not forever, and she can pick all of them back up again in the 2nd half of June and do them to her heart's content all Summer.

However, the first thing I would do is help your DD work out a study timetable, in excess of school work and revision lessons, build in rest days and I think you'll find that it can't all be done. So, the extra-curricular needs trimmed anyway. That might be a less harsh way of making your DD give up some of the time spent on her hobbies for the next 20 weeks.

@androbbob I'm glad she liked it

mmzz and Bluebelle -yes DT are competitive and I do use that with caution as have to be mindful of the “under-achiever”

Back to DD, letter this morning for her to attend a couple of before school sessions starting next week to boost her French pre-GCSE. She already attends extra English. DD’s school pays for Tassomai but science teacher tells me if DD was to use it she could move up a Grade or two!

Yes absolutely learn case studies for geography off by heart! My dgd loves geography is a level 9 since year 8 got 99% in mock and is only subject she has no problem with. Yes the longer 6 mark and above questions are hard to get full marks. But I suggest anyone doing geography get to grips with subject specific language which they seem to love so much in geography ( and the sciences). We too have downloaded revision thingy from student room too!

P.s national geographic mags brilliant and reading around subject for geography so you can add a little extra for those long answers!

Swarskid2184 - It is so difficult for the children with such high forecasts - far too much pressure and totally unfair - some children can handle the pressure some cant. Like MMzz we can only say what we are or would do in this situation...

My Dd had some really good results and some weak results - I was really concerned about Computer Science but she got 8/9 (dependent on what grade boundary will be). Her weakest was History which she has always failed to finish exams - she finished the exams this time but still fell short of the C (and she has attended weekly workshops) - I know the History teacher marks extremely harshly - so I'm just trying to boost DD's confidence.

I think the children can learn allot of exam techniques from the mocks - see where they fell short and put a plan together.

My Dd's Physics mock was lower than anticipated she has always achieved A* in exams and she got a B ...but I also remember at parents evening probably Yr 10 the Physics teacher stating that the final exams would not be so easy because they need to apply all their knowledge from all the topics in one exam. Plus its not just one subject its 10....

If you have a parents evening I would be asking what are your DD's weak area's - where did she go wrong in the exams (My DD did not actually answer some of the questions asked - she interpreted question incorrectly or did not use the keyword in her answers which would have given her the marks for some questions.)

In terms of extra activities - its important that your DD is happy - its a long lead up to exams so I would talk to your DD and agree a plan...its important that she does good quality revision so doesnt rush in order to do an activity but a couple of nights off revision a week will help her chill too. My DD helps out at Brownies for 1.5 hrs a week and she will do this until April (I would actually say the experience is probably more beneficial than getting a higher grade in "one" of her non relevant GCSE's). She also works two Saturdays each month (which we will stop for three months in April/May/June) - but having this work experience (Event Marketing using Online Business Applications) on her Uni application is again worth so much more than a higher grade in "one" of her non relevant GCSE's. Its about balance and also looking at what your DD needs to achieve to get into 6th form.

Back to Thursday/Friday's conversations: The final year of O levels was in 1987 as I sat them. I ended up with 12 O levels, 1 AO level, 3 A levels and 1 S level.

Those of you who are a little concerned by mock results, please don't fret. DD sat hers in November scoring 2 grade 5s, 2 grade 6s and 6 grade 8s. We had her parents' evening on Thursday and already her lower grades have shot up to at least 7s (with the exception of RE, which is another story). Her next set of mocks are at the end of February, so we are hoping she will be a little more consistent by then.

For those of you doing two sets of mocks, is it that the first mock tests paper 1 and the second mock tests paper 2 of a two paper exam?
Mock revision is IME a bit more shallow than the real thing, so doesn't it get in the way of the revision for the GCSES that is getting underway now?

Re extra curricular- dd1 stoppped music lessons from Easter but carried on in bands. Dd2 is looking at similar dropping weekly training during exam season but competing at weekend except for the 4 busy exam weeks.

mmzz it's a mixture here - maths is 3 papers all over again but English literature will be the other paper, same for English language and computing. I'm not sure about the sciences but I think they did two papers of each before and have 1 this time round but I'd need to check.
It's hard to tell how useful this is for revision as we haven't done this before but it probably does help DS as it makes sure he's covered everything under exam condition but after that it will have to be really focused revision.
We're dropping a grand total of one music lesson next term! He will still have an hour of lessons and two bands a week but I think that's manageable.

DS2 plans to continue with all his music commitments and is planning to take his Grade 8 clarinet in July 🤨 (his and his clarinet teacher's idea, not mine).

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3152060-GCSEs-2018-3
Argh just created this and then realised we are at 897 posts, not 997!

Oh well it will be there ready and waiting!

The preparation and forward-thinking award goes to mmzz
🤣

That's a very generous way to look at it. Reality is it should be the award for not reading the screen properly!

Well faced with all these GCSE threads so early on a Sunday morning has confused me........thanks for starting a new thread mmzz.

Regarding extra curriculars my DS doesn't intend to cut back on any of his sport which he does 5/6 times a week, but then he is doing GCSE PE and hasn't been assessed yet. Although, sport is his relaxation time he's not in to watching TV or computer games he likes to be active so I think in his case it would have a detrimental effect.

You know your child best and how they cope with everything so I would reassess as time goes on, but I wouldn't jump in straight away saying that you have to stop doing x,y & Z.