GCSEs 2018 (3)

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Following on from:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3113917-GCSEs-2018-2

The Donald & stickle - oh good to know as I didn't even think of checking. It is valid until August so ok and will save at least £50. Just gotta find best way to get from Euston to Teddington or Hampton Court. Told DH we were doing this n he would have DS - girly trip not for boys! Will have look at getting her a student railcard, although our local trains let them have kids fare until 18 if get a pass with photo Identification.

Stickerrocks - The school sent me an exam entry form which I needed to check, sign and return for 19th....I did have one query but given its HT no response from school.... I dont think this is the policy with all schools...

Love the Dress androbbob!

Petalflowers...my dgd on average 2 hours a day during half term. Though first weekend not a lot! Normal schooldays 1-2 hours depending on how much homework she has.
No mention of going on pill from doctor to relieve dgds symptoms even though she has bad ones. And she's been like it since 10 years old. Might look into that but that will be up to dgd and dd.

Only get discount on termly ticket here. So waiting for easter to buy one, in the meanwhile buying daily ticket.

Nothing mentioned from school about exam entries. Dgd got her timetable. Nothing for us to sign so far. Another thing to sort I suppose.

How much revision are your year 11s doing?

DD (overachiever) is heating up again. We were working thru math problems Friday night. Then she had a rant about Chordata not being on the Biology syllabus (phylum, taxonomy). She was too busy yesterday to do any revision, though. Mostly, I reckon from now until June will feel like a constant revision treadmill.

I’m not convinced DS did that much. He has done a bit of maths, chemistry and computing, needs to do some geography today and did nothing since Monday for his art exam prep. We will have to nag him today to at least do some experimental photographs since school is expecting the experimental stuff to be done. I know he doesn’t really agree with going through this process because he thinks it’s pointless but it’s part of the exam criteria and he’ll lose marks if there’s no sign of it. He was showing me a couple of drawings and saying they weren’t quite right and I had to remind him that’s a good thing and he needs to use them! Luckily, he has some charcoal pictures at school as well. I found him a photo that would go really well with his project but he hasn’t done anything with it as far as I know.

Oh, he has done some music revision, though!

Revision: very little (maybe 7 hours per week) until half term.
At half term: approx 3 hours per day.
Between now and Easter: timetabled for 6 hours during the week and 3 hrs/day at weekends (plus revision classes).
Easter onwards: as much as possible.
Try to preserve one week day where there is no studying.

If you want to know how much your own child needs to do, then print off the exam specifications, and get them to write an estimate of how long they will need to learn each element. Eg how long to memorise a poem +how long to watch the mr bruff video about it
Add it all up and add the number of hours for past papers. Do that for every subject.
That's how many hours your DC will need to revise between now and June. Then just divide it up into manageable chunks weighted towards the date of the first exam. (I am not saying it is easy but that's how to be sure).

My dd has been doing 3-4 hours per week on top of work set by teachers but only for the last 2-3 weeks. Before that pretty much nothing beyond set homework. Luckily they are starting to set revision-type homework e.g. exam questions so that helps.

Her mocks in January were all one grade lower than she'd like to end up at, which was great for motivation given that she did little or no revision for them.

Before half term she reread Animal Farm, did 2 poems a week Inc Mr bruff video and did 10 mins of daily online German. She decided on this plan after the mocks because she felt a bit overwhelmed by the amount of work ahead and needed to keep it manageable.

Half term is just starting here. She plans to focus on the three sciences (mocks in 2 weeks) and fill all the gaps where she hasn't revised properly by making revision sheets. Also daily 10 mins of German. We have started reading romeo and Juliet together out loud which was really good fun

She doesn't have a plan for after half term yet because she copes better by focusing on small manageable tasks rather than thinking about the whole amount of work to come.

Last night she bought herself Ed Sheeran tickets for during May half term which I think will give her a real highlight to break up the slog.

Back from a week in France! DS re-read his novel and practised his answers for his French oral. We were sharing a chalet with some History undergraduates, so there was some interesting discussions about the Cold War over dinner.
Some proper work needs to be done today, then a big focus on his 2nd music composition, which is due in two weeks.

Morning all, my ds had a fantastic time in Iceland but he's saying he shouldn't have gone.

He got very stressed yesterday, mock German exam this week and said nothing was going in and he couldn't focus. I got him to come away and watch Good Morning Vietnam; they were told to watch it for homework....after German is out of the way, English Lit, History and Maths coming up.

Some dreadful dreadful news though a boy in his year died this week, an accident, many of our year 11s are devastated. My ds didn't know him well but still a dreadful shock.

Ds has spent most of half term on PE and probably 6hrs of revision.

After half term he is planning on about 1.5hrs Monday-Thursday then 2 hrs Saturday and Sunday(includes all homework). He has no intention so far of going to any after school revision sessions and at the moment has no intention of ramping it up as the exams get closer as in his words the whole idea of starting early was so he wouldn't need to go mad later on (let you know how that pans out!)

Interestingly he had a recent Biology exam and as he stuck to his usual revision schedule it meant the last time he looked at Biology was a week before the exam, when I asked him day for exam shouldn't you be doing Biology(as that's when all my revision would be happening!!) he said no as this is what it would be like when he does them for real............he hasn't had his mark back so I can't say how his method went, personally I'm not too sure about it.

Lulu So sorry to hear about the boy in your DS's year, it does put things into perspective.

Lulu sorry to hear your news..

I’m so sorry to hear that.

A boy in ds’s year died suddenly in Year 5 & itvwas a horrible, horrible time.

lulu oh no how horrible...
DS has revised Latin, French and worked on second music composition. After good mocks I wanted him to relax and do outdoor sports but he was under the weather and said he might aswell work. I doubt any serious work is going to happen before Easter, he has 11 concerts and performances with their corresponding rehearsals , and 1 audition. During Easter he has two concerts and one competition. Then 2 competitions more after school restarts and he has said yes to three concerts during the exams. Help.

gamer I'm also a foreigner from a country which bases grades out of 100% and where scoring below 50% is a fail. It took me a while to get used to the UK grading system, which has its advantages and disadvantages. I'm referring to the old letter system, the 1-9 one is imo an error. The one thing I still object to is the tiers, as you rightly point, because a child can put in extra effort and surprise everyone including themselves on the day.

Thanks all...school will be sad tomorrow to say the least.

Blebelle you're right this puts things into perspective....our young people are under a lot of pressure I am proud of my ds fir giving this his best shot however he does. Well done to all of them.

I am getting him to read his German out to me after memorising, 15 to 20 minutes on with 10 to 15 minute breaks.

6th form interview next Saturday.

In Scotland, you had failed if you got 49%, but that might be different now that they are doing NAT 5s. However, both England and Scotland have had a two tier exam system for at least 50 years (since the comprehensive system was introduced and maybe before that).
It used to be o' grade / o' level and CSE.
Then they got rid of the second tier having a different name as people weren't giving it any value. So everything became GCSE, except the papers subdivided into foundation and higher.
If you have to design a universal exam system then you need to decided how to deal with either end of the ability range. The papers are either hard enough to differentiate the more intelligent from the averagely able or they are accessible to the least able. You can't have both, and it's a question of which you choose. The current system is a compromise solution.

In your countries, are students who really struggled with their times table all through primary school really taught trigonometry and algebra when age 14/15 and then tested on it alongside those who could problem solve using Pythagoras aged 10??

Lulu that's so sad and upsetting and reminds me of a few years ago when a boy from dcs' school died in the Easter holidays during sports practice - it was sudden heart failure, no warning signs.
Gamer English language and literature aren't tiered. The maths has to be because everyone takes GCSE maths but it's complicated - it's partly due to how much content a student can cover and do well in the time available. Do speak to the head of Year if you disagree with their decision for DS.
9-1 grades are bonkers but that's because politicians got involved! However it's the system we've got - there never was a percentage system here even with the old O level.

Lulu - that's awful. I always feel so sorry for the family with these things happen. Imagine having to face up to suddenly without warning being without your son or daughter after 16 years when they were just about to start their adult life?

Actually, a friend of mine is still bitter about being put in for CSE maths instead of O level - she was chucked out of the O level class because her friend was talking and she got the blame as well. Although her CSE grade 1 was theoretically equivalent to a C at O level it was always looked down on. She feels GCSE is fairer in that respect!
It was also a bit convoluted because you could study some degrees at university level e.g. drama with a CSE grade 1 in maths. However, if you wanted to then train to be a drama teacher you had to retake the O level to get a C. Happened to several people I knew.

The 1-9 grading system was put in place to show it related to the more rigorous GCSEs. 9 was set as the best available so that a 10 could be added later if grade inflation came into play like it did for the old GCSEs.
Michael Gove had wanted to scrap the GCSE name altogether but he was blocked.
The problem that was trying to be solved was that the old GCSEs's reputation had been eroded to the extent that employers and further education providers (i.e. the people who you want to give you opportunities) were no longer impressed with a good set of GCSE results.

Lulu sorry to hear your news..that's incredibly sad.

DD managed to do some Biology (flash cards) which I did test her on (at DD's request) on Friday. She was in school doing DT project on Monday (5hrs of work), she said she's watched a History video too....and I think that is about it last week apart from two sessions with French tutor (French seems to be going really well I tutor is pleased with DD). She also went through Computer Science revision guide highlighting what she has covered (syllabus not finished yet)

I've taken brave step not to nag/remind DD(she stated she works better if I dont nag/remind). Yesterday she did buy some more flashcards and lined paper organised her Biology flash cards etc. I felt that Dd was seeing lots of the girls from school away on holiday last week so consciously felt that she should not be studying.

School have stated they expect 1-4 hours revision a day ...I think allot of homework is currently revision too. I'm not too concerned about Maths (all the classes in school are currently revision), the French tutor seems to be taking care of French revision in terms of reading ,listening and Oral...DD has all she needs from school (analysed mock papers with marks for each topic/past papers etc), Its just focus and application now

I'm going to arrange for DD to visit one of her friends who started studying at Pembroke College, Cambridge in September, hoping this may inspire her a little we live reasonably close so DD can get a bus. She'd make a brilliant Maths tutor for DD but I feel it would be unfair to take up any of her time ..

So lovely that the weather is milder !

Has anyone's school said when they are due to finish teaching of the curriculum and move on to 100% revision during lessons? At DS's school the answer is mostly by the Easter holidays, although a couple of subjects expect to go on until the next end of April! English is already done, which is good because it requires more practice than most.