GCSEs 2018 (3)

[mmzz]

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

mmzz - Maths is completely finished - so all revision now. I think they may be close to finishing French/History/Physics too. English & DT is now mainly doing coursework/project (If Dd continues has planned she should walk into DT exam in June with a C already without answering a question). Only concern from parents evening was Computer Science but it looks like they only have small topics left - so all should be done at least by Easter.

Interesting conversation with French tutor (I suppose she is around 30). She stated that quite allot of the work DD is doing for Igcse was the same work she did for her A Level 12 years ago !

That's the problem - the perceived value of the A levels and O' levels was high but dipped such that A level students were thought to be doing what O' level students used to do and GCSE students had open-book exams. Now its back up but now the critics compare it to the low point saying it is too hard whereas the people who criticised the old system compared it to the high point.

(btw I think those born in the 40's thought my exams were easy and theirs were hard and I' inclided to agree having seen their papers).

Lulu I read the story as it developed this week, if it's the one I'm thinking of, and it just made me more determined to try to minimise the pressure our DC are under. DD had a tizz yesterday when she started to fret about how much work she needs to do before her next mock at the end of the month & how much her friends are doing. I've told her not to worry as she will do the right amount for her & comparisons won't help.

There was a really interesting maths study done by Carol Vorderman a few years back that concluded among other things that O level maths wasn't just more demanding than GCSE but also more demanding than the old school certificate that my parents studied for in the 1940s - they were both reasonably good at 'sums' but useless when it came to helping me with O level maths!
I think one thing GCSEs did do well was stage the questions in order of difficulty. Unfortunately, now, we have an English language exam that's pitched at high achieving students apart from the first 4 marks on each paper and that's not right either.

Loose I've been telling DD that for years & now I'm vindicated!

1960s E grade in A level equivalent to a B last year apparently a study showed.

I remember o level papers being at least 2 hours long each and A levels 3 hours long.

Also remember my geography O level having one of the papers an essay question. You had a choice of 3 to do and am almost sure paper was over 2 hours.

Too true its unfair loose.

I failed my o levels and didn’t get chance for resits or college as
Mum living with my alcoholic step father, I moved in with my dad at 15 and he made me go and get a job so I could pay to live with him.

Really really regret not doing well at school and wonder if this is where some of my angst comes from.

Can’t compare current GCSEs with old o levels and cse’s as I’ve blocked the whole experience from my mind. But everyone I speak to says that current GCSEs content is similar to A level content 30 years ago.

....DD has a habit of asking how many O levels I got and what grades...although we did a test a few months back to see what grades we would achieve on new 1-9 system - mixture of questions)...I was working at 7-9 standard DD was 5-7 !

Interesting discussion about education last night too - DD's view : education should be a level playing field for all (no one should be able to buy a better education), how people should not be judged on what career they take, why it was unfair for someone to be able to do no work and yet get amazing results and why someone who worked really hard got average results and finally people should not be allowed to be teachers unless they could inspire ALL children to learn.

Stickerrocks - I've taken a step back too (no prompts for revising)...for two reasons - in my mind happiness and well being must always come first (seeing what appeared to be a well balanced 15yr old run away from home brought this home) and secondly I think DD needs to develop more self motivation skills going into A levels (study/focus at school without any prompts in spare periods).

DD spent all yesterday I’ll in bed so no revision so far.

It appears however that her teachers still think that her handwriting is still an issue. (It was flagged in Year 7). She is hypermobile & used a special pen. Whilst her writing is now legible she cannot write any faster & there is a history of her not finishing papers. This affected her English result where she only got 2/3 of the way through & during her chemistry mock she lost all colour/ sensation in one of her fingers. (She’s always suffered from this). She’s been working on time management but she cannot write fast enough.

As a result she has been advised to use a tablet in class & school are going to push for her to be able to use a laptop in exams although it’s late in the day.

Our current stress though is the fact there is a compulsory school tri which means she won’t get back to school until 11.30pm the night before the final round auditions which determine whether her college place will ge government funded.

We’ve decided to rebel & I’ve withdrawn permission even though I’ve already paid.

DS is doing almost the same GCSEs that i did as O'grades on the mid-80s. I'm a bit weird in that I have a good memory for certain things - like precisely what i learned for O'grades and where I was sitting in the class when I learned it. (I'm useless for names and faces though).

Where the subjects overlap, everything DS is doing now is the highly similar to what I did 35 years ago - the English books to read, the maths and science content. The only differences that i can see are: to get full marks his answers have to be highly structured and contain SPAG marks, I had more multiple choice, he does more poetry, I did more plays, I learned more french verb tables and he's got global warming in all sorts of subjects where I only had a page on acid rain in chemistry. Maths is the most similar - I can't think of anything either of us did age 14/15 that the other isn't doing too.
Maybe the scottish education system was different from the English one (probably) back them as it is now, but GCSE 2018 look a lot like O' Grades mid-80s.

mmzz interesting, hope my DC achieves more than me!! Having said that, the environment DD currently lives in was completely different to the life I had at 15/16 (was so bad put me off having kids until I was 30).

I wonder if our parents were so involved with our education as today’s parents. For reasons given earlier I know mine weren’t but everyone of my generation says the same.

I wonder if our parents were so involved with our education as today’s parents No!!

mmzz yes in my country we didn't have public exams at 16 so everyone took the same exams set by school. At 18 there are public exams and you have already narrowed down your choices of subjects (not as narrow as A levels though). However, there are still no differences, everyone sits the same paper for a given subject. There are no private boards either, everyone sits the same paper set by the Government on the same day, literally.

1960s E grade in A level equivalent to a B last year apparently a study showed

But everyone I speak to says that current GCSEs content is similar to A level content 30 years ago

Which is true ?

My parents were not fussed about my education they were still in the era that women got married/had children. I had three jobs when I was 14 (babysitter/grocery store 1hr after school and Saturday morning/neighbourhood door to door cancer research lotto type ticket seller) certainly would NOT be allowed now. My brother who was two years older was really pushed by my parents -he was very clever (I hated following in his footsteps through school). I had older parents (mum was 40 when she me), although I was raised on a farm so parents were asset rich but cash poor. I sat my O levels in 76/77. I was 41 when DD was born ...so followed in my mothers footsteps of having a child late in life. I do wish DD had a sibling - I hadnt planned to have children so DD's arrival was a shock ...I had planned to go off travelling in my 40's not pushing a pram.

Ha! My parents were very hands off. My dad was convinced I was doing French A level and kept passing on books from a friend. I wasn't doing French A level!
I don't think you can compare A levels - the style changed to modular (now changed back) and you could retake modules to improve the overall grade so that might be it but that's more work in many ways! A levels are hard but very rewarding. They were always hard and they still are.

Drummers It's obvious, if you sat the final round of O levels, they were definitely harder than GCSEs, but if you're sitting the new round of GCSEs, they are certainly harder than O levels! We'll argue this one at home indefinitely, but as long as my DD gets the grades she deserves it & she can access whatever she wants to do next, it's irrelevant.

Teen can relate to your post, women of my generation were groomed for marriage and children.

Both of my SILs did needle work at A level and part of the course was on how to run the house!!!!!!

Options were strictly segregated. Girls could take Food * Nutrition, Needlework or Childcare, but you couldn't take Childcare if you were in the top sets. Boys could take Woodwork, Metalwork or Technical Drawing. Alice O caused a huge scene by refusing to take any of the options for girls and insisted on taking Woodwork - her parents had to go to the school governors for permission. Meanwhile I can cook a mean sponge fruit flan and fish au gratin with glazed carrots, which was my default menu for any F&N scenario we were given.

My parents trusted the school and left them to it. I had to do my homework, behave in class and pay attention. It was quite easy really. Most of my classmates were under the same expectations.
No one thought about me going to university or not going there. There was just a whole culture of good behaviour and benign neglect which coupled with teachers who called it a vocation made it a simple path to university. I think things were much easier for girls in my day than today. No one expected me to excel at everything. So I didn't feel the pressure.
Those prom dresses are lovely but I thank God that I didn't have a prom because I'd have stressed for months about fitting in - sexy but not too sexy etc.

I was an awful cook (I remember the pastry on a jam tart being so wafer thin the jam fell though...although I did make a mean apple crumble). I cant remember doing needlework at senior school - although I do remember making a gingham skirt at some stage in school (cringes). Thankfully the school included Principles of Accounts O level within the "girls" option choice which did come in handy later on in life!
I was very sporty at school whereas DD has not found sport easy apart from long jump and she's pretty good at karate.
mmzz - I'm still amazed at Dd's prom dress selection because the original choice was sexy navy bodycon/slit down front ...now its pastel -pretty- sparkly...yet she has an amazing figure very tall with long legs....still think it may get changed before the end of June .

I would have been in flat panic if I had to present myself to the whole year (show them my grown up, sophisticated self) when I was 15 turning 16! Some of my friends would have been happy but there were others like me who would have been in open conflict with their mothers about how much skin to reveal! Also, the cost would have been an issue at home.

I actually feel really sorry for girls today that they are under so much pressure to look good and have a high powered career and publish an ongoing, busy social life. No wonder there is so much stress and mental illness.