GCSEs 2018 (5 & a puppy, but no kittens)

[Stickerrocks]

Here we go again.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3177476-GCSEs-2018-4-already

I won't be on till end next week folks as I have to have some hospital treatment so keep well and positive to all and thanks for being lively peeps!

Lovely ( and lively)

Sos hope the treatment goes well and good luck with the paving!!

DD is being a pain in the ar*e (more than usual!) She says that she wants to be independent and I’m to stop all interfering and reminding and if she forgets or misses out on something then that is her fault. But as I pointed out, it is one thing missing out on prom but quite another missing out on 6th form because she still hasn’t handed the forms in for either.

I said to her that it isn’t the end of the world if she doesn’t go to 6th form but seen as though that is her plan, why hasn’t she handed the form in yet?

She also got a predicted grade sheet, she has gone up from a 1 to a 3 for English. She isn’t entering into any conversation about it as she is in charge

Sostenueto - I'm impressed by the paving work by you and dgd (no thanks to pup!) and wishing you all the very best with the treatment.

Wishing you a quick recovery with the hospital treatment, sost. [Flowers]

I've name changed thanks to family finding me!

Hope the treatment goes well Sostenueto

Oddsocks would a crammer course be something that both you and your DD would consider for English.........can't vouch for them personally and I think they might be quite expensive, just a thought as I know they run over the Easter Holidays.

beenrumbled haven't rumbled who you were yet

Bluebelle haven’t heard of crammer courses, not sure how I’m going to suggest it though as I was told quite clearly to back off. I am worried that she will fail some of her GCSEs as far as I can tell she is hardly revising. I know this is easy for me to say but talking to my friends in real life i’m not on her back.

beenrumbled give us a clue (or a group PM)?

Oddsocks www.justincraig.ac.uk/revision-course‎ is one you could also just google to see what's in your area.

Take heart that a lot of revision will be going on at school is she attending extra sessions, don't feel guilty you are doing everything that you can ultimately it has to be down to her and if she doesn't get what she hopes for there are always other options.

I was manky originally!

Last parents evening before GCSEs this afternoon.

DS says the the French Conference yesterday was actually helpful. Wonders will never cease! No revision was done last night as he got home from the conference and went out to football training, and I dont think he will get any done tonight.

rumbled hope parents' evening goes well - glad to hear the conference was good. Don't think any revision got done last night here, although sometimes hard to tell! They are revising at school and at least there seems to be some chance of getting the art exam prep out of the way!

DD had a meltdown over Maths last night, I feel I ought to get a tutor as she has responded so well so the English tutor going from a 4 to a 7 in two months, but I just can't afford another tutor. The fact they have had 5 maths teachers since September is not helping. Oh and German teacher is leaving so that's German and Science teachers leaving at Easter and will be replaced by supply teachers. Give me strength.

Jufus that's awful!
DD's English teacher left at Christmas and she then had half a term of a different supply teacher or cover supervisor each lesson. I (and I believe a few other parents) kicked up a stink expressed our dissatisfaction with the situation and it was resolved the following half term with the Head of English teaching their class twice a week to supplement the supply teachers.
It might be worth having a word with the school.

ALl the best for a speedy recovery sostenuto

HOw was Hamilton teen?

Ds’s school has apparently made a last minute switch from AQA to OCR maths due to the style of questions. Dd says she wishes her school would do that. She’s finding Tassomai helpful for science but wishes she hadn’t chosen French.

With regards to science I had this email from school today.

“Dear Parents,

Please find below an email that we have recently received from Ofqual clarifying the GCSE grading system for the new 2018 Science GCSEs (Separate and Trilogy) for your interest and information.

GCSE science grades: new explanatory resources

As you will be aware, another 20 new GCSEs will be graded from 9 to 1 this summer, in addition to English language, English literature and maths. Those being taken for the first time this year include biology, chemistry and physics, and combined science.

We are keen to raise awareness among parents, pupils and employers of the way in which these science subjects will be awarded. Students taking the single science GCSEs will receive a single 9 to 1 grade for each subject, in the same way as for other reformed GCSEs. Students taking the combined science qualification will receive an award worth 2 GCSEs. It will consist of two equal or adjacent grades from 9 to 1, giving 17 possible grade combinations – for example, (9-9); (9-8); (8-8) through to (1-1).

We considered a 9-point scale from 9-9 to 1-1 but we believed it would be unfair for students to lose (or gain) two whole grades at each grade boundary. After all, a student studying single sciences who just misses a grade 5 by one mark in biology would not also lose their grade 5 in physics or chemistry.

Explanatory resources

We have produced some new resources, and refreshed others, which we hope you will find useful for answering questions from pupils and parents. They include:
a film that explains that how combined science will be graded, and that it is worth two GCSEs. You can watch the film here.
a 'postcard' in conjunction with this film, which you can find as part of our postcard pack here. The film and postcard draw on the same themes as those we promoted last year for the introduction of the new 9 to 1 grading system, and which we updated in December.
a PowerPoint presentation that you might consider using at parent evenings or teacher training events. You can view it here.
Yours sincerely

Sally Collier
Chief Executive, Ofqual”

DD had a meltdown over Maths last night, I feel I ought to get a tutor

Poor girl, 5 teachers in Y11 is totally unacceptable, they should rearrange timetables to give Y11 stability. If you can’t afford a tutor, is she using online resources? There are lots of excellent ones out there, including videos on pretty much all topics which might help?
mathswebsite.com need to sign up for an account but it’s free (used to be hegartymaths before he started charging for his new site)
corbettmaths.com/contents/ videos and worksheets
keshmaths.com/gcse-maths-takeaway-3/ GCSE questions and video solutions.

Thankyou Noble for the maths links - I've forwarded them to my DD, they seem to be exactly what we've been looking for.

Thanks Noble, she uses Hegarty and I've bought the book that everyone is raving about on Facebook (pass your GCSE maths in four weeks). I have been contacted by. Year 12 student who got a 9 offering tuition. He's currently studying A level maths. Do you think it's a good idea? He's only £15 an hour

What grade is your DD aiming for? Sometimes students who got a grade 9 aren’t very good at explaining things to students on a much lower grade, but sometimes they can be fab so if you can afford £15 an hour, maybe ask for a trial session and see how your DD gets on with him?

Confidence is a huge thing in maths and if tuition can boost her confidence then that will help when she is revising by herself as well.

Noble, have you looked at Senecalearning for maths GCSE? Is be interested in your opinion.
DS is using it for science and is making good progress with it, but I was wondering if the approach (short lessons, lots of little tests with an emphasis on maximising memory capacity) would be good for maths too?
I ask because it's doing DS's confidence that he can do it a lot of good, which send to be one of Jufus's daughters problems.

I’ve just looked at Senecalearning and it says that maths isn’t available yet. It might be good for fact-based learning (memory palaces and the like) but how is it for preparation for extended questions?

I don't know.

I think maths is more a series of skills, rather than just understanding and memorising things. There's a small handful of formulae (volumes, sine rule, etc), which maybe the website could teach, but I don't know how it will teach maths. Its just that its been so good for the sciences that I thought I'd ask, in case the approach they use for maths was equally as effective.

PS I thought it was already live - sorry.

DS2 has had some good news; after Easter he might (finally) be able to join the school orchestra. He is preparing to take Grade 8, but there are several clarinet players in the school who are better than him, and only four spaces.

He was beginning to worry that he'd get to the end of Y13 and still not be chosen! It turns out that three of the clarinet players are leaving, which creates space for DS2. He is happy to go in and rehearse during his exam leave, providing he doesn't have an exam that morning/afternoon.