GCSEs 2018 (8) Dozens of DCs, 1 DH and Flashcards in the fridge

[mmzz]

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@KingscoteStaff - I think you're playing DS1 school at cricket today. May the best team win! I wish DS1 was playing now!

DD is off to work for 3 hours. She needs to revise in the sunshine later as she has various tan lines and a backless prom dress. Speaking of which, we had good news at the hospital yesterday. All sinister issues with her back have finally been ruled out & they hope physio will resolve her problems.she can practice her physio exercises is she takes a rest break during her exams.

Good news about your DD, Stickerrocks.

DS is not a natural grafter. A week like the one that's just gone by would have floored him last September. He's just built up to it over the last few months.
He also has delayed sleep phase disorder which makes him tired, but luckily we worked through that and found an effective way of dealing with it four or five years ago. (The solution is regular bedtimes and eye masks, not artificial melatonin btw).
I think there will be a balance between being exam ready and being worn out. I'll try to encourage a day of at half term though

DS's plan is to do 6 hours today and tomorrow and 2 of an evening max. as for him if he's not fresh silly mistakes kick in, not sure what he will do over HT but as he will still have 12 exams probably 6 hours a day but he's found that's his maximum with a day off.

Personally I am dreading both English Lit and Lang and the fact this is a must pass one adds the pressure, with DS anything could happen it really will be very question dependant.

Good luck all those playing cricket today I could quite happily spend the day watching on the sidelines in this weather and I don't even understand the game

The 8/9 targets at by the school have been a mixed blessing. DS doesn't think he's up to them but he thinks his teachers are expecting it so he's trying to get as close as possible. Sometimes when the stress had got too much, the teachers expectations are what have been using him.
At this stage it doesn't really matter what is predicted though, does it? All that matters is doing your best and dealing with what comes in August.

On my phone and autocorrect is doing it's thing. Sorry for the incoherence!

DS's school don't issue predictions/targets. There were a couple of references to 'hoped for' or 'is capable of' grades by a couple of teachers at parents' evening at the start of the year but that's it. I'm not sure it's made any difference though, DS has just generated his own targets!

I'm very anti targets, especially on results day when they don't meet the targets and feel complete failures (sepecially when the target was unrealistic to begin with)

Predicted grades: Schools have to provide predicted GCSE grades on request in Y11 for applications to sixth forms and colleges. Some sixth forms and colleges contact the school directly for the predicted grades, so the pupil isn't aware of it.

Target grades: Schools do use target GCSE grades internally, to measure progress. Some schools will share these target grades with pupils, but it depends on the school.

Ds school give working at (ie mock), most likely and best which I think is sensible. It’s hard if they just get targets or predictions which will all by their very nature be highest achievable on each subject and what dc and some parents don’t realise is that unless your super bright super prepared and have a bit of luck thrown in it’s unlikely that you will hit all of your best targets when doing a lot of exams together. They should hit it in some it not all and it may be random which ones. Unfortunately some focus on the A* targets they missed and not the overall picture.

Can I de rail & ask a quick q - out shopping by at the moment.

Best version of Romeo & Juliet to buy Ds so he can have a copy at home to annotate. He’s a weak student but is an aspiring actor so understands playscript.

DS in a bit of a flap about Jekyll and Hyde."It's just a really bad book" he says. He feels there isn't much to write about and doesn't like that the last chapter explains it all! Anyone elses DC doing J&H? Any tips???

Alexander Hamilton none of my children are doing R&J but for their plays they have the Oxford School Shakespeare editions

DS3 sticking to his 2 hour a day schedule. Even at weekends. That way, the weekend still seems like a break. He's got another week at school before study leave. Busy week next week, 2 Chinese exams on Monday, then the core ones like most of the rest of you. He's lucky to have a good memory, not quite photographic like yours mmzz but it does make revision a bit easier.

Ds is doing J&H. You've got Deacon Brodie, Burke &Hare underpinning the theme about respectability trumping rooting out evil in society. Then there is the whole thing about drug addiction (opium) which RLS was known to suffer from. It would help to understand how important respectability was to upper class Edinburgh society. When they realised how they had turned a blind eye to Deacon Brodie for years, they were astonished at themselves. A modern parallel may be our response to realising that Saville had been hiding in plain sight.

I got 3 separate reports this year with target grades / predicted. The first had just targets and it was 5 8s + 5 9s. The second was after the mocks and was both predicted and targets, then the final one at Easter was just predicted but they were all the same as the original targets.
It's been reassuring as the year has progressed, but now it's pressure, and come August, it may well take the edge of what I hope would otherwise be considered a good set of results.

Yes, Mmzz spot on - it's a very Scottish novel for one set in London!
Ian Rankin has a brilliant documentary on it on the BBC - it's on iPlayer archive or you can go to bbc website and download it. It's everything you need, seriously, to revise the themes and context and really interesting.

DD's school tend to do similar to Oratory's DS's school. Working at/Mock results and at parents, evening indicated what they were capable of too.

DD will I think perform well in the subjects she enjoys (plus French because the revision has been structured over 5 months). I think she's one of these children that will do enough at this stage she doesn't have anything to aim for (a future passion) to encourage her to go the extra mile and I think she's probably one of those DC's who don't want to work flat out and not get the best grades (she has two nieces with straight A* results)..so it's easier to work hard enough to get good grades (she's also a typical teenager and won't listen to any advice).

A bit shocking about not finishing the geography syllabus (until today) KickBishop

We have target grades based on data from goodness knows how far back and then predictions from teachers on what they think will happen - understandably these fluctuate a bit and are quite cautious because the teachers are held accountable by the head (rather unfair, in my opinion!) but that's based on knowing where grade boundaries usually fall. This year, it's a lot of guesswork!

We have never been given any predictions. Felt a bit weird at the beginning but really good further down the line.

We had target grades (I ignore those) and predicted grades 4 times this year! November, then after mocks in Jan, February and again in April. Luckily the predicted grades have either gone up or stayed the same. I take them with a pinch of salt especially this year with the new exams. The target grades are set from their Y6 SATS and have always been a bit unrealistic for DS3.

We have only had results for mocks in January. Never a discussion about targets.

That said if DS1 replicates his mock results I would be very proud of him.

We have 'Predicted Target' and 'Aspirational Target'. I too would be very happy if ds replicates his last set of mocks.

We had predicted grades - a necessity because dd's school is too small for a viable sixth form so Year 11's must apply for Sixth form college elsewhere.

I think school have been very sensible and prudent about predicted grades and dd doesn't feel any undue pressure

If dd's replicates her mocks it will be marginally disappointing (although not catastrophic) - although they were in January straight after Christmas and she spent most of the Christmas break completing course work for IGCSEs which squeezed out revision a little. I am hanging on to the fact (I think its a fact?) that most students go up a grade by the actual GCSEs