Gcse 2018 (10) The one with half term

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www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3256691-GCSEs-2018-9-Will-we-get-to-half-term-for-never-was-a-story-of-more-woe-than-this-of-Juliet-and-who-is-Banquo

Oops. Can't remember how to link nicely, so this will have to do.

Grade boundaries are another deep dark mystery to me. Our DC won’t know (or have any idea of) how they have done until they are compared to the rest of the cohort.....which in itself seems so unfair. What if this years cohort are really clever or alternatively aren’t the brightest? Does it mean that when applying for jobs the interviewer will also need to take into account which year they took the exams? (a rhetorical question). A simple pass/fail would make everyone’s lives so much simpler!!!

Bluebelle I watched a Mr bruff video today with dd which said don't assume there will be one of each. It could be 2 narratives or 2 descriptions so he needs to be prepared to do either.

Dd prefers doing the story because she runs out of things to say about the picture but she finds language very difficult and is only aiming for a 5.

I asked DS and he says he can't remember being told that, or anything similar.

Thanks kick I'll pass that on.......sort of thing that could throw you in an exam he could spend half an hour looking for the picture

Cblue they adjust the %s for relative cleverness of the cohort based on year 6 SATS results. There are over 500,000 children in that year group, so that's enough that there will be very tiny differences from year to year.

Hi, I often read the comments but rarely comment! DD1 is 23 and so I've done all this before, but it was very different. Different system, different child! DD2's teacher says that sometimes you get two stories and there is no choice to do a description. Is that right?

Sorry, I mean the AQA GCSE English Language.

Sorry, cross-posted!

Yes, it is possible - I’ve seen a specimen paper where there are two stories, though one has more of an obvious link to the picture.

Oh, just to clarify there is always a picture, even if there are two stories (and one may be real experience rather than fiction).
Talking of pictures, that is a lovely photo Sostenueto - I can see pup has grown!
DS did some revision with a friend after the film but is back on the computer. He has a maths session tomorrow afternoon so will revise something else in the morning.

I've had a frustrating evening with DS trying to help him with some reading conversation for English language post 1 question 2.
We made zero progress and I was getting exasperated with him.
This is why I am not a teacher!

I'm still trying to work out if he was deliberately being obtuse or if he really struggles with the basics. One again, I'm left wondering what the teacher can see that I can't.

mmzz I've just had an equally frustrating time trying to do Victorian non-fiction extract with ds2..he ran off.

tomorrow may be better, I think he needs to prepare a lot mentally before doing work with me I said, just 30 mins a day but I think the timing was too random for him. He really really needs a 6 and he knows it, but still, the panic sets in, and then he does "flight"

ds has very good expressive language but some receptive language (identified) issues. He has difficulty with inferring but once he knows the techniques he tends to do it quite competently. In this case, just making him revise the techniques threw him into a panic. And the word clause... like how is this sentence constructed? He does it naturally (lots of clauses) but he just cannot see how it is happening in the text when someone else writes it.

sorry, that wasn't very grammatical was it

actually I know what I am doing wrong. Trying to explain too much at once. He is a one instruction at a time sort of guy.

I think DS was just arguing for the sake of it. I'd say something, and he'd say that he couldn't see it. No counter suggestions from him. No ideas at all from him. Apparently no personal experiences of having been happy, sad, scared, bored, intimidated etc etc that he could draw on. No glimmer of understanding about what other people might feel.
It felt like I was the only one trying to make headway with the exam.
I'm still irritated now! Or worried - is he really that bad ??

DS attempted some paper 1 questions which the school have made up, I typed them up so they can be emailed to his teacher for marking. I was really struck by the quality of his responses I would say they varied by at least a grade if not more, if the right extract doesn't come up then he really struggles to find anything to say, but if it fires his imagination then he does a lot better.......I guess English is like that for most people.

Was he just disengaged because he had mentally checked out and had enough for today mmzz? Give it another go when he is fresh tomorrow morning.

mmzz perhaps he was just a bit fed up with it all, I think we all have off days........maybe his creative juices will be running tomorrow?

Bluebelle - my dd tells me that her marks for English language have varied between a 4 and an 8. Bit of a worry really!

I can well believe it, i do remember last year reading on one of these threads how someone was saying how their DC didn't get a 9 but was brilliant at English but someone else in class had who had never scored so high before, I believe they were wondering whether to go for a re-mark, but to be honest I can believe that if the right paper comes up for someone I think this could easily happen!

DS3 has varied between a 4 and an 8 in English as well in Y11! Luckily his last one was an 8.

He much prefers the story type question to the description type. A bit nervous if PP's teacher has recommended the picture over the story. Any thoughts, loose?

It sounds like language is causing lots of problems. Similar story here.

The paper she sat earlier was a really nice piece of writing but it didn't have any semi colons in it . Or any metaphors or simile. So apparently it would barely scrape a 5.

I don't know whether to be frustrated at dd because she knows she needs to use them or frustrated at the stupid system that can't just reward interesting writing.

Eek! How are you arriving at these grades? There isn't a checklist of linguistic devices for creative writing and you can get a perfectly good mark without using a semi colon! Admittedly, the correct use of semi colons and colons will definitely help the SPAG total out of 16 but it's in conjunction with good spelling and grammatical sentences. Not using one doesn't lose lots of marks.

DD spent today on Maths again...and by choice did another past paper and scored 10% higher than yesterday ...the school have posted a sort of mock paper on the student portal which includes questions on what they predict will be in the Maths exam - which is helpful.

She's worked really consistently since the last exam before half term apart from taking Sunday off...she does take every evening off which I think is fair enough.