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.

Ellen different students have different strengths. Some are much better off writing a description of the picture because they don't enjoy imaginative writing. Others prefer coming up with a story. I have students with fantastic imagination but not all of them are comfortable with plot and character.

Mmzz - so they are indeed benchmarking against their own year group rather than across multiple years. So x% will fail because they will set the grade 4 boundary to reflect the % that would have likely fallen below the grade 4 boundary in SATs. Hope I am not coming over as confrontational but it seems a tad unfair for those on the cusp.

From my DDs perspective it’s (hopefully) not whether she will get a 5 or not but about the grade she will get and as I said before, she has done her best so it will be what it will be.
But for those on the edge of 3/4/5 it’s really harsh. If everyone works really hard (as all your DCs are doing) then it just pushes those boundaries up and the same proportion will ‘fail’. It’s no longer about “do you know the subject” and more about “are you better than everyone else?”.
Expecting to be shot down for this post (especially as a newbie) but it just seems sad!

And I do appreciate it’s a competitive world........

Actually I can see how grades vary on whole papers during year 11 - the likeliest explanation is not answering the question that was asked. So the answer might be good because the student is able but if they go off topic they can't get the marks for it.
On the creative writing, using a range of techniques effectively will get higher marks but it doesn't have to be the full range of possible devices.

Thanks, loose. I won't be encouraging him to write a description if he prefers the narrative. His range of 4-8 scores have been on school mocks. I wouldn't attempt to mark English! Glad I'm not an examiner.

And thankfully he's been steadily improving. Let's hope that continues next week.

Loose I got it from the mark scheme. She didn't use any linguistic devices (because they didn't really fit in a leavers' day speech) or any punctuation other than commas or full stops. There were no spelling or grammar errors at all but from what I could understand of the mark scheme coupled with mr bruff that isn't enough for the spag marks. She needs every mark she can get for spag because she has no imagination and hates creative writing.

I'd love to find I'm wrong on this.

Re how we are arriving at these grades in dd's case they have been marked by her teacher. Dd rarely uses a semi colon but writes with clarity and good expression (weak points are SPAG). I think her 4 was probably not addressing the question - her usual grade is 6/7

Loose - your post is very reassuring

No shooting you down Cblue, but

1. in every exam ever invented there's always a one mark difference between those who just fail and those who scrape a pass. So, this is no different.

2. there's only 2 ways to decide who passes and who fails an exam: either you pass by getting a set score or you pass by being in the top half (or whatever). Both types of exams have been around forever, but, granted the set score is more common. The problem with the set score is what happens when the questions get marginally easier every year for 20 years? Everyone knows the answer to that because it's what happened to the old GCSEs and they began to be disrespected by universities, further education colleges, employers and the public at large.

Setting a % to pass feels unfair, and it is, but which is worse: creating an arbitrary % cut off or running exams that no matter how good you are, everyone just disregards your results because they say the exams are too easy to be worth talking about?

Kickbishop you absolutely can use some of the devices in a speech, though. The most appropriate tend to be rhetorical questions, saying 'you' and 'we', using repetition for effect, rule of three, alliteration and so on. I agree metaphors and similes could sound forced but in the end they are just fancy comparisons.
Yes, only using commas and full stops would lower the SPAG mark. However, you'd be amazed how many people misuse commas!

Thanks loose. I'll pass all that on. She's come on so much since end of y10 where she just froze and didn't even attempt q5. She finds it so difficult. And she hates it.

I think as well that her teacher (who dd adores) has struggled so much to fit the literature syllabus in that they haven't had anywhere near enough time on language. I find it crazy considering how essential it is to pass language. Today dd told me they'd never done a leaflet and she wouldn't know how. Mr bruff to the rescue again!

Loose thankyou so much for sharing your knowledge and wisdom, it really is very helpful indeed.
I'm another one who has been struggling to keep up - the thread moves so fast that I end up skimming it then running out of time to respond!
to everybody going through difficulties with health and family - this is a stressful enough time without additional worries.

DD sticking to about 5hrs a day, and taking the evenings off to see the boyfriend/friends.
She's camping in a friend's garden tonight and I'm just lying here listening to the rain . . . At least there's no storm tonight! But I imagine they'll all be a bit soggy by morning!

I can't think too deeply about grade boundaries and percentages or making predictions - I'll tie myself in knots and drive myself bonkers!
At this point all I want is for DD to pass what she needs to - anything else will be the cherry on top.

I hope everyone is managing to get some rest, especially our amazing DCs.

Morning all! Dgd off to have informal interview at local hospital for work experience in neurology department today. She's gutted she won't be able to go into theatre till she's 17 but otherwise she's really looking forward to starting. She is also going to look for summer jobs.

Sostenueto does your DGD want to be a doctor?

Sostenueto that's a brilliant place for work experience, and must be in high demand, good on your dgd!
Does she want to do medicine?

Sostenueto Good luck to your DGD...

I'm going to book DD an appointment to try on 6th form uniform next week after an exam...I envisage skirt being a nightmare because she has long legs and is 5ft 9ins and its a pencil skirt design...so best to try first.

H iall,

I have been following this thread for a while and have been impressed with all the advice and support you have all offered each other. As I have dd in year10, I was looking for advice

Please could you tell me how did your dd/ds learn all the quotes for DR Jekyll & Mr Hyde and Macbeth? Did they have a set list from school or did they make their own?

Also, if you were going back to end of y10 what is the best piece of advice you would give, is there anything you would have encouraged your dc to do different?

Sorry for all the questions but looking forward to the responses

It’s been fairly mellow. Friday after the exam she did nothing, which was fine, she was exhausted.Quite a bit of revision otherwise, but she went to a friend’s on BH Monday (to ostensibly do some work but not sure if the 3 of them did much) and we had a meal out for a relative’s bday on the Sunday eve. Other than that she’s been working, but getting up quite late apart from the morning she had a revision class at school. I just have to let her get on with it tbh and thankfully she does work otherwise I’d have no say in the matter.

Hi bombula
I can tell you how my DS has approached y11, although I won't know how successful its been until the 23rd August!!!!
We got him all the CGP books for his subjects (schools tend to sell these at a discount) he then went through them all and made flashcards question on one side answer on the back (he has made 1000's of these). He started in September at an hour an evening moving up to about 1.5 -2hrs from Xmas and then final stages 3 hours. This was possible as his school only ever set about 2hrs of homework a week, so he had loads of spare time. Probably from around February he started to actually go through the cards. He also kept up all sport and meeting up with friends, because he started early there has been no last minute panic.

Good luck - main advice start early!!

Lobster no problem!
I think it's very difficult to do English language exams if English isn't a favourite subject. I think a lot of schools, like last year, have struggled with fitting everything in. I really admire all the dcs who are practising those papers!

Phone froze so just saw other messages! Bombula - school gave them some quotes and they did some flash cards themselves for a homework. DS had to do loads of geography papers over the summer but that paid off - if doing history suspect it would be useful for that, too.
Sosentueto best of luck to dgd for the interview!

bombula DS's teacher sent them a list of quotes to learn for some of the texts. He just memorised them, one at a time.
CGP guides are useful too, as are Mr Bruff books (some are available in print and electronically, others only electronically)

I don't think you can infer much from our experiences because each school does it slightly differently and, I suspect, DSs teacher will do it slightly differently next year. She sent DS some useful pdfs, and I am fairly certain she got them from the TES website, but some if them arrived too late to be usefully embedded in the study (e.g. 12 hours before the exam). Also DS's school doesn't arrange for CGP discounts, or any other discount.

bombula

DS2 made quote banks as he went along.
Each main character and each obvious theme had a quote bank, which was in the form of a table:
Left column: point
Middle column: evidence (quote)
Right column: explanation/analysis

Closer to the exams, he practised writing the quotes using a look/cover/write/check method.

bombula dd had a big long list of quotes that she made as homework as she went along but in the end she decided it was far too long so she slashed it to approx 2 sides of a4 which she memorized in a couple of days (although she was fairly familiar with them already)

Afterwards she said she used some of them and also others that were relevant that she just knew from studying the texts.

My tip is don't make the quotes too long. Around 6 words max in most cases.

Oh and i definitely agree to start early. Dd is a great example of what not to do on that one!

She did no revision for mocks and only really started revising on 1st May. She's done a lot since but it has been stressful and I suspect will show in her results.

She's the queen of doing "just enough" so will probably be happy enough in August. After all, why try to get a 6 when a 5 will do?!

Anyway she's actually doing maths this morning which she wasn't going to do because she got an 8 in the mock so didn't think there was any point.