GCSEs 2018 (14): the aftermath

[mmzz]

Following on from www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3275972-GCSEs-2018-13-Untwisting-our-knickers-lucky-for-some

Another one who found the Add maths very hard , still focusing on only having one german exam left and then its over ...Hurrah!

Yes this was the FSMQ too AChickenCalledKorma, which they all seem to refer to as Add Maths. DD is at a superselective where the top and middle sets took the exam and even the few DC who DD described just now as 'insanely good at maths' were rattled by the paper.

Its probably a bit hit and miss which schools undertake the extra exam (Further/Additional Maths)...DD;s school (Indie) have never opted into any additional Maths exams and will not even enter Yr11 for UKMT challenges in GCSE exam year...I guess there are very able girls who could do the exams but its not something they offer ... they do offer FM in addition to at A level... I guess its balancing pressure with extension and trying to get the right balance.

Ours was FSMQ Add Maths. The two top sets were offered the chance to take it by staying on after school for an extra hour each week. In the end around 15 - 20 if them saw it through to the bitter end. I agree that it put a bit of a damper on things, especially as everyone else except graphics finished on Friday. I could easily see DD changing her mind about A level maths after that.

Glad our mathematicians survived today and good luck to all dancers, linguists and other examinees this weeks each and everyone!
Dgd getting excited about prom now. She will be staying over at friends house after prom as next day is friends birthday where they will go for meal and a party in evening.
Old books been sorted by dgd and she bought me 1 exercise book for each subject from year 7-11 which we boxed up ready for her to show her children in years to come. I just have a few pages to finish of school scrapbook that goes from primary to now and all her reports too. Have done same for dgs too. Something to pass down as momentos.. I have my dds and all the grandchildren birth wristbands framed.
Am a bit of a hoarder!
Pup is almost fully recovered from phantom pregnancy and has been very good for my friend who has been dog sitting while I've been at hospital.
Well must sleep now talk tomorrow. Thread moves very fast please excuse if I miss things.

Sostenueto that scrapbook idea is wonderful, what a gorgeous thing to do! Yet more proof that you're the best Grandparent ever! Hope you're feeling ok and taking it easy

Brainmelt congratulations to your DS, a wonderful and very well deserved award.

Sticker what a lovely email about your DD, she sounds like a total superstar - I hope her HG speech goes well (I have no doubt it will be superb)

Jufus I can't believe a school can be allowed to fail in so many ways. Your poor DD and all the other dc. No matter what her grades, she deserves to do well on whatever path she chooses.

Slinky what a truly lovely thing for your DD to say - think I have something in my eye. . .

Good luck to all with exams still to go tomorrow and Thursday - you're so so close now! 🍀

Well done to the mathematicians and above all to Sostenueto, lovely to hear about your hoarding!
DS’s comp offers the add maths level 3 to the top set and they cover the material in class, but sitting the exam is optional and DS opted out on the grounds that he can do it but it takes him longer than the time available!

mmzz my Ds's groups seem do have similar horrible banter. DS's old email address has an automatic forwarding to me (when we first set it up in primary school). A couple of years ago he set up a new one so I don't see the correspondence, but will give people the old one where he does want whatever to come to me as well.

Got an email which had an analysis of an English text attachment (ie school work related), and the cover email accused one of the other in the group of being gay. And then there was some responses back which again they had no idea I was seeing (DS not actively involved, at any point, just copied). I asked him about it (I didn't like it at all, thought it was all quite abusive), and he said it was all "a joke", and got very defensive, and cross that the wrong email had been used.
Couple of other situations somewhat similar - which again provoked very, very defensive response from DS about the whole thing (even though he was neither the poster nor, mostly, the target) - I (and his geography teacher, who came across this and wasn't happy about it, and suggested at one point that DS was a target) are apparently desperately deficient in humour in not understanding "jokes". Really didn't sound like "jokes" to me. he is still in year 10, don't know if it gets any better in year 11.

Oh, been meaning to post regarding the discussion (ages ago) about having to go into school to collect results. Ds's school has the opposite rule - you have to get your result on line. DS will be given a login and password to the main bromcom (the Year 11s already all have theirs), and he will be able to log in from 6am on results day to see his results (parents not allowed to have log in). Don't believe there is a facility to go into school to collect - although they always have staff available on results day if results aren't what is expected (more for the A Level results day, when university choices might need to be changed), but I think they expect the students to have the results before they come in to talk to anybody.
So definitely no photos of people leaping in the air. We will be in France for results day, so I hope the system will be robust enough for him to log in. Advantage is that it will be 7am there, so a bit more civilised than a 6am wake up.

Jufus I would be really interested to hear your ideas about your DD's school could turn itself around?
DS's school is one of those that lends out the head or one of the deputy heads to run schools that are in trouble for a while. A bit odd but the public thing they always do as a first step is try to make everyone's life easier by dealing with behaviour issues and reducing the burden of marked homework. Then the adverts start appearing for new teachers as usually there are a large number of vacancies.

They (DS's school) must be good at it, because they are asked to do it again and again.

I watched the BBC 2 programme about grammar school entrance on iPlayer last night. I was really sad for the y6 who felt they were failures at 11. However I was more angry about the marked differences in education available to those in the grammar to those in the secondary modern. My DC are fortunate enough to be at an Ofsted outstanding ( whatever you think of that) school, who yes, have the odd duff teacher, but the kids at the sec mod had weeks of no specialist science teacher at all, and so much low level disruption to contend with. Just not fair.

I feel for any of your young people who have been failed by their schools...

Agree Panda the difference in standard of education is stark - not just differences between state/private and grammar/secondary modern but there are also huge differences between standard comprehensives depending on where you live. The teacher shortages and enforced changes in exam system make this even more marked. Also different dc are affected more by poor schooling

I sometimes feel a pang of guilt that we have been able to move DD1 and DS with SpLD and other issues to an environment where they have thrived - others aren’t so lucky

We have huge differences in standards (mainly behaviour) between the 2 comps in our town. One has a catchment area including a lot of homes of £1m+ in a National Park, the other has the industrial estates. We live in the grim catchment, but because DD was born in 2001/02, we struck it lucky and managed to get into the outstanding schools all the way through. You can see a 30-40% difference in the results. DD would have done well regardless of where she went academically, but she would have struggled socially because our family background is very different to that of her peer group in the school she missed. It really does become a catch 22.

Panda in areas where 25% of the top achievers go to Grammars it is very hard to recruit teachers for the 75% left behind. The Comprehensive system is better, because you might have a disaffected Year Nine set 5 on a Tuesday morning, but it’s balanced with a passionate A level set in the afternoon. How can we condemn 75% of our children to a less demanding education with a lack of older academic role models at 11 years old ?

I’m not talking about super selectives who only take 2% and mean there is still a good mix of abilities in the schools for the majority.

We have huge differences in standards (mainly behaviour) between the 2 comps in our town.

But who is responsible for that poor behaviour? It's unfair to blame the teachers. They are just the people who have to endure it.
Children aren't feral. They don't have to be disruptive unless forced not to be by someone else. Has anyone ever done looked into why children wreck their own education, and the education of those around them by being disruptive? What do their parents think? What were they taught in terms of controlling their behaviour when they were little?

I've never set foot in a grammar so I could be completely wrong with this, but is it generally the case that grammar school pupils are less disruptive on average than the secondary modern students?
I am just hypothesising, but if you go to a grammar, you had to be paying attention and doing your work in primary school. Also, there's a strong possibility that your parents took the time and trouble to either arrange a tutor or organise extra study sessions at home. If they do that, then they value education and they are not going to reinforce good behaviour at home, because that's easier than organising a tutor.

So maybe the differentiating factor isn't IQ, but behaviour? And that being so, instead of filtering off the more able, the more disruptive should be filtered off instead?

I think often (but not always) poor behaviour is linked to not being able to do the work.

I watched the programme too Panda and was struck by the anxiety levels and pressure on the grammar school girls - the separation meant that, not only were children branded a failure at 11 if they didn't pass the 11 plus, but grammar school children also felt they were failure if they didn't get A s as all their peers did.

I think education does tend to be a lottery unfortunately ...the county that I live in has struggled to convert from three tier to two tiers because of a lack of funding and with the changes a lot of teachers have moved on and there are very few good state schools (and the good one's are oversubscribed). There are also 5 Independent schools in the town and another within easy traveling distance so these cream off a lot of children because the fees are at a push affordable.

I think investment is the major issues with schooling ... they also need teachers that are motivated and not disgruntled because of poor policies.

One of my friends DD's goes to Townley Grammar (the school featured on the programme), I remember my friend saying it took her DD time to adjust because at her state primary school she was one of just a few bright children so it was easy to shine and when she joined the grammar they were all bright children so not so easy to shine and this can be demoralizing.

I know my DD went through a period when she joined her school where her confidence was affected she was surrounded by very able academics and high achievers in sports/music and dance - it can have a negative effect - within I think the first term she dropped from set1 for Maths to set2 and the same happened in French ...even though she was told that I think the top 3 sets were all capable of A*'s but set2 and set3 worked at a slower pace. That lack of confidence is still underlying ...

I'm in a Grammar area, DS was in a comp, DD still in a Grammar, so I've seen both sides of this.
DS was in the top set of the comp, he did well as there was little disruption in his classes. He said lower sets got more of the students needing more support (but didn't necessarily get that support).
DD says there is a fair bit of disruption in her classes, due to students who were heavily coached through the 11+ floundering once the grammar workload hits.
Perhaps there should be more flow between grammar and comps, but my cynical side thinks this would increase the disparity. Grammars would dump their troubled students on comps and cream off the late bloomers.

I too watched this programme and found it really disturbing at the differences between the schools and how over time the gaps grow bigger.

DD caught some of the programme and said she identified with the comments about self induced pressure in high achieving schools. And feeling that you have failed if you don't get the top grade. DD is at a high achieving school and all the pressure comes from the girls - the School spends the entire time trying to diffuse this pressure and over the exam period the entire focus has been on mental health and wellbeing. This is why their approach has been very light touch in terms of giving predicted grades or any grades at all. You only find out your predicted grades if you are changing schools or need to apply for some work experience scheme. Even then they prefer to send to the other school/company directly.

I don't know how much pressure there was at DS's school during the exams. The teachers were encouraging the students to revise, and the school overall made a significant effort to get their message across that the exams were to be taken seriously.
However, DS says he never saw anyone upset over the exams, and he sat next to some boys in geography (so more mixed ability than top set) who strongly indicated that they did no work whatsoever, so i would say that they did not feel pressurised.

Townley Grammar were relying on an 18/19 year old ex-student (Harvard applicant) to teach 12 lessons a week of general science to KS3 - not sure if that was due to recruitment problems or a cost saving measure - the class shown were incredibly well behaved and interested - all girls though.

Another Add Maths survivor here - DS1 was grinning from ear to ear when I first saw him after the exam - I thought he was going to say it was really easy (89% in his last practice paper) - I think it must have been a 'funereal' laugh instead. He left 20 marks worth of answers completely blank (not a clue how to answer the questions) but at least he had plenty of time to check the questions he could do (apparently it's very easy to check answers to algebra problems working backwards with a calculator?) - still hopeful for 65-68% - the grade boundary for an A in 2016 was 59%, 72% last year. He seems quite pleased that his friends found the paper equally hard (or worse) so no loss in confidence - he's in the bottom half of the top set (selective independent) so nothing to prove I suppose, although he wants to do well.

I missed that BBC2 program, will try to catch up in Iplayer. We were watching the documentary "Icarus" on the Russian doping scandal. It made me think the Russian footballers have scored 8 goals in two matches...mmmm....
loose same here DS also opted out of AdMaths because he thought it would take too much time from his gcse Maths revision and he's not taking A level Maths anyway so what's the point really.
He spoke to some mates who had sat the exam and they all said it was insanely difficult by the way!!
sost I am getting ready for DGC and learning from you. DH once drafted the Ten Commandments to avoid becoming old and grumpy which he presented to his parents Mine will read: "Do like Sostenuto", "Do like Sostenuto"... x 10

Russian doping scandal. It made me think the Russian footballers have scored 8 goals that was my thoughts last night too... I also even thought that they have planned the mosquito invasion for the England match (given current relationship).

Oh well off to pick DD up from her sleepover last night and then onto a hair consultation and may even look for Prom shoes too.