GCSEs 2018 (18) Well that's all over, let's get the party started

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www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3341060-GCSEs-2018-17-What-will-be-in-your-coffee-cup-on-Thursday

No Maths symbols here!

DS says that at least 50% of his year group were working straight onto laptops by the end of Year 11.

Dd water damaged her expensive news surface tablet beyond economical repair Which is a slight issue as she uses a laptop for exams.

Interesting re laptops. Nobody uses them at the school I work at except a couple of DC with real problems with writing. It's a grammar school. Will your DC carry their laptops into school every day?

ggirl great result pleased for you both!

I think DS1 is planning on good old fashioned pen and paper for notes. I don't think anyone takes notes on laptops but I may be wrong.

I'm planning on taking an 'on the doorstep' photo tomorrow morning if DS1 in his new suit - plus DS2 in his Senior School uniform. First day of Year 9 for him.

Mad scramble for Games Kit for both today. DS1 has 'team building'!

No laptop here (& none of my post grads use them either) just notebooks.

What about using one note and drawing in the symbols by hand if you have a write on screen? That's what I use in class. I download the chapter of material I'm working on, then scribble all over it.

DS2's sixth form has a scheme where all students have a chromebook or similar.

I would like DS2 to type his classnotes because his handwriting is so illegible and writing for long periods of time makes his hand hurt (hypermobility).

Typing Maths: I started a separate thread about this (in secondary education) and received some useful advice and tips.

During class, DS2 plans to type in Word, use the equation editor if there's time and take a photo of the whiteboard if not.

Then at home he plans to use LaTeX to produce a neat set of notes for each topic. It's a bit like a programming language; he has learned how to produce a basic document and display some algebraic expressions and he will learn the rest as he goes along.

Excellent news GGirl. I hope your DS has a positive day tomorrow and feels more able to make the right choice and run with it.

Your description of his current Head's behaviour on results day is really sad and I think you would be totally justified in calling them out on their lack of support. Making time for the media, but not for students that needed a hand hold, says a lot about their priorities.

Thread about how to do algebra and equations on a laptop

DS has been using laptop for essay subjects and will use it for CS next year but plans to hand write for physics and Maths. His writing is quite neat it was just slow so does often take photos of the board or others notes if he can’t keep up. DC now have to have a ‘device’ in school ie laptop or tablet. Sounds a good plan TheThird and he will be using those things if he is planning to do physics at Uni so good to get used to it now.

Great to hear things worked out ggirl.

First bday back tomorrow too - all the usual induction and team building stuff.

DD packed her bag and really had to think what to pack - and finding the pencil case. We haven't bought any more stationary as pretty sure I overstocked ahead of exams.

It is going to be tough tomorrow as this was the summer she really went through a rollercoaster of her mental health. She is nervous as to how it's all going to go. I'm just glad that if it goes all wrong at least the weekend is there. Whilst DD at school will be sorting DS for his final bits of uniform - he's not back till next week.

My dd has always taken notes on laptops for wordy subjects. Its quicker

Just starting to catch up with this thread

Firstly @Ggirl27 - great news

Secondly- are your DC back to school? Mine doesn't go back until Thursday pm or at least I don't think so. I have had a few 'errors' - one where I took her in a day early (also drove past ExP and he waved but looked confused) but I blame a letter saying the first date was x of September but missing the second sentence that said it was an inset day. Then the time when I took her in a day late - absolutely no excuse other than incompetence. And my all time favourite was when staying at M&Ds. Alarm went off (or so I thought), got myself ready, got DD up showered and dressed. Dad came out of his bedroom rubbing his eyes and saying "what the hell are you doing?". It transpired my alarm didn't go off. The alarm noise was my phone dying and it was 4am.....I put her back to bed in her full school uniform and spent the next 10 years feeling guilty 😂

Ho hum, never going to be super mum, or tiger mum but I may just about manage 'just hanging on in there mum'

Anyone beat that for first day back at school?
Please? Make feel less inadequate as a parent....please?

DS has never taken notes, full stop!

He has been typing for five years, but the only thing he typed was his answers.

Did he get taught so very differently from everyone else? Everything seemed to come on a pre-printed worksheet. Usually he worked with the worksheets as pdfs and he just inserted his answers on top. Sometimes they came printed out and he just drew on them. A typical activity on the pdfs was "connect the 6 questions in column A to the 6 jumbled up answers in column B". It was learning by soundbite and activity sheet.

For maths, there were no notes but he practiced examples with pen and paper.

For revising, DS really just relied upon the revision guides and yet more of those pdfs.

Is this not what happens in all your DCs schools too?

Yep whistl dgd had no need for a laptop in class. I think you actually learn better by physically writing notes yourself. Dgd had handouts leaflets all printed by teachers and given out. She took occasional shots of whiteboard because of her eyesight on her iPod but has never felt the need for a laptop. She will need one for uni obviously but not yet. ( she has one at home).

whistl I think we have similar experiences! Mostly DS did worksheets or homework on Fronter. There is some stuff in his books for some subjects that look a bit like notes but they are either dictated or copied. I don’t know if he knows how to make notes...

DS wouldn't have a clue how to take notes. I think though it's something that you get the hang of very quickly.
In the lecture hall... need to remember what is being said... can't write every word down... just write down the important bits then...listen and write simultaneously ... done!

Hi whistl we realised during year year 10 that part of ds problem was he should have been making notes and wasn’t or he just got one sentence down in the time he had. He was also losing the many handouts he was give or not filling them in. So although he was learning everything in his folders for internal exams and mocks there were huge gaps. Revision guides and past papers saved him for gcse s as he knew he had covered everything. He intends to be more organised from the start in sixth form having realised he needs to take responsibility for having full notes as he goes along - we shall see.

DS really struggles with taking in what someone is saying to him and writing it down and also copying from the board (dyslexia) but hopefully now he knows he needs to follow up afterwords and make sure he s got everything covered hd will find a way. That’s another reason he s going for three subjects only and at the moment doesn’t think uni will be for him

Yeah, I’m not worried. He’ll work it out for himself! A lot of my students take photos of my notes on the whiteboard.
I sometimes teach placements for the Brilliant Club and only realised at the end of one course that the students didn’t know they were supposed to take notes - usually they would write things down in class only when the teacher told them to. It was my fault for assuming they would take notes and I was a lot more careful after that.

Oratory1 I hope you are wrong about that (university being unsuitable). There must be workarounds eg taping lectures and making notes, slowly, later. Voice to speech seems to have taken a huge leap forward too.
Then there are text books.

Oratory universities tend to be very supportive - don’t rule it out!

Orarory my DC found university easier than A levels as all lectures were recorded and available on student portal after lecture. Handouts were provided on cream paper with easy read font fir students with spld.

bpisok can't match you on first day back (probably because day is etched in my brain from the moment they broke up!) but I did send my very shy DD into school with red hair the day before Red Nose Day , she was mortified.

@Oratory1 if he decides to go to university there is note-taking software available e.g. Sonocent.

It has three columns: the slide or image goes on the left. The student presses a button each time the lecturer changes the slide and the software records what they say about that slide. This is stored as an audio recording (in case they want to listen again later) and also appears as text in the right hand column. In the middle there is extra space in case the student wants to type additional notes.

They can also get ClaroRead (software which reads text out loud to them) and mind-mappimg software.

The software would be provided by DSA allowance (unlike the student loan, this does not have to be paid back) along with whatever equipment he needs to be able to study with his particular needs. For example: a 16" laptop (the student pays the first £200 of this) and a printer.