Are we ready for a GCSE’s 2019 thread?

[KittyMcKitty]

If so I’m in.

DS (my pfb) will be going into year 11. Mocks after half term. Crossing my fingers for him - needs average point score of 6.5 (across all 10 subjects) to stay for 6th Form.

Anyone else?

Gosh those are some fabulous grades. We are still in the throes of mocks, so I guess I feel a bit envious of those who have finished and received grades (although if ours are in fact awful, I probably will prefer to be back with him still doing the mocks). Geography mock was apparently awful yesterday and he was in a bad mood as a result. Physics was OK, but not as good as Biology and Chemistry (but then, he is increasingly seeming stronger in Biology and Chemistry). Nothing today, but maths and something tomorrow.
I wish I could feel confident that he is within shooting distance of the grades he wants, but I'm just not. I really do think he is working as hard as he is able, but I am not sure that his ability lives up to his ambitions. And on subjects where the teaching has been poor (geography does spring to mind, he is very negative about the geography teacher who taught him since Year 8, but left at the end of last year), I am not sure if he has the ability to make up the ground. At least his geography teacher this year he is rating (at the moment). I just don't know, these mocks might demonstrate that it is all a bit impossible. At least on maths, I do think that if he doesn't get a good result for that first paper, that may not be representative of how he will perform in the final thing, but the rest I don't know. And we won't really know until after Xmas.

Thanks kitty and Soursprout. Your ds grades are impressive, Kitty.

My dd is happy with English lit (P2), Physics and chemistry but was disappointed with biology and maths. Biology she says she left late as focused on history which was same day.

I don't fully understand her disappoint with maths as. they are not awarding any 9s and the paper was made up by the maths department from past papers and additional. Hopefully I will understand better after report and parents evening, early Jan. It all appears some what confused as we didn't have an introduction meeting to this year as we went straight into welcome to 6th form so, exam revision process not fully discussed.

All subjects apart from English have either completed or will complete by end of Jan. so revision and questions from then. Dd is aiming for a mix of 9and 8s with 7 in german as wants to study medicine.

She does now seem focused going forward but needs to realise she has to practise past questions rather than rewriting notes. I have agreed to help her tidy her room this weekend and sort her revision notes and cards out into 1 definite set per subject _ no mean feat!

She is quite busy now with concerts and sorting out getting going on her DoE. She has also signed up for NCS in summer. Has anyone else's dc done this? Also needs to sort work experience before end of term.

Am I able to join this thread, my dc is home edded but will be doing GCSE s in June.
Although I can't join in with school chat or mocks I would appreciate being able to talk here.

welcome carriErbag!
hi oldandgold , yes she is going with friends so hope it goes well. Like your dd mine started to pull notes together after doing homework and not revising in y10 although y10 was an improvement on y9 where she had a tough time losing 3 grandparents close together.

She doesn't have any more formal mocks but they usually have exams end of March not sure if this happening though.

Hoping for A levels at 6th form.
I don't feel confident about giving the support needed after GCSE tbh, but we'll see.

I shall go to the beginning of this thread and read it in its entirety to find out what horrendous errors we are probably making.😄

First few mocks done: English Lit and Lang went well, Class Civ good except she made a small error and started writing about Roman Country life rather than City life, but apparently had enough time to rectify that... read the question (!). Maths today was OK. Bit worried as she thought it was quite easy, not necessarily a good thing, as others found it hard. Results will tell all.

Final day tomorrow, morning at school and then off to Westfield for a shopping trip as an end of year treat for Year 11's.

Christmas will be more revising for the remaining mocks which start up again beginning of Jan. Something to look forward to for the New Year. I do feel sorry for them, and wish the mocks had all been done and dusted. Oh well, I suppose the bit after Xmas is always flat, at least she'll have something to do !!

Are your dc planning on revision during the Xmas holidays? I thought it would be good for dd to have a final long revision-less break before getting to it in January but she’s said she’s planning on doing 2-3 hours a day in the mornings (excluding Christmas Day and Boxing Day).

CarrieErbag I doubt you'll find anything because we are all just making it up as we go along, even those of us who have done it before. Because all DCs are different.

Elizabethh my DD will have some modest homework to be done over the holidays, which will be revision focused, and I don't want her doing more than that.

DD1 will be doing some work on her History coursework for A-levels but will also be taking a break. The autumn term is horrendously long and they need downtime.

Regarding extracurricular my dd plays in a brass band twice a week and also goes to gym 2-3 times a week as well as school orchestra and wind band. She still needs to decide on volunteering activity for doe as doesn’t want to work in a shop but with old people or alzimehers Thankfully practice expedition completed
Regarding revision she breaks up next Thursday and is not doing anything until around 28 when she will complete any homework and start to plan biology and physics revision as well as start working on Macbeth and J& H as not touched since y10 but it will not amount to more than 2 hrs a day and may involve friends as well
Planning to keep exercise and bands going as long as possible to keep her destressed

oldandgold Ds's mocks started on the 6th of December and his last one is on the 20th of December (4th and 5th December were study leave days). These are the only ones though, nothing in Feb, but as you can see, they are giving them the full treatment - i.e. three maths papers, two for each of the sciences, four for English and English lit. Only difference to the real thing is that some days they are sitting three a day, and most days they have two. My impression is that they are, by and large, giving them the exams from last June, although I believe they are substituting questions where the topic hasn't been covered. For maths the first paper was what was sat in June, and then somebody pointed out that the worked out papers were on youtube, so the next two are the reserve papers, apparently (which are apparently much harder, according to the maths teacher). DS says everybody knew that the worked papers were on youtube, just nobody thought, until the first mock, that they would give them the June papers (he thought he was told by the teacher that in fact they were the reserve papers).

Yeah we had the June papers for maths that by paper 2 they'd worked out were on YouTube!

Having a bit of a panic...

Mocks are starting to filter through for DD and she's getting high 6s in maths and all 3 sciences where she'd normally get 8s. And she's got 7s in geography and history where she normally gets 8s.

She's worried because she's used to seeing 7s and 8s. I've told her she's got time on her side and she can reasonably go up 1 grade with effort, and she was so close anyway. But, can she?? Is it normal to have such a difference?

Oh one correction, I have discovered they are only sitting two geography papers this mocks. The third paper, which is apparently all about skills, and which hasn't been taught is being sat in February, but they don't have official mocks then. Unfortunately geography is a bit chaotic at DS's school, or at least some parts of it are

I would look at the papers set. At madd's school not all subjects have used last summer's paper and have designed they own.e.g. maths have designed a harder paper and therefore are not seeing many 8s (9s not awarded) so girls who usually score 8/9 are at 7. After Christmas they will work mainly on harder questions ie some additional in order that they find standard questions easier - strange I know but they usually have a large haul of 9and 8s.

I would get her to focus on learning the terminology for sciences as vagueness can cost points as my dd found out.
At her school they say 1-2 grades improvement possible you listen and take on board advice.
Which slowly sets to be happening with dd but I would remember that it is a marathon of a journey they are on rather than a sprint at present.

Thank you, that makes sense.

I do know that they said the maths boundaries were higher than last years. But I’m not sure why.

Dd’s results are coming in very slowly. Their maths teacher is a machine and had each set of papers marked by the next day! So far she’s happy with her results, was disappointed with her first maths paper but I think that really pushed her and she did well enough to get 207 overall (I think that’s good). She also got a 9 in English lit with 62 out of 64, she’s very proud of that

Hope this isn't too political, but here is a link to a petition to ask the government to increasing funding for schools petition.parliament.uk/petitions/232220

The situation is pretty dire in terms of just not having money for things. DS had a broken locker last year, so had to carry his books around the whole year (and his bag was scarily heavy). I wanted to complain, but his response was that there just wasn't money to fix lockers, and he preferred it to go to pay decent teachers, and at least it wasn't a tiny Year 7 student struggling with his books.

So much around his school is shabby to the point of being broken. To be fair to the school, they do an amazing job of trying to prioritise what is important, given the budget, and if walls don't get painted, or they have to stagger lunch times as there is simply not enough room for the kids to have break together (their "playground" is just a small concrete square, on which the boys try and play a little football) and their is barely room to move, so be it. Part of what is pushing DS so strongly toward the independent system is just the sheer beauty of the various premises and facilities, even the least flash of them, when you compare with the concrete borstal that he has spent the last five years in. But we can afford to allow him to escape (at least for his two years of schooling), the rest of them aren't so lucky. We have also had the luxury of being able to buy DS textbooks over the years, so he hasn't had to depend on an online provision that is often difficult to manipulate (using on line resource rather than textbooks is, I agree, a reasonable way to save money). Sorry for the rant, but there is no question it is harder to learn in an environment that is falling down around one's ears.

Just returned from parent's evening where DS received his mock results. Considering he didn't revise very hard; and he lost marks through careless errors here and there, he's done alright. 7665555542 (Art!) plus a Merit in his City & Guilds subject. It's enough to get him into his 2 preferred 6th forms. He's feeling much happier now

I'm just feeling shattered!

Roll on Christmas and a bit of a rest

Carrie, dd did a GCSE as an external candidate. The person at the school who dealt with external candidates met us when we registered and then was there to greet the external candidates as dd went into the exam and took them quietly to their desks at the back of the hall when the others school students had gone in. I hope your dc has someone as nice to reassure them.

It is well worth doing a few of the exams under as much exam like conditions as you can in your home and going over the mark scheme with them, so they can see where to improve.

One exam, with admin charges, was £50. I do think that home educated children should be able to take exams free up to 18 yoa.