GCSE advice

[littlebillie]

So here we are entering year 10 and the 2020 GCSE begins any advice for parents/ students.

Watching with interest. Second child through for me but all changed since DD did them 3 years ago and DS is very different. He’s pissed off as they aren’t running Computer Science and we need to decide whether we try to get him through it ourselves somehow.

My tips would be:

Buy revision guides now.
Find tools that suit them early. Dd came a bit late to tassomai but it did help. She also did daily duolingo for German which helped.
She was late to start revising but worked really hard from early May onwards. It was an exhausting time and if she'd got ill she'd have struggled.
I'd say advise them to start early but if they are like my dd that advise would be met with an eye roll

Most importantly I think is to really emphasise that they need to understand things as they go along. Particularly if maths doesn't come easily. If they don't understand something it can really impact on the next thing.

IMO if you have a child who is fairly strong at sciences - Tassomai will provide the revision resource (so you can tick this box for 3 x sciences)...Tassomai will highlight potential weak area's by rejecting answers so DC's have no choice but to use additional resources to answer the questions...if they have solid knowledge it will just consolidate this (100% correct), so not waste valuable resources.. so you need to gear purchase to needs!

Feedback about GCSE's is that DC's have under performed in subjects they were TOO over confident with and therefore may not have applied enough or focused revision.

Hello all!
Recognise a few names from the gcse 2018 threads! And here we are to do it all again with a completely new set of challenges/children My DS2 is doing Construction, PE and Spanish as his options, in addition to triple science, two English, and maths. So there will be lots of coursework but fewer exams. He is not keen on reading and essays so Eng Lit will be a battle. We signed up for Seneca (free resource) for revising sciences and so far he rather likes it and will do a topic of each science every weekend. Might look at Tassomai nearer the time for a last minute push. DS1 did well but wished he'd worked harder as he had a couple of 6s that could have been 7/8 with more effort. He's doing A levels now but DS2 is more interested in an apprenticeship so thinks his GCSEs are not that important....🙄 Its going to be a long 21 months...

I'm off to Waterstones today and plan on buying the revision guides for the subjects that ds is taking, I don't think that ds will be very enthusiastic but I will feel better knowing what material he has to cover.

It's been such a long time since I was at school that I'm feeling a little clueless about it all. When do they have module tests is it about every half term? Ds is never forthcoming with this type of information.

DD has coursework for English IGCSE, which her elder brother didn't, so I probably need to get on top of that. She is also doing PE, and 2 of her sports are not school ones, so I guess DH and I will have to help with the videoing. Not really looking forward to that...

I second all PPs views on printing the spec and ticking off topics as they are covered and also about Tassomai - it was an absolute godsend for DS, particularly as he got in the habit of using his 20 min morning bus ride for it.

Some good advice here!

DD1 did her GCSEs this year (and got outstanding results). She likes to use revision cards and I do remember her saying that she was glad she did a lot of cards in y10.

Also, as somebody has already said, the Tassomai app is good for science. (Her school paid for it, luckily.) She made heavy use of it (and I know this because she got the prize for doing the most questions in her year). She said it was very helpful. She got 9s in all science subjects.

I would also add don't stress too much in y10. Y11 is so very stressful. There's only so much stress any kid can take. Don't let them burn out.

Continued from above....

DD1 started using Tassomai at the start of y11, I believe.

I am shocked to hear that some schools aren't finishing the courses. Our school (ordinary comp in ordinary area) did. Most courses were finished by about February of y11. Maths was finished earlier.

This thread has petered out a little. Would anyone mind if I asked Mumsnet is they could put reference to Year 10/2020 GCSE's in the title so that people can find it?

Can I join in too? DS2 is in year 10.

It is hard to believe that he's doing GCSEs already. DS1's GCSE results are still news in our family, so it feels like its too soon for DS2 to be doing the courses!

I know. Its like starting all over.

Ds is enjoying school at the moment but he is finding it hard to keep focused in some lessons. They have recently been doing end of topic tests/half term assessments. He was given Grade 8 for maths, Grade 6 for Chemistry and Grade 2 for Physics (didn't revise and said his mind went blank) yet he has been enjoying the lessons.

School phoned today and said they are putting him on a kind of report but not the punishment kind, its designed that his teachers feed back to the head of year and he checks in with her every week.

Following.

I think a rename to say which year would be very helpful.

DS2 is doing well i think. TBH, his school are terrible at reporting how good a student is at a subject until they start to give GCSE predictions (i.e. in November of year 10). For the first 3 years, its all enigmatic stuff about how close the student is performing relative to what the teachers were expecting, without giving any clue about what the teachers are expecting!
So, next month I'll find out if he's good at the subjects he has chosen or not.

My main problem though, is that DS2 has heart set on getting better GCSE results than DS1. If you give 9 points for a 9, 1 point for a 1 etc, then DS1 got 80. So DS2 has his sights set on 81+ and anything under 80 will feel like a failure.

Mumsnet say the thread title can't be amended unless the OP contacts them to request it.

So shall we let this one run or start a new one?

Let's ask @littlebillie if she would contact MN and ask for the thread title to be changed to "GCSE 2020".

If it gets changed, then great. Otherwise, we can start a new one that we can use to swpa tips, give advice, support each other etc. hopefully we will pick up new regulars as the months go by.

Had better start switching my focus to ds now he's in Y10. Interested to hear about seneca

DS1 was using Seneca during the Easter holidays (for the sciences and English Lit, i think). Then he had a mock the first week back and did really badly in Biology and Physics (about 55%).

So, with only a month until the GCSEs started, I had him stop using Seneca immediately and switch to Tassomai. He got straight 9s.

Saying that, I'm going to get DS2 to use it in year 10, because if it doesn't work then there is still time to fi things in year 11.

Sure - I plan to use Tassomai in Year 11 too. Seneca can be a warm up

There is another Year 10 thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3372754-Year-10-GCSE-Support-Thread

Thanks Alexander - missed that one