Year 10 GCSE Support Thread

[OrangeCinnamon]

Hi all,
Can we have a thread for Year 10 support please? Even though Dd started in Y9 I have already noticed a massive ramping up in pressure and her anxiety I imagine it is a fine balance of being supportive but not a helicopter parent. How do you motivate but not nag? How do you encourage good study/revision skills without being overbearing? How can I help my Dd to be resilient....so many questions hoping for some hints, tips and support along the way.

Dd is Summer born so struggles sometimes. Her main loves are Music and the Humanities subjects. She bobs along with Maths and Science and despises French. Wants to be an international popstar, historian, writer, journo or judge! She sufffers terribly with low self esteem but hopefully this term will be able to get her on a course of cbt.

Sorry for typos, can't find my glasses!

Teen - I think that is a really good stand point - "knowing that you have done your best." Think I will be using that with dd, I like the way it will be useful if we want to encourage dd to do a bit more or take a break!

I think the hardest thing is striking a balance - and also putting equal effort into all subjects - can already see the ones she prefers (and probably could have predicted which they would be!)

I am astounded and extremely pleased: DS2 has been preparing for end of topic tests without me having to ask him.In fact, I didn't even know he had a test coming up. This is most unlike him.

Maybe he is growing up and taking responsibility for himself??!

Sadly, year 10 has started exactly as year 9 ended, with DD struggling.
We're at our wits' end over it all. DD simply won't/can't do any work at home. She's spent most of the half term either avoiding working, or dragging her heels and working ineffectively and at snail's pace of she does work at all.

Her first couple of end of topic test results came back today and they're not great. She thinks she worked hard for them, so how do we move forward? Her reaction to her geography result was, "I want to drop it" - it being her favourite and strongest subject for the last 2 or 3 years.

As I said earlier in the thread, she has ADHD with SpLD ( poor working memory, executive function issues) and possibly dyspraxia. She just cannot retain information, and she can't extract or manipulate the information to respond to different questions/scenarios; she either writes everything she knows, or a couple of words.

We contacted her head of year before half term, raising our concern that she still isn't getting the support she needs: the response was that the school felt confident they were acknowledging her issues.

Anyone got any words of wisdom?

Floot Only words of wisdom I think I have written to you on another thread somewhere.

DD1 has dyspraxia including poor working memory and executive functioning and similar issues extracting and manipulating info, and not enough detail.

We got through GCSEs by

• my doing most revision 1-1 with her (& micro managing it)
• dropping history after y11 mocks (too much to learn, couldn't do the questions anyway)
• lots of practicing written questions, especially Eng Lang & longer science. looking back to mark scheme and eventually getting more of a hang of what was needed.

You are only y10 so there is a lot of time to get the hang of question technique.

So different issues:

1. strategies for learning the info
2. question answering techniques

Does she get extra time?

30 mins useful work with you could be far better than 2hrs on her own.

If she can get some success by working with you she might become more keen. The trouble at the moment is she thinks she is working (which she may or may not be), but it isn't effective, which is disheartening.

Thanks, Teen.
We're already mostly micro-managing her revision, but she's started to refuse to be helped, claiming she can do it on her own.
In actual fact, I took her through both the subjects she's had her results for, and she came home from both tests thinking she'd done well. Well, that's what she told us, but now she's had the results, she's admitted to all sorts of things she struggled with at the time, e.g. biology - "...but the diagram of the heart looked different to the ones I'd looked at". Even something simple, like which organ produces bile (which I must have told her 20 times), she got wrong in the test.
I takes her over and over stuff, we look at videos, she makes flash cards, she does Bitesize tests, but she STILL forgets most of it.
Her teacher took the tests papers back in, so I can't even see where DD dropped marks and where she did ok.

She gets 25% extra time.

If you asked nicely would the teacher copy the test and give it back?
I found looking at marked tests invaluable to help DD1.

Are you trying to get her to learn 'everything' or just key points only?

It is very frustrating for all involved.

(Currently trying to get DD2, y9, learn her science too...)

We've previously asked for copies of her tests, only to be told that we can't have them, as the school use them for next year's year 10.
I'm trying to get her familiar with the whole topic (eg by watching videos, looking at her class notes etc) and then reducing to key points, using things like the CGP revision books.

What's most frustrating is that the school doesn't appear to see the problem - her biology attitude to learning and attainment were both judged as excellent on her half term report.

We don't get given any idea of class averages for tests results, nor have we been given any idea of working at or predicted grades.

Any chance she is doing better than you think? (e.g. she gets 40%, you think it is poor, but actually that is on target for a 6?)

I'd push again on the tests. It is reasonable they don't want to let them out to the wider school community but if you can't use them to inform your assistance to her revision then I think that's crazy.

Your school don't sound very helpful with communication.

At the end of term, will you get predicted grades?

That's the thing, Teen - we have absolutely NO idea how she's doing. She got 57% in biology for this topic: the teacher said before the test that she was expecting them all to get 60%+, and DD's best friend got 90%, which makes me think DD didn't do well.

The school reports give effort and attainment levels between 1 and 5; 3 is good, 4 is excellent, 5 is outstanding, but no indication of how that equates to A*-G/ 1-9. We haven't been told when/if we're going to be told predicted grades.

You're spot on when you say the school isn't good at communicating.

Floot - can you contact sen teacher for support! I would have thought that finding out where/how she is dropping marks would be first to thing to do - so seeing her tests is vital. I know in biology dd has had to learn how to answer the longer questions. Including enough points in the answer to get all the marks, was the starting point!

When did you last get a report from the school, Floot? DS's school gives meaningless, uninformative reports for KS3 too, but I know they give ones with expected grades in November of year 10.
So, I will soon find out how DS is actually doing, rather than the white noise in traffic light format that I've had so far. Maybe it's the same at your DD's school?
Has she been doing end of topic tests recently with questions in the style of GCSE questions? That's what DS's upcoming report will be based on.

Don't put too much energy into comparing your DD's results to her class, or even her school year. The GCSE results are relative to every year 10 child in England and Wales, and if you have ever watched one of the "Educating Yorkshire" type series or the one about Harrow, you'll realise that your DD's school probably does not encompass the breadth of teaching skills, resources, societal pressures and parental support that is on show across the country, so whatever the results the rest of the class gets, they aren't representative.

We had a report at half term, Whistl, which gave effort and attainment grades 5-1: 5 is exceptional, 4 excellent, 3 good etc.
She got 3s and 4s, but that doesn't really tell us anything about future predictions. The school simply says we have to trust them.

I think the topic tests have been GCSE type questions, but I'm not certain and DD isn't good at relaying info, even if she has been told, so I can't get any sense out of her.
We have no way of contacting teachers directly - all communication goes through the HoY.

Floottoot your school's communication is awful.
You've got three choices:-

1. Remove your DD from the school
2. Stay and just accept the school for what it is and take the risk that they'll look after your DD properly
3. Stay and battle the school.

I guess the no.1 is too late - should have been before September even if there are other options.
No. 2 is a wise choice, but I, personally, couldn't do it. (How do they do on Progress 8 and Attainment 8 - for DC like your's? The answer will either give you some reassurance or make you even less confident).
No. 3 is what i would do.

However, being rational, by this time next year it would be astounding (in a shooting themselves in the foot sort of way) if the school didn't want the parents to support their DC as much as possible. So, surely their attitude must be due an imminent change?

What you could consider doing is book a couple of sessions with private tutors in the key subjects and ask them to assess your DD. Then you'll know how good she is, what she needs to focus on and whether more intervention is required?

I'll PM you, Whistl.

I have a Duke of Edinburgh question. I can't be bothered to open a new topic, so I'll ask here. Apologies in advance.

DS is doing Silver, he has to do 12 months of one activity. Does it translate to 52 hours? Can he complete these hours before 12 months? He has his expedition in July 2019 and there's no way he will complete 12 months before Sept 2019. So I don't know how it'll work.

Thanks

Hi expat, I had a long backwards and forwards conversation about the 6 month bronze activity and the upshot was it has to be an hour a week for six months, not two hours a week for three months.
(I tried very hard to get the 2x13 bit it hard to be 1x26).
The reason was that you had to prove sustained effort.

So I guess the same will adopt to the 12 months on silver.

DS ended up competing his in February of year 11 which was a complete pain when the GCSE revision had started. So if you have 12 months to do, if advise getting started asap.

Lots of autocorrects in my last post. Hope you get the gist!

Thanks Whistl. I get the gist completely.

I am surprised at the school. They started after Oct holidays and final expedition is in July. Not even a single person will manage to do their 12 months in July, so I'll leave it to his coordinator. DoEd is exhausting.

I booked holidays for Xmas and we have friends and family come over for the days we are at home. Now I am feeling guilty coz DS won't have time to even touch books. He doesn't care, but I can't shake off guilt. Perhaps I should have kept 1 week of studies.

Any ideas on how to balance holidays with studies in these 2 years? I can't look past GCSEs for now, even though the worst is yet to come from Y12 !!

I don't think they really need to revise during the holidays in year 10. Maybe there is one exception to that: they have end of year exams the week after they go back in June...

As far as I recall, half term in October of year 11 wasn't about revising either.

The Christmas holidays in year 11 were though, if there were mocks as soon as they go back to school in January. DS's school does it's mocks in mid-December though, so the Christmas holiday is the last proper break, unless your DC gets it into their head that they don't need to revise until Easter of year 11 (which is v. late to start IMHO!).

The DC lie to each other about the revision they are doing. In February, DS1 was arguing with me that it was too early to start. He said no one else was doing anything. Then I met up with a couple of his friends' mums and they all said that their DC had been doing a few hours a week since October...

Whistl - This is a relief . Thanks.

So it seems my DD has been given the wake up call she needed.
She didn't revise that much a half term (she thinks she did, for example she seemed pleased that she did 2hrs chemistry. I've been telling her for years now that she needs to going over the info again and again, not just the once....
Anyway - her test results are coming back in..
She hasn't achieved any of her target grades, in fact in Chemistry is 3 grades lower.
Waiting for Maths, History, Spanish & Physics but think will be similar results.
So it's finally sinking in that she needs to work harder at revision and not just in school. I'm glad that I didn't push too hard at half term, I saw her revising - but just not enough (she had 2 weeks off)…

Hopefully next time she will revise properly (again and again)…. (fingers crossed)…….

but they all start with lower grades and then improve. The reason is because the way to answer is highly prescriptive so you can answer accurately and only get half the marks.
With practice they get to know that a question worded "describe..." requires a different answer to one that asks "explain...."

This applies to the sciences and the written subjects. Even Maths sometimes.