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.

crazycrofter - luckily DD has a brilliant friendship group (2 groups, 1 primary friends and 1 group new friends) both groups get on really well and DD can hang with any of about 9 other girls - often all 10 of them hang out together a lot of the time or DD can go from 1 to the other with no hassle from anyone. They are very good at policing themselves, will keep each other in check if not working hard enough or being mean/moody.

I hope your DDs friendship issues disappear after Christmas, as you says it's been a long term.

whistl - thanks for the tips. DD has been very organised in the past but just lost her way so hopefully she/we can get back on top.
She seems a lot better today, tests all done until Jan, and no homework due tomorrow/Thursday.
Thanks for the comments and advice as it really does help to offload on here.

Thanks, she has three very close friends at school and a number of others she is very comfortable with. It’s just that her small group became subsumed into a larger group which starts to get a bit bitchy. She’s quite happy that they’ve been able to distance themselves recently.

Hopefully the fact that you were sympathetic and helpful when she was upset will encourage your daughter to be more open in future?

Am I the only one wondering what on earth oldandgold wrote to get it deleted by HQ? It's a thread about Y10s how controversial can it be? :-)

That's strange (crazycrofter here on my second account) - I read it last night and it wasn't anything controversial - so much so, that I can't really remember what was said!?

I think it was mainly about her daughter's friendship issues. Maybe she decided she'd said too much?

ah yes, just noticed that a lot of the comments have been deleted not just the 1, Hope everything is ok.
It is hard to know how much to write and how much we should hold back in case anyone recognises us.

It would say something like "Deleted at the poster's request" if it was to protect oldandgold's DD. I think the talk guidelines message is the abusive or troll post one.

Sorry oldandgold if you are genuine.

Oldandgold was a troll.

Several posters pm me last night as I was on another thread with them.
It was a pbp who is well known for having children with special talents, according to my sources.

Which pbp? The one who gave herself a regal name or the one who had 6 amazing children?

Sorry whistl
I really don't know, and have no idea which thread outed her as a pbp.
They only told me as I was questioning what was wrong, like you did.
I couldn't understand what on earth she could have posted.
Sorry I don't know anymore and hope nobody was affected by this.

I had to google what PBP meant! and I thought I was a well seasoned poster! (been here since 2004/5ish). Obviously not been using MN enough these days :-)

heifer
I'm just very and spend too long on here

Previously Banned Poster (aka troll, troll-hunter, abusive or fantasist or maybe some other category).
There is or was a whole heap of posters on Reddit who obsessed for a while with hunting trolls. Some of them were banned (because obviously Mumsnet relies on us believing each other or else we won't post ourselves). A lot of them were banned, because they had persistently troll-hunted on Mumsnet too.

After all that stuff (that led to the establishment of the Reddit group), I drastically cut down my use of MN and just stick to the GCSE and A level threads now.

The 2018 GCSE threads were incredibly useful for revision tips and they were very supportive. The ethos was to help each other and to be non-exclusive. The first six months of this year was a stressful time. The GCSEs were all new and it was my first time as a parent of a child going through them. The 2018 GCSE threads made a big difference to me and I'm hoping this thread will go the same way for 2020.

The Christmas holidays have started here. DS1's sixth form college broke up yesterday. DS2 still has a day and half left ( and he's not happy that his DB is already on holiday!).
DS2 is having a lot of end of topic exams this week. Today it's RS.
I think the exams mean that we will finally get a report with traité grades next month.

Are your DC all working this week too? Am I the only one who hasn't had a report for year 10 yet?

"Target grades", not traité grades!

Haha, I was wondering what traite grades were 😂 Dd broke up yesterday and has done no work this week, just fun stuff. Seems a bit harsh to be having tests now! Ds (year 8) also breaks up tomorrow and seems to be doing a mixture of quizzes, films and some work this week depending on teachers.

We’ve had no target grades yet or anything grade related. Dd is at a selective school where around 55% of grades were 9s last year. They tend to teach to the 7-9 range on the whole. Her parents evening was generally positive so I’m assuming she’s on track for those sort of grades in most subjects. She would love to have some more specific targets or predictions though!

My DD is in yr 10. She was clear that the next two years were going to be tough. Almost overnight she had created a folder for each subject, GCSE/ iGCSe booklet in each, revision notes and booklets. Her school have very clear expectations and her target grades are a mixture of 8/9. She isn’t there yet but she is strong in maths and sciences and seems to have really focussed her mind. Not sure about ‘revision’ but her dad will help her with any science or maths iasues but she is a welcome change to my lazy older DS who was sloth like through the process and didn’t reach his potential... did at A level thankfully!

DD is 15 today and breaks up at lunch time :-)
She had 2 tests Mon & Tue but thankfully had theatre trip yesterday afternoon and half day today so all good here.
RE reports - at the beginning of December we had a Grade Grid report (no comments just numbers) for Behaviour for Learning (1-4) and also Aspirational Target (Sats+teacher opinion) and then Current attainment.

Most of DDs targets are 7 with one 8 but she is only on target currently for 2 subjects. I think that is fine, she knows she has more work to do (revision) and as others have pointed out on here, they don't yet know how to answer the questions even if they know content, so she is happy with her progress.

We don't have parent evening for Yr10 until May!! which freaked me out got to admit, but I do know if there were any problems I would be told by the school and visa versa.

Report wise we usually get 2/3 grade grids 1 full report and 1 parents evening a year but not sure if the full report is before the parents evening this year. (Yr9 full report was at Christmas, Yr8 it was summer).

I used to use MN a lot when DD was younger, owe COD a massive thank you for teachering me how to potty train without any fuss or problems, met quite a few "friends" in the bar, 3 of which I met up with when I moved to a new area. Have several MN friends on FB that chat often too so it's been great. I don't use it so much these days, really only on the Secondary School posts and love reading the AIBU (usually yes) :-)

Looking forward to sharing this journey with you all on here, hold on tight it could be a rough ride, but hopefully all good in the end.

Well, I now it's nearly holidays but this week dc1 and dc 2 both have been going to bed to snooze straight after school. Then getting up to watch tv, and then going to bed at midnight. No revision despite one is in year 11 and the other year 13.

oh, this is the year 10 thread...

Hello can i join? I have a DS in year 10 and i have jsut read his report. It is bloody terrible and i thought i would ask for advice before i cut his xbox cable in 2...

very bright boy, music scholar, COASTING on mos subject, comments about scrappy homework. lots of predicted 6.

i am fuming.

any advice?

What does your DS think of being predicted 6s, Kalifornia?

The only thing I can suggest is to link it to his (near) future. Does he need certain grades for his preferred sixth form? Maybe he thinks he will stay on where he is but can't without 7+ in the subjects he wants to do at A level.

I think, when it was DS1 and he wasn't working, I got a prospectus for some low level course - the sort of thing that doesn't require almost any GCSEs- and gave it to him as "an option". DS was expecting to coast into a place at a competitive sixth form, so it made the point.

That’s tricky Kalifornia- I’m expecting to be in a similar place in 2 years with ds! Although I’m hoping if dd does well, his competitive streak will kick in and he’ll want to do as well as her!

Does he need a bit more accountability around homework? Do you need him to check his homework for a while until you’re happy he can be trusted to do it well enough (a pain for you though!) ?

I think whistl ‘s idea is good too. What does he want to do next? Do his school have stringent entry requirements? However, my ds goes to a grammar school and they only require a 6 for most A Levels so that may not help.

Sorry, I meant does he need you to check his homework?

Having said all that, lots of boys do underachieve at GCSE. A mixture of 6s and 7s would probably be fine and would’nt rule out much except medicine really.