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.

Yes, at least you’ll know the answers! I can see both sides of it, but last year dd spent ages writing revision notes and I’m not sure she had time to actually learn the stuff! And my thinking is that at least with these cards, she doesn’t have to work out what the key things are - because it can be quite hard to separate the key points to learn from pages of notes or a textbook.

And I’ve just checked - ds’s School does the same board. He’ll definitely need them, can’t seem him being bothered to write out the information himself :)

Thanks guys, I'm going to buy some ready made ones.
I agree about not having to find the key points, and You knowing the answers.
Haven't looked at this from the parental support side.
Thanks very much. I'm going to stay on this thread.

Heifer OMG my DD does this too. Shoves a book at me and asks me to ask her questions. I never know what I am actually meant to do so I try and ask something and then get told to ask exactly what she has written which no exam paper would do so I am no bloody help. DH is very patient so generally does it. I help with dance and drama stuff as have a good eye for that sort of thing.

Buying revision books at the mo but her teachers are being a bit slow to let us know exactly which ones to get. Parents evening is in March so will know a bit more then. DD isn't really doing revision yet but does do flash cards but says they don't really work for her so I'm at a loss tbh.

"last year dd spent ages writing revision notes and I’m not sure she had time to actually learn the stuff!" - so true, I think my dd had a similar issue.

Might be some merit in this pre-done flash cards then, particularly as they can be used by parents for testing

Anne, is it worth contacting school and asking them?
They will probably be glad of parents showing an interest.

DD seemed quite pleased I have ordered the flash cards - and even asked for some blank ones too.. (happy days) :-)

Romanyroot Thanks, yes we had a meeting about GCSEs last term and I asked her English teacher which revision guides he suggested and he said he'd let me know. Emailed after a week as not heard and didn't still hear. OTOH her History teacher has been brilliant and emailed a list of revision guides and told DD to pop in and look through them in classroom to try before buying. She said they were fab so I ordered 3 today -yay! Already have a French one and a Maths one and bought some of the English lit books they will be studying (Jekyll and Hyde etc).

DH bought DD coloured flash cards to encourage note making so may be more interesting than white and could colour code their Science subjects for example for quickness.

Anne

I wish I could get my dd to do something in terms of planning for when she does have some time.
I would email the English teacher again, give them a week and then try HOD for the simple reason she could do some over half term, rather than wait until March.
Our teachers are good and will help/ reply when you contact them.

Romany Annoyingly her English teacher is the HOD too and the one running the GCSE talk at the meeting.

Will try again as it's a new term.

Anneofcleavage wouldn’t it be easier for your daughter to ask the teacher herself? Then hopefully she’ll get an immediate answer!

I try to encourage dd to take responsibility for her own learning as much as possible and then help her by facilitating things when she asks. She asked for flash cards so I got them - but I think they do need to do the running and want to do well themselves.

It’s a fine balance though isn’t it?! Dd has the option of a sixth form mentor for Spanish and weekly drop in sessions, but she just won’t take it up at the moment. I think it’s quite early still. Maybe after year 10 exams she might decide she wants to up her Spanish grade and take up some more help. Or maybe not!!

Another one here where school is no help on revision tools. I thought it would be something they definitely would have an opinion on! Very frustrating. CPG seem popular but we're dependant on other recommendations...I'm not convinced DD is doing any useful English revision at all...

You do have to be careful with revision books as I found out last night. Dd is really struggling with her sources questions exam technique for History . I tried to help her by getting a revision guide when we looked at the section regarding this particular question it made no reference to 'authorship' which was a big part of the assessment objective so I managed to confuse her even more! This is WJEc/Eduqas . I think I might just do a little session with her on sourcesmyself as she seems to be getting hung up on the exam technique and ends up just writing anything about authorship!

History sources questions are quite tricky though aren’t they? And I have a history degree! I guess there must be some sort of checklist/guide on how to answer them somewhere out there? My dd’s History folder is so full already with really comprehensive notes, past papers, syllabus info etc that I’m thinking she probably doesn’t need a revision guide for that subject - I was thinking just for the sciences really or any subjects where her notes aren’t good. She has text books too - there’s only so many ways to set out the same information!

When I asked one teacher at parents evening about revision guides they said her notes should be enough. But she already knows that her Biology teacher isn’t great/she often nods off in Biology hence the revision cards!

Under the old system 3 years ago we just used revision guides for science for DD1. As long as you understood the science, the guides contained everything necessary. If you were aiming for the very top grades, you did need to know everything though, e.g. those little examples of freshwater indicator species or whatever.

DD2 is y9 and has started the GCSE science syllabus, and again for tests we are pretty much just using the guide. It seems fine, but maybe a bit weak on description of the mandatory practicals.

My daughter has had no homework for over a month, nothing got the last three weeks of term and nothing so far for this year. Her grades have nosedived to 3’s with a couple of 6s one teacher only talks about her upcoming wedding!

Villa that doesn’t sound good! I would complain to the school. Does your dd complain that the teaching is bad? It might be worth getting revision guides and/or getting her to do stuff online if you/she thinks she’s falling behind?

Does anyone have any good idea about English revision?

Villa - is there a head of learning you can talk to?

Mine is at school sunday evening and whereas she'd practice and then hang out with friends, now she does prep, usually Art. Her friends do their work in the Art room so she isn't on her own.
She brought home some written Art work and some Poetry, about 40 mins on each.

@romanyroots I've heard Art takes up a lot of time! Good that she is finding time to be organised with it all!
Dd has finally stopped worrying about what she wants to do post gcses. All her friends were organised and worrying her. Her plan is ..atm...
to keep her options open and take English Lit, History and Music with a view to taking an academic music course if she likes the a level. I feel like this is giving her a bit of impetus to knuckle down
Anyone else finding y10 expensive? How many trips can they fit in !

Orange

Obviously I don't know where you are, but for future ref.
The University of Manchester has a joint course with the RNCM, it looks brilliant, but obviously for those wanting an academic course as well as top level instrument lessons.
Well worth a look if this is what she wants.
Mine is looking at conservatoire but isn't academic so this isn't for her.

www.manchester.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/2019/02397/musb-music/

Take a look, it's brilliant.

Disaster. The newly bought pastel highlighters are invisible on the newly bought pastel flash cards...

Thanks @romanyroots. Dd wants to do stuff like music history and composition as well as a bit of performance but she wants to see how she gets on at a level..a late starter to music so only sings and plays stuff by ear. I think I may have to start shelling out for piano grading soon . Her other love is History and ethical debates and stuff.

@kingscoteStaff the struggle is real