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.

Ooh Kingscote which highlighters did you buy as DD wants some pastel ones? hopefully not too expensive as I seem to buy a lot of stationary

Good News here - DD actually used the Biology flash cards I bought to help her revise!!! And got a 7. (often 6s) Other news, the blank flash cards I purchased are still unopened.... Baby steps :-)

Also interested in your Pastel Highlighters..

or maybe not - just looked and the flash cards are also pastel - thanks for the heads up KingscoteStaff :-)

They had some pastel highighters in poundland the other day for bargain hunters!

Had a good Parents Evening last week - even the teachers in ds's weaker subjects were pleased because there are signs that he is applying himself more after mostly pissing about during years 7-9.

Just organised a maths tutor for ds. He did well in maths last year and was bumped up a set, but isn't keen on his current maths teacher and can't always follow her explanations and is losing confidence fast. The maths tutor has come highly recommended so I am hoping that this will sort it - and he's onboard with it.

On the revision aids, I have also bought highlighters, revision cards and a storage box, sticky notes and some revision folders

Winner winner chicken diner - DD actually used the new blank revision cards last night :-) She has another PE test on Friday (seems to have tests about once a month in most subjects at the moment). She took the cards and have started to use them - meaning she is actually revising at least 3 nights before the test this time (as opposed to the night before a small test)… thank you for this thread as I'm sure buying the science revision cards and the blank cards are already making a difference..

Well done to Limitisup DS :-)

Are any PE DC already starting to film their chosen sports? DD has asked me to film her netball match this weekend and I really don’t have a clue what I’m doing...

not been asked yet - at our hockey club here it's always the Yr 11s that get filmed during our club matches so guessing DD will be the same. I've already told DH he has to stop coaching that day and film it himself - far too much pressure for me :-)

Kingscote my dd did PE GCSE and got an 8. I filmed the majority of her football because it was an external sport which she didn't do at school.

If your dd's netball is at school ask the games teacher if your dd can wear something identifying like a pink armband or different colour socks etc - its so that she stands out in the video evidence to the examiner. so they don't have to strain to pick her out among a bunch of identikit girls. My dd wore pink football socks rather than her regulation yellow and blue striped socks. When filming, just train the camera on your dd so that your record her input - don't try and follow the game too much...however if she throws the ball you obviously need to provide context and show where the ball was thrown to. Just record, record, record - your dd can always edit the footage afterwards, that's what my dd did to good effect. I must have filmed four or five games in total.

Also your PE teacher should have a list of attributes for netball that each player is meant to demonstrate - ask for that bit of paper

Well I am glad that advice proved useful.....

Sorry Limit - bad manners from me.

Thank you for the advice - I’m going to give it a go tomorrow! Don’t have any mad socks so will go for a bright pink bandanna!

Glad revision cards are proving useful! Dd also used the Biology ones for a test a couple of weeks ago and did ok, except that she forgot about a couple of topics.

She seems to be working under the assumption that I will always shell out when the word ‘stationery’ is mentioned. She was shopping with a friend last week and asked me to transfer £15 to her for folders from WH Smith! I’m pretty sure they didn’t come up £15!

Hey, ignore me - I'm just a grouch. Good luck with it tomorrow

I got DS2's monitoring report. It was especially interesting because It is the first report since the year 6 SATS that tells me anything about what progress he has made. All the KS3 ones just gave me traffic lights about how diligent he is.
Anyway, it's a revelation! It is identical to DS1's report from this time two years ago, which turned out to be reasonably accurate. Target grades and working at grades are all the same. What are the odds?!

Interesting to know Whistl ! I wonder if new GCSEs will make a difference. DD is very disappointed with her reports overwhelmingly 6s - she hates it !

DS1 did the new GCSEs last June, so there's no difference there - except maybe the grade boundaries will move up a bit for the 2020 cohort.

But then again, the 2018 cohort had it hard because they had to do it blind (without the teachers knowing how to pace themselves through the curriculum, and similar problems).

Are 6s the target or just the current 'working at' levels, orange? Whichever it is, it isn't fixed in stone. Exceeding (or missing) targets is common and wrt 'working at' levels, you'd expect a lot of improvement between mid-year 10 and end-year 11, especially after all the revision sessions and practice papers kick in.

Yes, its not uncommon for predicted grades to move up a grade by the actual exam (as long as the student has put in the work of course)

We have current predicted grade which is a prediction what she will achieve based on 'current progress
We also have target gcse grade which is the baseline of what she should achieve based on ks2 starting data. Attitude grades too which I tend to talk very harshly to her about if they are less then middling level.

Her current predicted grades are nearly spot on the target grade apart from one..and a couple they use a plus/minus on so 6plus for Music .

She does need a lot of help with effective revision for end of class test/mocks I feel for

Should say I feel for her ..she gets so upset trying to organise herself and revise with results

Orange Its going to be a long haul if your DD is getting upset already.
Mental health can become an issue sometimes, so its good that your DD has such a supportive and caring mother.

If she cares so much that she gets upset, then it makes me think that the teachers are misjudging her when setting the attitude grades. Could it be that the teachers are blaming your DD for her progress and effectively saying that she isn't trying hard enough (i.e. are they implying that the teachers are teaching well, but your DD just isn't doing her bit?)

Might steal the idea of different socks for filming sport. Thanks !

Hi Whistl

Thanks sorry been awfully ill. I'm meeting all teachers except Music next week. Fingers crossed we can get to bottom of everything and ease her anxiety. My only source of anxiety with her grade B profile is that she may get left behind somehow ...not quite high enough or low enough grades to warrant any extra attention. I'd be interested to know if others feel this way

Regarding extra attention/ intervention etc:
DS1 went through the GCSEs last year, so I have experience albeit of only one school.
There were lots of revision classes - before school and after school (some schools even do them during the holidays and on Saturdays).
In my experience, the revision classes start out in November aimed solely on at the bottom 25% - which at DS's school are the ones who will be doing well to get a 4 in that subject.
By February, they broaden out to everyone, and some are even compulsory, but they are aimed at learning material that will secure a 6 at best.
For the ones with 7/8/9 targets, there wasn't really anything (well maybe a couple of hours in total over the whole year).

So, Orange if your DD's school is like that and they are targeting 6s for her, then there won't be anything to miss out on because the extra push outside the classroom for getting the top grades is left up to the individual student to achieve through revision at home.

This thread has gone a bit quiet. We're all halfway through year 10 now. The next six months are going to be the lull before the storm, I suspect!

DS's school is running "how to revise" sessions for parents and students soon. I guess that will be when it all officially begins!

It's going so fast! Parents eve last night. Resounding advice for Dd was to have confidence in her abilities. History was a bit meh as I bought up the fact Dd getting utterly confused by all this talk of answer technique ...They seem to be concentrating on that instead of the knowledge itself and homework is lots of practice questions all the time which have to be answered in very specific ways. I'm not happy as Dd seems to be tying herself up in knots with it all and knowledge is lacking in the first place . Lots of positive praise regarding her work ethic and contribution to class for all other subjects. One teacher specifically asked to see me as she had heard that Dd had an anxiety attack last term and was worried about her and the pressure she was putting herself under. I had to hold back the tears as she reassured me and Dd she was a great student capable of a really good mark and she just needed confidence. Really looking forward to half term holiday away atm we are all exhausted after bouts of nasty viruses.

Hope everyone else is well and healthy