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.

Orange GCSE is a curious mixture of exam technique and subject knowledge.

By exam technique, I don't mean timing yourself but learning what the exam board wants for each type of question by number of marks and opening verb ("explain" requires a difference answer from "describe").
It takes the students a while to learn all these things, and even though it has nothing to do with subject knowledge, it makes an enormous difference to the final grade.
Rather than the slow, unfocused meander through KS3, I do think that schools could at least teach the exam technique part. However, in DS's school at least, the while focus is on their league table position (which is very high) so all resources are thrown at GCSE, mostly at year 11.
DS regularly list his subject teachers for weeks at a time as they got pulled in to run intervention classes for year 11.

The other bit, the subject knowledge bit, can be drilled into them! Tassomai, for example, has the sciences covered.
It will be ok in the end!

We’ve had a much more positive half term after a stressful first term of year 10. Dd seems to have turned a corner with Spanish - the result of actually doing some revision before her last test! I think she’s starting to understand the requirements of GCSE.

For history, she has an incredibly thorough teacher. Every time they do an 8 mark or 16 mark question for homework, the teacher photocopies the two best answers to distribute to the class. It’s actually been very helpful - her first 8 marker, dd got 2/8 but she studied one of the model answers and managed to get 7 the next time and 8 the time after. I imagine you could find model answers online? For history, exam technique is absolutely as important as knowledge (I’m a history graduate!)

I’m sorry dd is still anxious Orange. We’ve been repeating regularly that grades aren’t everything, even a full set of 5s/6s (which is a lot below our dd’s capabilities) wouldn’t be a disaster at all, as most doors would still be open. We’ve looked at sixth form entry requirements etc to prove it. I think it’s sinking in as dd’s class had mental health appointments with the form tutor this week and she told him that she’s not bothered about getting all 9s like most of her class and grades aren’t the most important thing!

Thanks Whistl and Crazycrofter..we on our half term hols ..some progress this week took your advice and printed off sample answers and worked through together. Also found lots of useful resources on eduqas website. We have been doing her homework practice questions together and she is more confident than I've seen her in a long time. Now to help on other subjects....she gets plagued by self doubt unnecessarily and that actually makes her performance worse as she panics! Luckily no pressure for our local college regarding entrance criteria which I've been empaphising to her. Hope everyone else's half terms have been going well..would they be revising this time next year ? I wonder what workload will be like?

Glad she’s feeling more confident! I think what’s tricky about these new GCSEs is the difficulty, which means they get quite low marks and don’t necessarily understand a lot of the material - but can still be getting a 6 or a 7.

Dd actually did her holiday homework on Monday and Tuesday this week - amazing for her! She usually leaves it till the last minute.

I guess they’ll need to be doing some revision for end of year/ mock mock exams in the Easter holidays? Dd hates revision and doesn’t really have much of a technique so it will be interesting to see how she gets on!

DS2's end of year 10 exams will be straight after the year 11s finish their GCSEs. (End-June??). So, Easter is a bit early to start revising. To be honest, I'll be lucky if DS2 does even a day of work in the May half-term.
One week before seems to be the norm with both my boys. The only exceptions so far were when DS1 did his GCSEs. Then he did about 60 hours for his mocks and 350ish for the GCSEs. (I think those numbers are right - it's been nearly a year and mercifully some of the memory is fading!).

I think dd’s exams are before half term. She’s never done more than 2 weeks revision before but I feel she needs to gradually get her stamina up before the real things.

How was the 350 hours spread out? When did he start revising? Presumably it paid off?!

crazycrofter I wish our school would do the photo copying of the top answers so students can see what is expected of an 8 / 16 mark question. It's a brilliant idea.

We have just finished half term and DD had to prove she had done her chemistry revision by doing flash cards or completing online tasks. She did bare minimum and test is this week. Is grumpy today as back to school again.

Her year 10 mocks are early May I believe then French exchange then May half term then chill. We have her interim report coming this week so that will show DD how she is doing and how much work she'll need to do for her mocks - think she may be in for a shock. She can be so diligent though but hates doing studying for subjects she doesn't enjoy like science and French. She'd happily learn pages of drama lines though 😀

@crazycrofter

I just looked it up on DS1 revision timetable summary from last year:
271 hours on revision + 100 hours approx on tassomai.
revision started with about 11 sessions per week in late January and was full-on from the end of March until the day before the last exam in mid-June.
Each session lasted 45 minutes.
DS1 had Fridays off (apart from going to school), but he even worked a few hours on Easter Sunday).
7 hours a day of work was normal from the start of the Easter holidays onwards, not including the rest breaks. By May, all the useful work was being done at home and school was just something that was in the way of getting on with revising according to his needs, not what other sections of the class needed help with.

The results were good, but, the work was only one factor in that.

If I knew then what i know now, I'd have started DS1 on tassomai in September, revision full-time in January and I'd have had him write more practice essay questions and watch fewer Mr Bruff videos. But otherwise, what Ds1 did is what i think you need to do to excel.

(In some ways, its easier at A level because you have dropped the things that you had no interest in and were just a slog (aka RE and english!).

@whistl

Wow, your DS worked hard! How did that amount of revision break down in terms of hours per weeknight and weekend day?

That’s a lot of work! I think my dd would need a few rest days interspersed in there. How does tassomai work?

The tricky thing is - no one can know whether that was the required amount of work for your ds to get the grades he did or whether he could have done as well with less work! I’ve talked with dd a lot about getting the right balance - GCSEs aren’t everything, getting 7s instead of 9s won’t change the course of her life etc. But at the same time, we’ve agreed she wants to know that’s she’s done her best in terms of putting effort in.

Your experience is a good place to start though so thanks for the breakdown!

@YellowFish123 the aim for term time was:-
3 hours per night Mon- Thurs
Friday evening off
7 hours per day Sat-Sun

When there was a holiday, INSET, study leave etc, the target was 7 hours per day.

7 hours of work per day is over 9 though when you take 15 minute breaks every 45 minutes, and the day stretches further when you stop for an hour at lunch time and again for an hour at dinner time.
Suddenly, you are getting up at 8:30 and working from 9. And then you are still going 7pm. And you are only 14 and you are doing this every day.

I think it was harder for last year's cohort because almost every exam was new. So, no-one knew what the ballpark for the grade boundaries was. Also there were no past papers and mark schemes to gauge how well you were doing.
The upshot was that DS didn't feel like he had enough info to be strategic about what he revised. (he couldn't just say "they always ask a six mark question about x, so I'll make sure I know that to the 6 mark level, but y never seems to come up so I only need to glance over that.)
He felt that he needed to have a thorough knowledge of the whole curriculum. So he printed out the exam board specification and wrote in the margin how many minutes he felt he needed to spend to learn each item. Then he added all the minutes up, broke them into 45 minutes chunks and that was it - until the teachers paid for some mock papers that someone else had devised and then he had to do those too, as homework: total workload 270 hours.

Tassomai was an online GCSE science training programme. It is/was very effective and very expensive (and a very successful business model).
Now it seems to have broadened the list of subjects it does and stretched into AS levels.
I have no idea about the new stuff it is doing now, but I can say it was the best recommendation I've ever had on here when it came to GCSE sciences.
DS1 got triple 9 for science, which is what he was predicted to get but it wasn't looking likely given his mock result in April. But then I signed him up for Tassomai and it drilled the info into him so that he had instant recall.

He's doing A level Physics now and he's got a good chance of getting A* next year. This time last year, we were worried that he might not get a 7 for Physics as he just had a mental block about it as he couldn't relate to the teacher.

So i'd recommend Tassomai for science. They usually do half price courses in September. After that, its full price at £45 pcm for triple science. So, £22.50 x 10 months = £225 starting in September or £45x5 months = £225 starting in february, with the disadvantage that its a big extra burden for those 5 already busy months.

Your son sounds incredibly methodical and organised!

Did he get much homework from school during that time or did he ‘just’ do 3 hours revision each night from March? Personally I don’t like the idea of no time off but I appreciate we’re all different. We’re Christians and we have quite a full Sunday - out for about 2.5 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening. So there’s limited time for work on Sundays and I’d like her to have it as a proper rest day really.

She also does a paper round on Saturday mornings and youth group on Fridays and every other Saturday which she loves. My feeling is that the downtime is important and will keep her going.

I guess it would be possible to achieve the same number of hours work by starting earlier. But maybe your son did more than necessary? Do you think there was scope for him to have done less? I understand what you say about them not knowing the grade boundaries so being a bit in the dark.

My DD did GCSEs under the old system, but did not have the stamina of whistl's DC.

She could do at most 5 hrs on any day (3 in the morning between 9&1, 2 in the evening between 4 & 6.15). She could do around 1.5-2 hrs after school, tops. Homework counted in that time as it was meant to be helpful, whether it was set as 'revision' or 'practice questions' or whatever.

I think the best thing is to set something sustainable, otherwise they get downhearted that they are 'behind'. And definitely build in sensible down time.

DS did show a lot of stamina. He surprised me. i felt he grew up a lot during those months. (but I was the organised one - I did all the admin so all he had to do was say how much work he had to do and then do the actual revision).

We built in time off for watching or playing football etc.

I felt he was doing too much, especially in April and early May before the exams started, but the difficulty was in working out what not to do.

He spent just over 40 hours on English Lit alone. I think he could have got the same result if he'd done 20 hours.

He spent 10 hours on maths and it was all mock papers that the teacher gave him as mandatory homework. Maths is Ds's talent. He'd have got a very high 9, even if he'd done nothing.

So, right there is 30 hours that he'd have been better spending relaxing.

On the other hand, he was only 3 marks off a 9 for French. What if he'd just done another hour and happened to revise the KS3 topic that came up in his oral??

Basically its a baptism of fire - either at the revision stage or on results day

I posted as a separate thread but didn't get many replies - "how much revision would you suggest for Year 10 exams?". DS's exams are just after Easter (the school organises the Y9 exams and Y10 exams before GCSEs start) so he doesn't have too many weeks actually to go.

His current approach is a mixture of coasting (which gets him level 2-4 in tests) and putting in a slightly more than minimum amount of effort depending on interest (which gets him 4-6 in tests). I am trying to encourage at least the slightly more than minimum effort for his exams, but it's an uphill struggle as he did next to no work in Year 9 (3 year KS4 so that included GCSE work) so he has a lot of material to cover (ideally of course I'd like more than slightly above minimum effort , but I figure baby steps).

The annoying thing is that he is bright and all his targets are 6/7s which should be perfectly possible but based on his last lot of tests he's in line to fail most of his GCSEs. His science teachers did give him a talking to at parents' evening as he really needs at least a 5 in Year 10 exams to be considered for the higher papers. DS' pride wants him to do the higher papers; just need to see him make the application to join it!

My dd didn't have the stamina and single minded dedication of Whistl's ds either. She was not work shy - but just couldn't concentrate for that long without her brain 'exploding'. She is dyslexic so studying and concentrating takes more out of her. She still got some decent results though - not a brace of 9's but a mostly A /7's with a couple of A*/8's and a couple of 6/B's (she did a mix of iGCSE and GCSE hence the letter / number mix)

I second what Whistl says about Tassomai - discovered it late for dd but will be purchasing it from September for ds

Ds has his Y10 exams commencing on March 21.It is great that they will be done and dusted before the Easter holidays and he will get proper time off, but he is currently feeling the pressure with them just 3 weeks away. He now has to revise 45 minutes per evening with homework on top and he doesn't love hard graft!

He did no revision during half term (he really needed a week off after a pressured term), but given that he had one or two end of topic tests pretty much every week from October onwards (which he revised for at the time), hopefully he will have retained something

RedSky - I suggest he does half an hour per day currently (whilst he still has homework). Perhaps more if the homework he is given is not too onerous. Ask him to show you what he has done in his revision session (I get my ds to do this)

During Easter holidays he could probably do a couple of hours per day but do build in the occasion cinema trip etc to break it up.

He doesn't sound like he relishes studying so be realistic about suggesting he does small amounts frequently?

@LimitIsUp

Where did the 45 minute figure per night come from? Is that what the school or you expect?

@RedSkyLastNight I don't think its possible to answer specifically for your DS.

Some things are obvious - if he gets a 2 doing the amount he does now, then he'll need to do more to get a 5.

One thing he could focus on revising is the exam technique. A lot of students overlook thi. However, if they know how they are supposed to answer specific question types, then it can make a rapid and significant difference to how they present the information that is already in their heads and therefore the final grade.

He could also listen carefully to what the teacher tells him will be in the exam, work out what he's most insecure about and then prioritise revising those areas. Human nature makes us do the opposite - revise what we are already good at as it is reassuring.

My Ds2 will likely do about 20 hours for his year 10 exams, if that makes any difference. As a family, we take exams seriously, but not particularly the year 10 exams. All we look from from the year 10 exams is that they provide reassurance that year 11 won't be an uphill battle. So I'm not sure whether 20 hours is a lot, a little or pretty average.

RedSky

re revision for y10 mocks.

How about this?:

Between now and end of term, get revision cards done for all subjects (so depending on what he has already done could be very little or quite a lot).

Easter hols is 17 days for us, with Easter right at the end.
So 2 complete days off at the start
Then 6 days of 4 hrs per day (eg 9-11:15, 6-8:15, but time slots to suit when he likes to socialise)
Then 1 day off
Then 5 days of 4 hrs per day
Then last 3 days of Easter off

That is only 44 hours over the holidays, so if doing 10 subjects that is less than 4.5 hours each, plus the time upfront on the cards/notes.

I think that might sound achievable to someone who doesn't currently do much?

Not really no, school aren't prescriptive about how much a student should do. The 45 minutes is what ds felt was reasonable and achievable given that he doesn't get home from school until 5pm (its an hour long bus ride away), needs to have dinner, needs some down time, and still has an hour of homework every evening. Its probably not sufficient revision to achieve his best possible results, but he should still do fine (might get 6/7s rather than 8's because of not enough time to prepare, but meh, its only Year 10 and I don't want him to burn out before Year 11 when its relentless)

He's also going to do a couple of hours on Saturdays and again on Sundays - he plays football for two different teams so only has the afternoons and evenings free at weekends

That was replying to Yellowfish