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.

Do any of you/ your DC watch YouTube study vloggers, such as Unjaded Jade, Ruby Granger, Eve Bennett?
I've had a look at a few of their revision tips videos, after seeing an article in The Telegraph last year. Be warned, all 3 I've mentioned are high achievers, but there's some useful tips on there.

My DD is in yr 10 and has her exams in the first week of June. She is regularly tested at school and has done well so far. She hasn't needed any help to get on top of her revision. Which is a relief as my eldest DS was a nightmare was lazy and coasted and had to resit A levels when that attitude caught up with him. My DD has sorted all her folders out and has revision packs for each subject. We will see what comes in june but my DD has already said when she started year 10 that her life was just work from now on as she will be revising during all holidays. Good luck everyone, I am just pleased its not yr 11 yet...

Aweedrop she sounds very hard working and dedicated and I’m sure she’ll do really well! Do you think you should encourage her to take some time off in the holidays though? Especially in year 10. I worry that some kids will get burnout if they never stop.

Dd wants to do well and works hard in term time but she’s too sociable to spend all holidays working! I think she’d get depressed to be honest. I’m sure there are some kids who actually enjoy it - but balance is still important.

Dd did work on Mon/Tue this week but she’s been at a sleepover since yesterday. My only concern is inefficiency- she spent two days writing out Latin notes. It seems like duplication to me. Hopefully she won’t do that for every subject!

DS's end of year exams are at the end of June. He did all his homework in about six hours this week, and as far as I know his notes are far from tidy.

Sometimes, his exam marks are very good (9) and other times, for the same subject, they are (5/6). As far as I can tell, the difference is whether he prepares and pure luck on whether he happens to read the question right or not - he always skim-reads the question but sometimes he comes away knowing what it said anyway.

I know I should chase him up properly about it. It's finding the energy because once I start, I know it won't stop until June 2020.

I keep thinking, that I just need to get his older brother through to having submitted his UCAS application in October and then I can focus on DS2, but that's stupid, isn't it?

crazycrofter I agree that the kids need down time, my niece used to work 9-5 everyday of her holidays. I thought that was excessive but she couldn’t relax. Thankfully my DD recognises that she needs to have a break too so has two days off a week during holiday time to go out with her friends and she gets a lie in at the weekend.

Oh that’s good, sounds like she has a good balance then. My dd is a strange contradiction. She does work hard and is motivated but she seems to be fighting resentfulness at having to do so!

Her school has always given quite a lot of homework but never over the holidays, so I think she’s really struggling with the concept of work in the holidays!

Whistl, I can imagine having your dilemma but times 10 when ds is in year 10! I think he’s capable, and occasionally he shows it, but he’s not yet bought into the idea of revision at all. The subjects he does well in are his strengths/interests where the knowledge sank in in the lessons. They’re marked on a GCSE scale (year 8) and he’s had the full range from 1 to 5 so far this year!

I would definitely deal with them one at a time! Get the UCAS application in and then if ds2 hasn’t bucked his ideas up by then,maybe time to start applying some pressure?

GCSE Mocks are in early December, as is the sixth form entrance exam, so I guess my last possible moment to start ensuring that work is being done is the October half-term.
However, if I wait until them and find out that there is a problem, then I'll be kicking myself not to have done something about it now.

I find the school beyond useless at identifying if there is a problem. The work is largely peer -marked and the teachers do not analyse results. Also, there is a tendency to describe everything from 5- genius as "good".

That’s frustrating whistl. Does ds2 need to get good predicted grades for his first choice sixth form or can he afford to do badly in mocks then buck up his ideas?

I’m surprised the teachers don’t analyse the results, is it an independent school? I find with ds’ grammar, we get constant data with grades, predicted grades, etc etc. With dd’s independent school we get nothing- her latest report was words only (loads of words) but no grades in sight!

It's a comprehensive, but the type that does well in the league tables, which means that the focus is on the middle sets. The more able students are just expected to do well anyway, and if the odd individual doesn't, then.... "oh, well".

If DS gets offered a place at the super-selective, then he'll need good grades, but I'm more bothered about what I recently found out i.e. Universities look at the GCSE profile when assessing who to interview.

Which universities and for what courses? I guess it makes sense that they look at GCSEs as it’s all they’ve really got to go on. In the worst case scenario though, if A Level results are going to be significantly better than GCSEs I guess a year out is the best option, so they can apply with their results?

I always assumed good comprehensives were good across all abilities, now they’re judged on progress! I guess they can rely on a certain amount of self-motivation among the top sets?

So far the universities that I've heard say it directly have been the top universities. However, that's likely because those are the only presentations that I have attended.
I think it's reasonable to suppose that all universities do it, but, as you move down the scale, the universities have to show increasing flexibility about the characteristics of the students they recruit.

Any ideas on what to expect from upcoming Y10 exams? If they are sit GCSE past papers I imagine that the results be less than predicted grades as they have not covered the full syllabus yet? It will also be the first time for some sitting full GCSE papers under exam conditions.

backintime, from the tests DD had last term, I'd guess they'd be GCSE level papers but only on the topics they've studied so far - so, papers consisting of questions from actual GCSE papers.

Back and Also GCSE level questions but only on studied topics is what out school does. You would still expect average results to be a bit lower than final predicted as there is another year to come to grips with 'question answering technique'.

Any other Yr10s on their DoE this weekend? DD went early yesterday morning and is due back today. It's the practice one and I hope the weather hasn't put them all off doing the real thing in 2 weeks times. Talk about unlucky with the weather, last weekend was glorious (although probably too hot) and this weekend, cold, wet and windy. Got to feel sorry for them all. Although it wont' scar them for life and I'm sure they will warm up soon enough. I am expecting a tired and grumpy 15yr old home later today though :-)

Re exams, we have just received an email from the school saying the Yr10 & Y12 mocks will be w/c June 17th and they will be given a timetable shortly. Asked the parents to encourage preparation and revision. Not had that before so you can see the change now in Yr10 (DD has been having tests all year at the end of each topic). Will be interesting to see how much revision she does and how stressed she gets. I think she will be fine as has realised this year that you can't just work hard all year and expect to do well without revision.

Teen and Also DD seems to think they are sitting full GCSE papers in Maths at least but they have been told they might not be able to answer all questions as they have not covered the whole syllabus yet. I just think it will be difficult to gauge how they are doing if this is correct. Maybe look at the class highest and lowest marks to see where DD lies?

Back For maths it is a bit different as most sets never cover the whole syllabus! I'd maybe be asking the school after the exams how much more syllabus they intend to cover in y11 versus just consolidating existing topics. (It might depend on how well they look like they have mastered what they've already covered.)

DS has Year 10 exams ( not called mocks at his school) next week. He has done more revision than he wanted to do(I.e. any ) and much less than I thought he should do. So will be very interested to see how he does(in most subjects it sounds like they are setting real GCSE papers, but say, just paper 1 to allow for not having covered the whole syllabus). Due to DS's -er- "relaxed" approach to study so far he is sitting foundation papers in sciences. He wants to do science at A level, so really needs to do well, so he is bumped to higher paper next time.

How many of you have DC doing a 3 year KS4? DS mentioned that they have already finished the syllabus in computer science. They are spending this term doing the programming task (which as it doesn 't count for anything, DS has already decided he is putting minimal effort into). Sounds like they have nearly finished in a couple of other subjects as well. Not sure what they will do next year, surely not just a year of revision?

DS doing 3 year GCSEs. History, geography, French, RE, individual sciences, PE, English Language and lit and maths - they started the courses proper in year 9 and have just moved through at a decent pace so still have stuff to cover. I think they hope to finish topics by Xmas. English they studied texts in year 9 that aren’t set texts to get them used to methods of analysis. In year 10 they do half term of a text and half term of English Language. So far they’ve done Jekyll and Hyde, power and conflict poems and have started History Boys.

Tests pre-Easter. They had two maths papers - calc and non-calc - hasn’t covered absolutely everything (top set). One paper each for the individual sciences. One each for history, geography, PE, English Language paper, RE, French written paper, listening paper and another I can’t remember. They had good revision lists and included topics covered in year 9 and year 10. Results next week when back at school....He said some were v hard and others not so bad.

His friend who was high achieving year 10 last year said results were generally lower than normal end of year tests, eg friend scored 5 in English last Easter but predicted 7 or higher at the time for GCSEs and has since scored 9 in mocks in year 11.

Heifer - mine has DofE practice next weekend, but is at Scout camp this weekend, off to pick him up at lunchtime in time for St Georges Day Parade. It hasn't been wet here but very windy. Hope your DD got on OK.

DD has half exams pre half term and half after.

They’ve also said that they can have ‘study leave’ for those two weeks and only go in for exams.

Thanks Expletive. DD was fine. Very cold, wet, tired and hungry but she survived :-) It wasn't enjoyable at all, but she was glad she did it. Got the real one weekend after next, so fingers crossed the weather is decent for them.

KingscoteStaff - study leave for Yr 10 mocks??? flippin heck, DD won't even get study leave in Yr11 as apparently the school insist they keep coming in even during the exams (not sure how long for yet).

We have parents evening this week so will be interesting. I know DD works hard at school but suspect they will all say she could get even higher grades if she did some extra work too.

I'm surprised that any year 10 would be even close to having done the full syllabus in any GCSE (unless they were planning to sit it early).

DS is about halfway through, but I know the teachers at his school will all come to a halt on teaching the syllabus either just before or just after Easter next year.

Actually, I wish they'd aim to finish a bit earlier and then go back and do intervention classes for those who didn't understand parts, leaving the others to get on with exam practice, but they don't

DS is doing DofE bronze. His 2nd expedition is in 10 days time, too. I asked him why he is doing it (since he's not relishing the challenge) and he said the school have said it's "for his CV".
Which CV??? Do employers care if you have Bronze DofE or not? I don't think so. It's certainly not something for the university application personal statement - even if it were DofE gold.

DS mentioned that they have already finished the syllabus in computer science. They are spending this term doing the programming task

DS is on the last topic of the Computer Science course (three year KS3). The teacher confirmed this at parents' evening. They have Y10 exams shortly, then after half term they'll do a practice NEA, then the actual NEA in the autumn term. Then presumably revision.