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.

DD had her GCSE ICT mock yesterday ( actual exam is in a couple of weeks).
She asked for rough paper but was told it wasn't allowed - anyone know why that might be?
We've been encouraging her to "brain dump" onto rough paper, before committing her answers to the exam paper, because her ADHD means she tends to write down the first ( random) thought that comes into her head.

re DofE for CV.

We found for DD that it wasn't the DofE per se that was helpful, but that doing bronze made her go out of her comfort zone and do stuff. That then gave her experiences to talk about in college/job interviews.
So for a child that is already in Scouts, Sports teams, Orchestras etc there probably isn't much point. But for someone who has done less extra curricular it can make a difference.

Also You aren't allowed 'rough' paper for any exam, in as much as anything written on has to be handed in. However, as far as I am aware, if you run out of room on the exam booklet you can ask for extra paper. I suggest you check with the SENCO what is/isn't allowed.

I encourage my DD2 to write checklists / mind maps and then cross them out.

Can I join in? DD is my no 2 so this is 2nd time round. Spotted some familiar posters from the 2018 GCSE thread - waves at @KingscoteStaff & @whistl

DD has exams before half term and has study leave. She's got a lot on at the moment as she rows and has G7 piano coming up. I've just cancelled a Bank Holiday outing to see the DGPs as it would have involved 5 hours in the car.

On D of E I don't think it's particularly useful for the CV. DS1 is just finishing his gold (expedition was v tough). I think the volunteering element may be useful in interviews or for UCAS though. DD doing bronze and is a brownie helper. She's talking about volunteering next in a hospital - which may be helpful for a possible medical school application.

Thanks for the info, Teen. The issue with using the exam booklet is that the extra pages are at the back, so DD might struggle to flick back and forth from her ' rough' work to the question.

She says she had spare/extra paper given to her when she sat the short course exam last summer, so not being allowed any this time threw her.

I'll email the SENCo to clarify.

I had a conversation with Ds2 this morning about his DofE again. He's planning to learn to play a particular computer game for his skills section. A PC games shop in town has a sign in the window that says "Duke of Edinburgh Scheme Approved". How likely does that sound??

He looked really irked when I told him that he has to confirm with the teacher who is coordinating the DofE that this will be accepted before he commits.

The only useful thing he is doing is unpaid tutoring in maths for the volunteering section. That will help with his sixth form application.

re DofE, DS has already decided not to do silver in year 11 as it will be too much in GCSE year - he does quite a lot of extra curricular stuff but its nearly all sport so he has had to add skill and volunteering to an already busy week. Also he is an Explorer so does expedition type stuff already, although more supervised. The volunteering and skills have definitely benefitted him though so he's not ruling out doing silver in 6th form.

There is a small cluster of people I recognise on this thread, and I look forward to getting to know the rest of you.

I'm at my wits end with ds. He's in the middle of year 10 exams at the moment and his attitude is awful. He has been doing some revision "just to keep me happy" but he has had several meltdowns, saying I am obsessed, I need to lay off him, he will; never be as good as his perfect sister and of course he is going to pass his GCSE's and get onto the usic course/university he wants to.

He's been doing between 10-30 mins revision a day during the holidays and just wants to sit all evening playing piano or on social media. At his last parents evening we were told his targets are Grade 6 (but he's capable of 7's in some subjects) but he is in danger in some subjects of not even getting 4/5. He constantly doesn;t hand in what little homework he gets , in some end of topic tests he wrote nothing and for revision he will do 10 mins on Seneca but that's about it.

He got awarded music colours but doesn't think its important as he aims for "bigger and better things"

Comefromaway your DS sounds exactly like mine (except mine won't even do music practice!). I have come to the conclusion there is only so much pushing you can do. My DS had a bit of an outburst at me over my suggesting that the odd 10 minutes of revision really didn't cut it for end of year exams and pointed out they were his exams and not mine. So I have backed off, whilst being wildly helpful for anything education related (such as printing things and supplying pens!).

My hope is (and we've seen it a bit for Year 10 exams as he's put in for foundation papers and he should be capable of higher so he has actually put in a little bit of effort) that once he realises there is a point to what he is doing, he will be more interested. He is almost "too" clever as he has rationalised there is no point working now as nothing really matters until the actual GCSEs ... Hoping when we start looking at 6th form entries and sees some of the entry criteria for what he wants to to that will be motivation myself.

I keep telling myself that even if he fails half his GCSEs, it actually isn't the end of the world, it just makes his life a bit harder, and that working because he wants to has to be preferable than me pushing (and getting more stressed than he is!).

We’ve had an email from Maths today about them setting past papers as homework in preparation for year 10 exams. I’m not clear when exactly they are, there was a booklet but it was referring to GCSE so I assumed it had been sent to wrong person, friend had and did the same .

Maths teacher is hoping to finish syllabus this year then next year will be revision and additional/further maths, not sure what it’s called.New homework been set where they have to write an A4 sheet a night on some words for various subjects which apparently half the teachers think is rubbish. They’ve been given 5 weeks worth so DS on a mission to get it done ASAP which gives me hope for GCSE revision.

Started reading 6th form prospectuses and lack of Computer Science cuts down his choice of sixth form significantly if he wants to do the A level, which pisses me off more than I can put into words but it is what it is.

comefromaway

Do you know he's probably right.
I know it's hard as we want them to reach their potential, be happy and not be disappointed in their life choices.
Does he need much to get onto his course, just thinking if it isn't much then the impetus might not be there to bust a gut.

Revision has taken a back seat for dd atm, she isn't taking any this year so there's no harm.
She has to decide now what she wants to do next year ito first instrument, this will be the one she will take GCSE and A level on and be expected at music college.
She doesn't know and is having a huge stress about it atm. It seems so young to be choosing the exact direction for undergrad and PG.

He knows what 6th form courses he wants to do (but apparently its my job to research and find the right course for him) & he even knows which degree courses but he will be lucky if he gets in.

Since posting this I've missed a call from the behaviour support officer aty school so I dread to think. I'm waiting for a call back.

Oh Comeaway, I hope everything is ok. It’s fustrating when they are like this . DD was very different to your son and got very anxious but has that thing where she has a tendency to rebel if I push for something so with her I did find it better to back off. It tends to go pear shaped but then she gets where she wants to be somehow by a different route to everyone else. He still has a lot of time before next year and hopefully at some point he’ll decide to buckle down. That would make life much easier if he does, for now though given there is still a fair bit of time maybe say you will back off and see what happens over the summer? But guess that depends on what School are about to say.

DD has last year 10 exams tomorrow. Seems to have taken them in her stride with a bit of nagging to revise from me, but not really taking it that seriously. DofE bronze practice expedition this weekend and final one in June. will not be doing silver next year as so many other extra curricular activities on plus it being year 11. Bronze did help her focus on the skill by doing grade 5 music theory (which she needed to do anyway) and took up running for the physical which she’s carried on with and has been good for getting away from being glued to her phone

Started reading 6th form prospectuses and lack of Computer Science cuts down his choice of sixth form significantly if he wants to do the A level, which pisses me off more than I can put into words but it is what it is

That sounds unfair, especially as some schools don't offer Computer Science GCSE as an option. DS's school do offer it at GCSE, but don't insist on it for entry to the A-level course. I would have thought that Maths GCSE grade was a better predictor of success at A-level Computer Science anyway.

That's a shame about computer science and surprising too. DS also wants to take computer science a level but his current school doesn't offer it, so he is torn between not doing it or moving for sixth form. Of the places that do offer it, I don't think anywhere required Computer science gcse though. It might be worth a conversation to see if they will make an exception?

Thank you. It didn’t run this year as allegedly not enough numbers. He’s good at Maths and I did think of having a couple of conversations but he would hate being an exception. One of the Grammars locally don’t insist on the GCSE and we had a long conversation with the teacher who was great and said there are 3 or 4 usually who don’t have the GCSE. Transport will be an issue but we’ll have to work round it.

V quick update (at Dds open evening) not as bad as seemed. He hasn’t eaten properly today for various reasons so had an episode and couldn’t sit exam today. Behaviour person called to him as she’s experienced with him & his asd.

So not bad behaviour, more of a blood sugar crash.

That’s a relief Comefromaway! Hope he’s ok.

Had a cacophony of emails from DD about the utter meanness of the PE department in regard to selection of sports captains (translation: DD and friend are not tennis captains as they rashly expectedly).

I wouldn’t mind, but we’ll have a word by word re-enactment over dinner, too...

Hey sandy!

@Comefromaway - they really put us through it don't they? A lot of teenage angst can be helped by eating properly and getting a good nights sleep. God I sound like my mother.

@KingscoteStaff - hey to you as well! Life is SO unfair for our DC at times. We get a lot of moaning and eye rolling about the general unfairness of life.

So DD is cracking on with revision tonight after being a brownie helper. She was a bit wobbly last night but seems better today. Possibly helped by the fact that the pink hair dye she put in the Easter holidays is starting to fade

He doesn’t sleep Sandy. The dr suggested melatonin but the consultant he referred to won’t prescribe, partly because ds told him he sneaks his devices to bed and refuses to comply with giving them up.

Got back from dds open evening tonight to find the crossomical child had done 70 tassomai questions. Plus revised another subject (forgetting he’s already had the exam in that subject durr)

Apparently he got to play scrabble yesterday afternoon insted of his exam!

Offering a bit of hope, my dd was getting 4/5 results all year, her year 10 exams finished last week and results coming in and she is now getting 6/7 and 8s she had 15 exams in total and didn’t put much effort in until the exams were on top of her and she suddenly panicked, I was convinced she wasn’t going to do well so I’m relieved. Hope all goes well with your children, I was pulling my hair out at one stage.

Severe problems with Ds1. He was suspended for 2 days post Easter.
Does bare minimum.
Triple Science have suggested he drops down to combined science.

He has so much potential. But I can't make him want it.

Makes me so very sad.