GCSEs 2019 - support thread part 2

[AtiaoftheJulii]

Here we are again

Hoping to crack open the study buddy packages later.

I am now vertical for parts of the day...progress! :)

DD is still swamped with home work as science especially has still syllabus to cover She's finding revising and finishing her Art portfolio a challenge.Still hasn't worked out what she's doing as her final piece.
On the plus side see have a prom dress,it does not look good with her dms so shoe shopping after exams.
She is also getting up early at weekends to revise and going to bed early 9.39-10pm.This is not normal teen behaviour!She also brings me a cup of tea in bed .

Soursprout it's sad that your school can't or won't put effort into all their students, not just the borderline ones. We're lucky - our school does targeted revision across the grade range so DD1 attended revision sessions for the students looking at B - A* (most of her exams were still old school) and the structure will be the same this year.

Slightly hesitant to post here as there seem to be mostly high achievers here. Unfortunately my daughter isn't one 😕 she's not daft but academically she struggles. Dreading GCSEs. Considering purchasing Study Buddy.

So much stress.

Hello friendly

It is an incredibly stressful time.

If your dd struggles with structuring her revision then study buddy may help.

We've put them on a whiteboard and I've got 3 whiteboard markers in green, orange and red as a traffic light system so he can date and mark off what's done, what he's not sure on and what he's sturggling with (if that makes sense!)

I've printed out monthly calendars from March-June (very basic from Google calendars) and colour coded his subjects on them (which are the same as the folders he has at school).

Does your dds school have revision classes at lunch and after school?

Ds1 does 2 atm.

I'd also suggest the cgp revision books

friendlymum I don't think the stress level is that different no matter where your DC sit in terms of what they can do ability wise. I think we're all united in wanting our DCs to get the best out of themselves in a way that's sensible and healthy for them.

We have the revision books - they're really good.

Posted on the 1st thread...

We've only had the one set of mocks in Jan (v stressed kids, 2 or 3 exams each day) thankfully.

I got emailed the exam timetable from school a couple of weeks ago, but I've not dared look at it even. I'm too scared to even mention it to DKids, they put enough pressure on themselves as it is.

A levels have pretty much been chosen, both kids staying on at their school to do 4 A Levels. Unfortunately they're planning to do 3 of the same subjects and thus spend most of their time in the same class. Will just have to wait and see how that pans out, there's still time for them to change their choices, right up until the start of term in Sep.

We've been online prom outfit shopping, which is extremely painful as neither kid has a firm idea of what they want to wear. I can't even broach the topic of shoes or hair or make-up yet! They just don't want to think about that, but I don't want a mad panic in the middle of the exams (prom has been set for end of June).

On the bright side, I'm looking at holidays at the start of July, which theoretically should be "cheaper" than the usual July/August times... But when is it ever cheap to take a family of 4 abroad?!

@D0ubleTheJoy we have holiday booked start July and I was horrified by the cost. We are justifying it by the fact that we've not holidayed abroad in 10 years!

Re not high achiever, DS never was (did GCSEs 3 years ago), and although most of the GCSE thread at the time seemed to have high achievers, there were plenty of standard and lower achievers and enough support for all! DD certainly likely to achieve much higher than her brother, but she still has difficult subjects and her results are definitely worked for as opposed to coming easily.

DD had interview for 3rd choice BTEC last week, they questioned why, with her grades she wasn't doing A levels. Ah well (I can't help thinking the same, but her mind is made up!).

DD's school doesn't do study leave for pupils as a rule, but I asked if she could stay off to revise during the exams for some days. Amazingly, we have been offered study leave starting at the end of April, so it is worth asking the school if they allow individuals study leave.

We’ve played it safe and booked our usual week in July.

Ds was doing a mindmap last night. I nearly fainted with the shock!! He has also asked for flash cards to write on... this is all too much for me.

Oh God.
Ds1 bloody loves mind maps.
🙄😂

another dc who isnt a high achiever - he's away during the week so very hard to oversee whats going on and not home for long at weekends. Is seemingly putting lots of effort in (certainly did over xmas and ½ term) but thats not translating into results. he's doing foundation paper for maths now and science as those were both very borderline after mocks - but just been contacted by his tutor to say he's had 2 tests in science and got 9/34 and something else awful and in another subject wrote a bullet point 6 marker and missed out the 12 marker altogether!
So feeling the stress today !!

I posted earlier to say my dd isn’t a high achiever at an independent school and noticed most have kids with high mock grades.

Feeling the stress as my dd is focusing on art and homework and will not start revision till Easter hols .

I think it is difficult for them to start revising as they don't seem to have finished the syllabus for most subjects. Or is that just my DD? She still has lots of homework to do as well as her Art and Drama portfolios. There really are not enough hours in the day!!

I'm popping in to say Hi too. My ds is still doing mocks for maths, english, all science paper 2s and music up until end of April! It is playing havoc with his revision as we keep having to focus on the next mock rather than his timetable.

At least the music compostion and performance are out of the way - waiting for his french speaking date now. Quite stressful around here.

I think ds1 has finished except history

67chevvyimpala l mentioned and showed the Study Buddy cards to her, she didn't seem impressed. By her own admission she can be lazy and motivation is a big problem!

She does revision classes 3/4times a week after school - 2 of those are for geography as they are desperately trying to finish the syllabus!

Her brother seemed to breeze thro GCSEs so l think that's why l'm panicking on her behalf!

I have to be honest, l look at all her revision books etc and feel overwhelmed for her! 😐

History seems to be the issue with all our DC's.... I remember they said the curriculum was now huge and they would have trouble covering it all, seems they were right.

All revision at school now, except History. Yr11 given a rocket this week as no-one could produce a revision timetable. DD was extremely annoyed as they made them do a "proscribed" version which she thinks is rubbish, so she did it, sent it in, then binned it :-/ She will now do her own to suit her own style. Hey ho.

Other than that, still lots going on at school. All sorts of House stuff going on, which takes time out of the remaining days. Effectively that means only 6 more days until we break for Easter

Planning to get some extra German Oral practice in over the Easter hols too, as she really struggles with this part. Fortunately I have a German friend who has offered to help with her confidence. Oral is on April 29th.

Gosh you break up early for Easter!

It is a huge amount of content now.

My ds1s godmother is an exam marker and she says some of it is A level content....

Ds1s school started the GCSE syllabus in year 9. I'm not sure you could cover the whole syllabuses in just 2 academic years tbh.

Yes history is a massive issue. Ds is covering subjects which aren't well known such as America's new deal, America 1920 and Vietnam. It's interesting but I'm sad they don't study ww1 and ww2 any more. There are so many lessons to be learnt about Britain today by studying it's history. Ds is covering huge swathes and not all of it is connected.

powergower what they study in History really depends on the exam board. DD2 is doing causes and events of WW1 in a lot of detail and she's also doing Normans and the feudal system. She's not doing America 1920 or Vietnam.

They've finished the History syllabus but still have some bits and pieces of Chemistry to do, mainly due to serious illness on the part of the teacher. They'll get it all done in time but yes, the content is huge - our school starts the GCSE course in Yr9 for that reason.

Trouble with starting in Yr 9 for some students is remembering the first things they covered. My DD has processing problems/dyslexia and finds it very hard to remember the syllabus covered that long ago.