GCSEs 2019 - support thread part 2

[AtiaoftheJulii]

Here we are again

Sadly ds1s preferred 6th form needs very high grades too

I'm trying to be hands off but it's hsrd, isn't it?

Well, Ds1 is off soon to his first revision day at school (maths)

I wanted to comment on the grades thing....

Ds1 is not naturally academic. He has to really graft for his grades. His school do not predict 9s which I think is sensible. (Not that Ds would be predicted any!)

His predicted grades range from 8s to 5s. We are concentrating on maths, eng Lang and the subjects he wants to take at a level.

For some children a 4 in eng Lang is a triumph - for others a huge shock/disappointment.

Both feelings/reactions are valid.

Anyway, hoping everyone has a nice Easter, revision allowing! :)

Is eng language and lit same for everyone else not doing the igcse ? Dd has to learn around 15 poems for lit and 15 texts for Lang and her mice and men text. It just seems so much , is the new gcse same? I remember I needed no prep at all for my gcse eng Lang! Just wondering if this is still the case for normal gcse Lang?

Ds1 has 15 love peoms, merchant of venice, Jekyll and Hyde and animal farm!

Ridiculous.

Thank mr gove.

DD isn't aiming to get English Lit as it ridiculous. She did well in her English Lang mock, and should be able to get the number of GCSEs that she needs to do her course at college - so that's what she's aiming for.

I think Eng Lit should be made an option with Lang compulsory.

DD has just found out that lots of the year are all on holiday, she thought it was quiet! She tried to get a few friends round for a Bday celebration and found out they have all been on holiday. She now feels a bit shit that she has been revising each and every day.....

Eng Lit is DD's favourite subject, along with History and Class Civ. Very much a humanities girl. She just loves stories and is very fortunate to be naturally able to write essays. She also does Drama, so there is an extra play in there too.

For Drama she has War Horse the play but it is open book, a clean copy provided for exam.

For Eng Lit she has A Separate Peace, no book in exam, and Macbeth, open book, a clean copy provided for exam. She also has to learn 20 poems. Then there is that "Unseen" bit.

For Classics she has 200 pages of passages to learn (!), letters to and from Roman Citizens, and Classical Literature references. This is far worse than any of the Eng Lit course but she loves it because it is interesting and historical too.

She will be burning her German and Chemistry books when she is done .

Hi thanks all very useful to see the comparison between boards and schools. However can you let me know if eng Lang requires learning 15 stories ?

Ds is doing Jeckyll and Hyde, Macbeth, Inspector calls and Conflict poems (Edexcel). No books in exam allowed.

Eng Lang??

Thanks soursprour!

Soursprout sorry can’t spell !

Bit late in the thread , but just wanted to say I agree with marmite loversunite, i found the post offputting when I saw many achieved 8-9s in mocks! My dd is predicted 5-7s and didn’t do very well in her mocks. She is working so hard during Easter break and so proud of her no matter what she achieves. Good luck to everyone, eventually everyone finds their own way in life.

silent some of ds1s friends have missed the revision days at school even though they a were around.
Some are away next week though

Ds1 needs to knuckle down next week :)
He’s had quite a few days “off” (which is fine) but I don’t want him to regret all the revision time he could have had over the holidays iyswim?
Does anyone know if the students get their PE NEA results before the exam?
I’m staggered by the amount of content in all the new exams tbh. English lit, history and the sciences seem particularly content heavy...

DC has just announced that they feel guilty going out for the whole day today as they haven't done as much revision as they thought they would over the last 2 weeks.

We'll come home an hour or so earlier than planned tonight and then ban all social media tomorrow, not because we're pushy parents but just because it may be better mentally for them and kickstart a less distracted style of revision/working.

Once they are back at school after the Easter hols, I think with after-school revision classes and full on practice, practice, practice in lessons for the remaining weeks prior to 14th May they should be reasonably ready for the actual exams phase to get under way.

Yes Soursprout Eng Lit and Lang are both IGCSE CIE board. Annoyingly they are the last, and only, unreformed A-G exam the school does, and this is the last year it will be taken.

All DD's others are reformed 9-1 exams and in the main are Edexcel IGCSE's, with one other IGCSE CIE, plus an OCR GCSE for Class Civ, and Drama is Eduquas GCSE.

All in all, a very confusing mixture! DD will be getting a lot of different certificates.

DD is having today off - hooray. Lovely walk down the river, picnic lunch in the garden, roast dinner tonight (bleuch) bit hot, but never mind, and then back at it tomorrow.

Same here we will be receiving a mixture of letters and numbers!

Cie science igcse, igcse English lit and Lang, igcse Spanish, maths new gcse, art new gcse and geo new gcse.

It’s an interesting mix.

My DS is doing exactly the same texts as Scabetty's for English Lit, except with AQA, that is he doing Jeckyll and Hyde, Macbeth, Inspector calls and Conflict poems - except they are called "power and conflict" poems in AQA.
I have been testing him on quotes over the last couple of days (ie Bank holidays) - not sure how well he knows them, but also not sure how well he really needs to know them. English lit is his weakest subject, and we would have loved it if it were optional. He finds the literature interesting, including the poetry, but hates the memorisation, and has been trying to avoid it. He is aware that he avoids the English lit by finding more maths or chemistry or biology revision to do, which is why I encouraged him to try and work with me a bit. It is hard to know what to say when he avoids a subject (like English Lit) to do yet more chemistry (which he loves). He has been working ridiculously hard over these holidays - I just don't know if he is working smart though, or just hard (ie revising maths areas he already knows backwards and forwards by doing even more problems in them and avoiding the bits he finds hard). We had a bit of a meltdown the other day about how little time there is and how much there is to do, and I imagine there will be more the closer we get to them. Meltdown was partly about the English lit, as the weight of the avoidance of it was telling.

How many quotes are people's DC learning for Macbeth? How does one know when enough is enough. Same with the poetry, he knows a fair bit of the poems he likes (eg most of Ozymandias, some of the Charge of Light Brigade), and not much of the ones he doesn't. I do't know how to get him to learn smart with these either. It just feels a bit overwhelming. We went through the poems yesterday, but it is really hard to know what it is reasonable to do, and what is required.

Has he looked at thug notes?
Ds1s class uses it and the kids seem to like it.
Did your dc have to do the eng lit oral or is that only edexcel?