GCSEs 2019 - support thread part 2

[AtiaoftheJulii]

Here we are again

Neither sons have a revision plan - I fear this might backfire on them, both seem to be winging it and just revising subjects they feel they're weak at.

Both boys will have their French oral next week before the proper onslaught starts.

frog for your DD's epilepsy. It doesn't sound as though the school has been very supportive, you'd have thought they'd be keen for such a high achiever to fulfil her potential

Wow Double your boys are doing both French and German, in one sitting. We have found the stress of French more than enough!

Joining back in again if i may !
Ds is doing my head in on his revision ...or should i say lack of .
I have asked him for exam timetable ... i get oh yeh ...i did have that somewhete. !
I dont even know when they start .🤔

Study leave is end of next week but i have told him he is going into school as thete are too many distractions at home .
Still at least art is done and dusted.

(Ignore the next bit ..it is my reference to my self on a page /link thing i need to look up.

The thug thing ...pg 20)

Welcome back bizzey. If you know which boards your DS is doing, you can find out the exam times - it is public information (and the provisional timetables were published a year and a half ago, and the finals about a year ago). Just google the board and GCSE and you can find them.
If he is not studying IGCSEs (and given when his study leave starts, I would assume not), then he is likely to start the first week of his study leave, which is when the main GCSEs all start. Most of us have DC starting on the 14th, which is when AQA French (morning), and AQA Biology (afternoon) are.

Most GCSE courses start w/c 13th may and end 14th June.

Contingency day is 26th June.

Well the texts from the toilet started yesterday from DD. I am sad. I am going to fail everything. I don't know anything etc. Each sentence spread out through 2/3 texts. What am I supposed to do with that? Lots of reassurance obviously but now my stomach lurches every time the phone pings!

Can you contact pastoral care at school marmite?
Poor love :(

Frog so sorry to hear about DD. My DS is in a similar position. Doing so well then a significant health issue turned our lives upside down. Lots of missed school and treatment has gradually escalated which means more missed school. Health does come first but you just want them to do well and have results they are proud of after so many years of hard work.

So, my DS has found free science lessons v helpful plus Mr Bruff, he has also just restarted with GCSE bitesize. He has considerable fatigue so has had to break up studying with visuals.

My DS has also dropped a subject as it was causing too much worry for him as he missed so many lessons and it was his weakest subject anyway. School were reluctant so there was some to-ing and fro-ing. I really wanted his revision hours going towards other subjects.

I hope a medication that suits can be found for your DD.

Marmite, I hope your DD is okay. It's so stressful for them. A teacher told me that each year they make the GCSEs harder, now having to remember all the poems/quotes for Eng lit and formulas for science etc. they must feel so overwhelmed. I hope you can offer reassurance in that many, many children are feeling the same way at the moment; a sudden crisis of confidence I think it is completely normal to feel apprehensive as the exams are so close now.

Thank you for the welcome back and dates.
Marmite ..your poor dd. Hipe things get better....

marmite so sorry to hear that - and it's so hard to see your child suffering isn't it? DD is also extremely stressed. It helps a little when we talk about all the various options - option A if she does as well as she can, option B if she just misses, option C if things go badly - which would just mean doing an extra year of college (so hardly end of the world). We also focus on all the great things that are planned for after the exams - gives her something to look forward to. I hope you are well yourself?

Hi
Can I ask?
What attention - if any - are you giving to spag?

Big hugs to all those whose dc are suffering. It's hideous
Dd has a week of school to go and she cannot wait to leave! Every little thing is annoying her - the teachers piling on the pressure saying 'I expect most of you to get 8s and 9s - that's what my last year's class got' . They're being told to write thank you letters to all their teachers and give gifts... dd was already working out how she would be thanking her supportive teachers but is digging in her heels now after being told to do it! Her head of year(also one of her teachers) has been less than understanding of her anxiety and dd has no desire to contribute to her year group gift of a spa day. But the pressure to conform! Aaaagh! It's just adding extra stress they don't need!

gleegeek Bloody hell, thank you letters and gifts in Secondary school . Nice to do on an individual basis, if you have a special teacher, or reason, but as a year group..... absolutely not. DD came home with gifts FROM the teachers to their students, and with good luck cards and messages.

Iambufy Had to look up what SPAG was..... answer therefore is that I would hope that's been dealt with over the last couple of years .

So we had a few tears too the day before Biology. The "what ifs" the "I'm not good enough", the "I don't deserve to do well", heartbreaking. We also had a chat about being prepared, and the best thing you can do is revise as much and as detailed as you are able, and that should take some of the stress out. However, we also discussed the "luck" factor. There is always a little bit of luck involved in the questions you get, and how comfortable you are with each section.

Biology paper yesterday afternoon. One of the 6 markers was an exact question lifted from a previous paper, which DD had done a practice of in the morning. Sheer bloody luck. Needless to say, she was very pleased.

Finally hugs to all DC's who are ill or anxious, or are having a bad time.

Pupils can now gain/lose marks for spag unlike previous years

It's probably too late to do much about it. DD2 is a SPAG nerd so it's an easy win for her, but it's a struggle for lots of others.

SPAG is a huge problem for us, but we have worked out that we are just going to have to take the hit. DS was pulled out of class for spelling from Year 3, because he just can't. I spend endless hours of time in primary school trying to get him through the weekly spelling tests, it was a complete nightmare. In the end of Year 6 SATs, DS got 12/20 for the spelling, and lost a grand total of two marks on the rest of the English paper! DS spells like a dyslexic, but he doesn't have any of the other symptoms (reads fast and widely with high comprehension, reading at years above his age at primary school and reading for pleasure never helped him learn to spell, whatever they say), and although his primary school and high school put him through dyslexic tests, he always came out as not dyslexic. We have tried everything. The only thing that works with spelling is for him to make up mneumonic - "Big Elephants ..." etc for because. But one simply cannot make up enough mneumonics for the entirety of the English language. in Year 7 we went through and made up about 50 for what seemed to be key words he would need for writing - author, graph, science, but we have to leave the rest, and he has been told it is better to use as wide a vocabulary as possible and damn the spelling, rather than limit his writing to what he can spell. Re the grammar aspect, he is not great at this either, but as he speaks well and his pretty articulate, if he reads it out to himself and it sounds right, he is reasonably likely to have hit on reasonable grammar - and we do try and get him to remember not to put capital letters in the middle of sentences and add commas and full stops where he would naturally pause when speaking. This is something he does have some hope of doing, unlike with the spelling, but he says the problem is that he cannot read his work out loud in the middle of an exam, which is the best trick for this. The SPAG has a lot to do with why English is and always has been his weakest subject. He wrote a phenomenal piece for his creative writing in his mock (although sods law he won't get a topic that sparks him off so well in the real thing), but he is badly let down by the SPAG. It is only lucky that the computer generally corrects spelling, and he is highly aware of the problem, and so going on to university it will hopefully be less of an issue.

Hi all, can I jump onto this thread again please- not commented for a few months. Luckily not having too many SPAG issues but really feel for those whose kids are not naturally gifted at English. Why do they seem to be piling more and more pressure on year on year!! No wonder so many have MH issues like my DD.

A question- are any of yours doing AQA Combined Science Trilogy? DD has worked really hard( but possibly not very smartly) on Science revision and has been using MyscienceGCSE which seemed to be going well. But as soon as she has started practising papers it seemed to have all gone to pot. She is doing Higher tier but really struggling especially with the maths involved ( another gripe-you are certainly at a disadvantage if you don't like maths) The specimen paper she tried to do today is horrifying and I cant seem to find any mark scheme online. School have been utterly hopeless in not providing past papers but that's another story. Has anyone else found that the kids applying knowledge to questions seems to be really hard. Oh god the exams are only a week away. Thought we were on track but DD is so bored and seems to be giving up. GULP

srilankadreaming DS says that exam technique is key, he recommends:
www.physicsandmathstutor.com/
and then go onto Science then go onto the subject, and then revision, and then choose the exam board. DS thinks that last years paper was released a couple of days ago, and the specimen paper and marks schemes should be found on the AQA website.

DS also says that his school is using the IGCSE AQA old papers for exam practice, as the content and exam technique are 95% the same. He is not sure how you find these papers and the mark schemes, but try googling on line. The only major difference is that any topic appear in any paper.
DS says that it is key to go over and over the questions on physicsandmaths tutor as the questions repeat, so it really helps to have these ones under one's belt - particularly key words, which are underlined in the mark scheme. If the word is underlined, you can't get the mark unless you say that word.

DS also says that if one wants to do a full paper, rather than revision question packs on certain topics, then he believes that primrose kitten has some for download for 99p.
www.primrosekitten.com/collections/gcse/products/gcse-2017-predicted-papers
Which seems to include combined AQA science.
DS has never used any of her stuff, so can't recommend, but knows other people who are using it. He finds with people who have made up their own mark schemes that they usually only give one option, whereas AQA itself will often accept three alternatives. He doesn't know if that is the case with primrose kitten.

Oh, DS has just sent me the link for the AQA on line past papers, which include the mark schemes for last year.
www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/science/gcse/combined-science-trilogy-8464/assessment-resources

Wow, Thank you so much Bimkom and thank your DS too- he seems very clued up!! I haven't read all the thread but it seems he will do very well in Science if he has his exam technique sorted. I will ask DD to have a look but could well get my head snapped off! having started revision off very well, DD is either in complete denial about the exams or does not care. Like others up thread I am completely at a loss as to what to do. Having an anxious child, I told her repeatedly earlier in the year that if she didn't do well, it wasn't the end of the world- which it isn't. She has taken me at my word! But sooo frustrating as she is very bright!!
DD's school also seem to be in complete disarray sadly with many staff shortages / changes recently. So having felt quite sanguine earlier on, now really starting to feel less certain about it all. Am I too involved?

Thanks srilankadreaming. We are hopeful that DS will do well at science - that is his thing, and he is all over it, but of course until the actual exams you never know, anyone can have a bad day, or questions that just put them off.
DS seems to be supporting half his class in science (and other friends of his) - he says if he can teach others, then it shows he really knows it. Maybe an email with - "some advice from Mumsnet on revising science", and delete your username, so she doesn't know they were specifically provided for her. I have dropped him a few on other subjects (where he is decidely less strong - English literature anyone, DS will tutor the world and his wife in science rather than tackle quotes on English literature ...). It means the resources are passed on, without the nagging. I don't think you are overinvolved. And I suspect that your DD might appreciate the support, if it is done in a way that is not threatening. They really do want it, but they are all under so much stress, and biting back at us because of all the horrible, horrible pressure.