Starting Yr11 Gcses 2020 Support Thread [Edited at OP's request]

[OrangeCinnamon]

A continuation of a Year 10 support thread
previous thread

Last thread was great and supportive as some of us tried to navigate year 10 and some very helpful peeps steered us through.

He used to do a 45 min lesson and had to miss a lesson for doing this.

We switched DS to out of school lessons for this very reason. Missing school was starting to be a problem. Of course we now have an evening lesson to schedule round which causes its own problems.
I've told DS we will cancel music lessons after Easter, but as he's taking music GCSE he does need them until then.

RedskyLastNight

I wish we could do out of school hours, but he simply doesn't want to continue .

I'm impressed at the amount of extra-curricular activities your Y11s are managing to fit in. DS does a bit of volunteering but no sport, no music and no D of E.

DS is involved in 2 sports quite seriously, thus has a sport commitment 6 days a week, sometimes twice a day (1 sport is actively in season in the autumn but he needs to keep up a basic level of fitness for the second sport twice a week), as well as additional gym sessions. What is most worrying is that he has planned out and executed his sport commitments in an A* manner, but has not planned out his GCSE revision with that commitment.

I considered making him drop a sport, but I decided that he would be much less happy and productive if I did so. However, I did give him until mocks and warned that I would make him skip this year in his second sport if his results were worrisome. Time will only tell if he has taken my threat seriously!

DS decided before the summer that he would give up an activity that he's done for over 10 years. His reason was outgrowing it, but I have to admit to being secretly quite pleased - it was 2 hours twice a week and basically took the whole of both evenings with travel time etc. if he'd kept going it would have been hard to reconcile with putting in more work in Year 11. He wants to pick up another sports activity, but that's only 1 evening and more of a drop in type thing so he can go on a more casual basis.

My DS plays in 2 football leagues so 2 evenings and half of Saturday at least, plus school football team. PE is one of his GCSE choices and will be A level and possibly degree. I would rather he dropped the five a side league though (which he joined without permission). He was complaining about amount of work on Saturday evening as he was tired after playing football - so I suggested then he drops Friday football. Of course he won’t. But will see how he gets on.

Do any of your teens socialise outside of school? Mine doesn’t at all - not sure if that’s normal. He see’s his friends at football but other than that he doesn’t go anywhere. Guess I should be glad - I won’t be encouraging it this year anyway.

We have booked a holiday Oct half term as we missed in August as DD broke her arm. He has mocks mid-late November so might have to take revision

My DS socialises a bit outside school - goes to watch footy with friends at the weekend, the occasional party or sleepover, more in the holidays.

Mine has a couple of friends locally and they go and kick a ball about in a nearby park for the odd half an hour at the weekend, they also occasionally (maybe once a month max) go into town for a burger or swimming or to a trampoline park but they don't do general hanging out at each others houses, sleepovers or parties. We do still go out as a family quite a bit at weekends.

DD decided against silver DofE this year which meant the volunteering at Guides got dropped which freed up an evening. Like @RedSkyLastNight we also switched music lessons to outside school as DD kept missing school lessons/homework being set etc

Rarely socialises. His sport keeps him busy and main friends are there so sees them pretty much every day anyway. Very occasional meet up with school friends - school has very large quite rural catchment, although we live in town where school is. His main friends all live in villages up to 40 minutes away and have different out of school activities. Perhaps a sleepover twice a year and that’s it!

DD is a very busy bee as she does junior conservatoire all day Saturday on two instruments. She is also doing her silver DfE which I wasn’t so happy about but her group of friends are all doing it together 🤷‍♀️
She does see her friends out of school but more sporadically during term tine.
She got results from her French speaking and did well but said it was all bollocks and the teacher was making it up as the teacher was telling them the marking and boundaries were the same for foundation as they were for higher!

DD would be a real party animal if allowed!
Since Yr10 there has been a massive spike in house parties, 'gatherings' festivals and concerts etc.
She socialises a lot but not as much as some of her friends. For her it's 'downtime'from the academics.She wants to keep 'on top of' her studies in order to avoid being 'a hermit' in the lead up to exams.

Quite a lot of socialising here - plenty of meetups over the summer.

In term time it's generally restricted to "hanging out" after school which can be for an hour or more, and meeting, say, for a weekend afternoon. DS went to a sleepover last weekend - but it was for someone's birthday - they haven't started having events "just because" yet.

DD actually in all seriousness said to me yesterday when I commented that she had a lot of parties that she HAD to attend ‘mother, I didn’t choose the sesh life. The sesh life chose me’

She then winked and walked off.

I have my hands full 🤦🏼‍♀️😂

@Wrongdissection 😂
DS is not much of a socialiser, he does sport 3x a week and sees his friends there, but I can't remember the last time he went to anyone's house. They're always shouting and swearing chatting on the Xbox together though.

Had a few tears from him last night - think it has been a bit of a wake up call going back to school - they are getting 8 maths past papers a week to do as homework. Plus he got a detention for not doing some work from last term that he didn't realise he had to do.

Never mind, only 280 days until GCSEs are over

I actually want DD to carry on with her sport, DoE and socialising. It will take up most of Saturday, then either Sunday morning or afternoon plus 1 evening per week. Still leaves lots of time for school work. She is very hardworking and wants to do well. I think she needs a break and doing sports/something she loves is a good blow off for her. Her mental health is just as important as her results.
I am more worried about the 16th bday parties that are expected this year. It's a big deal here apparently. DD really gets into the planning side of things, regarding what she is wearing/make up along with her friends and that is likely to take up time better spend studying ;-)

@heifer 16th parties are big news here too. Thankfully with DD being oldest in the year we had nothing to live up to and it’s all done and dusted and all the planning was done over the summer but I do sympathise.

singingstones 8 Maths past papers per week!

My DS is not the sporty kind never has been. We don't have the money for too many clubs/hobbies. He has been right through the scout movement and is quite involved with the Explorers. He did DoE bronze with school last year and hated it, not the DoE just the confining nature of school doing it, he's too used of the explorers and a bit of freedom to use common sense. So he will do silver with Explorers but not until year 12.
Just spoke to him last night about doing 20/30 mins of revision on top of homework from next week, then ramping it up as we go along. It seemed to go down well and have left him to do a revision timetable so we shall see
I hope 16th parties aren't going to be a big thing really don't need the added financial pressure of that but we will see. he doesn't see anyone out of school during term time and not that much in the holidays either, probably because most of his friends are not local, and in the holidays most go abroad.
So for those of you that in awe of some who have a lot going on or have already been revising for 3 months, just remember that a lot of us have not. So no need to panic just lots of or or and a smattering of and we all will get through this

To be honest, the most important thing at the moment is checking that all year 10 notes are up to date and understood (and legible...)

When they come to revise for mocks, it is too late to suddenly realise that they are missing big chunks of information.

the most important thing at the moment is checking that all year 10 notes are up to date

... though DS's are so pitiful in some subjects (I can't understand his maths notes at all, despite having a maths degree, so no wonder he has no clue) that we've given up on this and he is just using other sources. So for him, this task is replaced by "find suitable source of all material".
Thanks goodness for the internet age where all this is freely available!

Red I think the CGP guides are pretty comprehensive for maths & science. For DD1 (who did GCSEs under the old system) we didn't attempt to use her notes at all for science. Provided you understand it the content coverage is comprehensive. You can use you-tube or whatever for extra explanations.

Yes - when I said ‘notes’ I didn’t necessarily mean in their own files! CGP is our friend here...

Is CGP any good for English? DS getting lowest marks in that. Also looking at the thread of this years GCSE's lots of parents saying their DC getting 6/7 in history/RE etc but 3/4 in English. What is the missing link ?

My DS won't let me get anywhere near his work. He says it's up to him and he's not a baby.

So I have no idea if his notes are up to date. If I ask him a question like that the usual response is something along the lines of "What do you think? Why are you asking? It's up to me." etc

ie keep your beak firmly out, Ma.