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.

Hi all hope everyone is having a good summer so far.

DS is another one who is really enjoying Geography. He finds English the subject with the most work, he says its because it is more subjective, and needing to remember quotes etc. He is more of a facts and figures person hence the reason he loves maths,physics and computer science...no guessing that he wants to go into engineering

We went to an open air performance of Macbeth the other day done in a contemporary way. He loved it and has helped with the English homework that was set for the summer.

Off to the London science museum next week as the have some interesting exhibitions on at the moment just hope it's not too busy!

Silverhill I have always admired those who take art as I know it takes hours of work to get the portfolio together

Silver, Voddie DD also enjoys Geography - 8 at end of Yr10 exams (9 for History) which is why I don't want her to drop it.
She is sitting 11 GCSE's plus further maths and of all her subjects she gets at least twice the homework for Geography.
Summer homework that has been set is at least 10 hours worth!
Perhaps her Geog teacher is 'cracking the whip'

DD does not get a disproportionate amount of homework for geography. ProggyMat perhaps it's just that particular geography teacher.

She does 7 or 8 hours a week on Art, and the other subjects each set about an hour per week (on average).

Just checking in to say that at the beginning of the hols DS decided to make a revision plan and said he was scared about his GCSEs. Roll forward a few weeks and he is completing the Tassomai stuff and doing one Maths topic a day from the revision book but thats it.

It is driving me bonkers tbh.

Thank you all for the replies, I had to make a new account because I buggered up when making a password and am not getting the reset emails.

ProggyMat I'm afraid I can't answer that yet as her online school that she is doing the GCSE with isn't sending us the content until the end of August and she wasn't doing Geography when she was at school. But when we were picking the 5th GCSE for her to do outside of the 4 college offer she decided she wanted a change and chose it. Having read stuff about how intense the Geography course is I am quite worried about how she is going to manage it all in a year alongside her other 4 at college, but I'm sure we'll work it out.

All of her friends are giving her their GCSE textbooks and resources, I think they are glad to see the back of them . That's one benefit to her doing them a year later, and I also think studying them in a college setting where half of the studying is based at home will suit her better. She can really get her head down at home in her quiet bedroom with a laptop and a cup of tea, whereas at school she struggled because of all of the distractions etc. She's brushing up on her maths at the moment, every time I go into her room she's on Bitesize.

And I've just realized I've spelt my username wrong this time around . Eek.

Pagan GCSE 2020 looks like a 'much better fit' for your DD.
If she is sitting AQA Geography and you need any extra resources (above the online course) give me a shout.

Anyone else registering for 6th form entry exams? DD is really shocked by the reality of having to nominate 4 subjects to be tested on, however much I tell her that the school won’t hold her to those as A level choices.

I knew that A level selection was going to be a nightmare with this one - unlike her brother who is really only good at one thing!

We may do if DD decides to move schools.She wants to look around two others in October both of which have 6th form entrance exams in January and require nominated subjects.
One A level subject loosely decided but thats only if her current thoughts on degree and Uni remain the same.Even if it does-and Im not holding my breath- choosing the others to sit with it will be a nightmare too!

DD's first choice is to continue at the sixth form attached to her school. She'll need 6s in most subjects. We might look into a back-up plan (for her peace of mind, not because I don't think she'll get in).

DS wants to stay at his school at for 'A' levels, although I'll take him to visit a couple of other places just to make sure.

To be honest, I won't fight him if he wants to stay - although we have had issues with his school, his ASC makes him quite innocent and vulnerable and I'd like to keep him close to home for a couple more years!

Same here Dragon, mine has ASC and an EHCP and we are agreed that school 6th form is the best place for him, but we have been visiting colleges too.

May have mentioned before very few sixth forms attached to schools in our county. Our trouble is finding places that do Music A level luckily fairly decent sixth form college 15mins walk away that does it but the other big colleges seemed to have dropped it. Other choices are Religous school sixth forms or long commutes (Dd already commutes and is sick of it). Im happy we have a solution on our doorstep but there is always this nagging feeling that we have 'settled' oh well beggars and all that !

Good luck for those doing the entrance exams and do remind us nearer the time if extra hive support or good wishes are needed.

We are also in an area with very few 6th forms attached to schools. Pretty much everyone either goes to the 6th form college or an FE college. Both are about 7/8 miles away from where we live.

Ds's school does have one but it offers very limited subjects. Ds has already decided that he wants to apply for a Music Tech Btec at the college. (Very few places do A level music here too which is such a shame).

Nowhere has 6th form entrance exams although some individual courses such as ds's course have auditions.

DD also wants to do music so it’s a choice between staying at her excellent school to do music A level which is 3 miles away (short bus ride) or going to the sixth form college to do a music performance BTEC (3 A level equivalent) which is 20 miles away with the nearest bus stop being 3 miles from our house. Pros and cons with both.
If she stays at school she needs to choose 4 A levels which is a bit tricky as she only really wants to do music and drama but considering health and social BTEC (1 a level equivalent) and photography (not studied before). The school has a fab music department and she could stay in the orchestra, string group and choir etc. The Music BTEC is 3 days a week so would leave plenty of time for practice but unsure if there is any ensembles to join etc. Going to visit next term and find out more.

Ahh that's another reason we found actually @Paddington...ensembles /choirs etc are a big commitment..even bigger a commitment if they are 20 odd miles away on a wet and cold evening in Autumn

Go and visit the place offering the music Btec and ask questions. The one at our local college is very much based around pop/being in a band whereas ds is more of a composer/aspiring MD/technician. Others may be more classical based.

A levels wouldn’t be appropriate for ds.

Why on earth are school sixth forms still insisting on the 4 a levels thing it really is only necessary to do 4 for those course that require further maths and such like

@Comefromaway good point about the BTEC. From the college website it does seem more band orientated which doesn’t really fit with what DD wants (classical).
@OrangeCinnamon another good point about why 4 A levels when from what I can see uni offers are based on 3. From the brochure it looks like they start with 4, then take an AS in one but carry on with 3 A levels (or equivalent) in upper sixth. But not sure what the point of that is.
Lots of questions to ask at the opening evenings next term.

DD is dreading year 11 she is getting worse as the holiday break continues. She is very down about it and is convinced she will be rubbish.

I don't want this to spiral out of control. I want to tell her to stop brooding and the get on with it. Of course that won't be helpful. But I really feel if she put in as much effort just doing revision etc as she does with moaning about how much work.there is to be done she will feel happier.
I've told her just to take it all in small steps and stages. Try not to look to far ahead but that prior prep will see her through.
She is scared she is going to fail everything ...which is completely dramatic and she has very little evidence base for. She did bomb a couple of year 10 exams but it was more exam technique than anything else.

I don't know what to do. We had a lovely family day yesterday, record store , coffee, cake, cinema, good walk along a blustery seafront, Vietnamese.

Then she comes home and broods in her room.

Orange It is so difficult to know what to do and adopting the 'if I were you' approach can make things worse as they are different critters to us.
To avoid things 'spiralling out of control' is there any fun things you could do together to gently engage her with her subjects?
I'm thinking re organising her study space/ room, new stationary, inspirational posters etc.
Apologies if this isn't much help- didn't want to read and run.

My DS is a bit the same Orange he's fine when we are away or doing fun stuff them we get home and reality starts to bite. He is doing the work he has been set but is feeling quite paniccy and not looking forward at all to this school year (he loves his school so no other issues). We have a new desk ready to assemble for his room and he keeps making excuses not to have it, is also resisting suggestions of help with filing and organising. No real suggestions but you are not alone.

Yes that's it @expletivedelighted panicky is the word, losing control and not liking the year approaching so fast . Thanks @ProggyMat she is sorting out her new overpricedpleatherhandbag school bag now. She did seem a lot brighter when all her notes etc were sorted at beginning of holidays perhaps it is a kind of 'take control' attitude needed?

Hello, I'd like to join this thread. I need it! As per my username - how the hell has this happened?

Dd on the other hand, completely laid back.

She's a bright kid, has target grades of 8+ for every subject - unrealistic but she's hopefully looking at 7-8s in English, History, Biology, Chemistry, 9 in Maths and maybe Physics (which she claims to hate but constantly scores 8-9 in test with zero to minimal effort) and who knows, or indeed cares (as long as its at least a 5) in Drama and RE.

Maths is her absolute favourite subject, I'm hoping the school will run Further Maths, if they do it will be on an evening, but no confirmation as yet. Her teacher did suggest she could teach herself the content if they don't, not sure how reasonable that expectation is.

She did reasonably in her mocks in May, apart from History which I wasn't surprised at as she didn't seem able to remember anything from the first topic they covered and did not revise. So she needs to do some work there. Not that you'd know it, she's 'living her best life' so far this summer, although we have agreed she will do some History and Maths revision next week.

Dd's school enter them into the English Literature GCSE in year 10 and her English lessons last year were all Literature based (she absolutely loves to read at home but in terms of school work tells me she prefers creative writing and is looking forward to that next year), so she's got her first GCSE result coming next week. Credit where credit is due she really did put some hours into revising for it, hopefully its paid off and she gets a 7, I just have a little nagging doubt about how effective her revision methods were.

We've agreed she will get her head down next year and really try her best, Netflix is getting blocked and her down-time will mostly be her extra-curricular stuff and planned time with friends and family with a strong focus on getting enough sleep i.e dd you don't need to spend hours at a time lying on you bed 'chilling' there's work to be done

She's a good kid, keen to please, likes to succeed; the issue is its came pretty easily until this point. She will pass her GCSEs with decent results, but I'd like her to see where hard work on top of her natural ability can get her.

She's not planning on staying at her school for Sixth Form, at this point we're strongly leaning towards one of the other local(ish) Sixth Forms attached to a school (I think that environment will suit her better than a college, and she must agree as she's never mentioned college as an option) but we need to do open evenings there and at a couple of others. As far as I know there's no test for a place but the website does mention an interview. She wants to do Maths and further Maths, I've said she should really do Physics if she aiming for a (yet to be decided) career somehow involving Maths, and she'd like to try Psychology (I probably would have preferred History or Government and Politics but as with the Drama for GCSE (over a language) I'm prepared to compromise). I'm hoping the Sixth Form we're looking at will have better careers guidance than the current school, as I'm pretty clueless as to where she can go with the Maths, they certainly seem to from their website.

Omg so long, sorry! I promise I won't write an essay for every post!

I don't really have anyone to talk to about this stuff in real life. I had dd quite young and consequently most of my friends haven't even started having babies yet, let alone have teenagers. And even though it feels like only two minutes ago I was collecting my own GCSE results a lot seems to have changed, I also don't remember my parents really getting involved.