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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

Starting Year 11-GCSE2021 (title edited by MNHQ)

991 replies

indy69 · 01/08/2019 05:57

Good morning Mums,

My DD will start her GCSE journey this September. MN always has such good advice that I thought we could have a new thread to support each other. My DD has 4 options apart from English, Science AQA and Maths Edexcel. She has Art and History - Edexcel, and Psychology and Economics - AQA. It wpuld be lovely to know what your DC are doing and we could share resources here. I look forward to meeting you all on this thread. We have 4 weeks to go to start of term and a ton of homework to finish. My DD is feeling too lazy to do anything at the moment, but I guess they have earned the break. I will start reminding her next week about the work. Thanks

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UncomfortableSilence · 09/02/2020 18:20

DD has these too and keeps telling me her grades, the tests are useful to revise from not too sure how indicative of their actual overall grade they would be though.

TeenPlusTwenties · 09/02/2020 18:46

I think/hope they can be indicative. e.g. if DD2 can write a grade 6 answer for an RE test then there's no reason why she couldn't do it in an exam. (Whereas DD1 couldn't even write a grade C answer with her books open so she had no chance).

(I certainly currently have the expectation that, as DD has been getting 5s in higher science tests, if she can't get a 6 in her full y10 science exams in May then she should do foundation papers in y11.)

What they can't tell is whether they can actually learn retain and apply everything for 9 or 10 subjects simultaneously, and whether they have the stamina for long exams.

UncomfortableSilence · 09/02/2020 19:25

What they can't tell is whether they can actually learn retain and apply everything for 9 or 10 subjects simultaneously, and whether they have the stamina for long exams.*

This is what I worry about, DD is getting 6s &7s in most of her end of unit tests which she thinks means this is what she is going to get, it's combining all this together across all subjects at the same time so when I say I'm not sure it's indicative I mean it's a good indicator of where they are at at that point but so many factors come in to achieve this on the day.

UncomfortableSilence · 09/02/2020 19:25

Sorry bold fail there when quoting you Teen Confused

TeenPlusTwenties · 09/02/2020 21:13

DD2 has y10 exams straight after Easter. It will be a big test for her as she gets very tired just with a normal school day. I've had a first look at the maximum revision she might be able to do over the holidays and it's really not much per subject. I think the results from them will be much more indicative than end of unit tests.

Titsywoo · 09/02/2020 23:18

Yes agreed @gingerchaos the regular exams and tests do help a lot with figuring out what works. Dd has done a lot of mind maps in the last week which she says helps her the most for remembering (and they will be useful in the future for revising).

Her exams start tomorrow apart from art which she did on thursday and Friday and is unconvinced she messed up. The piece will be used as part of her coursework so she's not happy about that.

She's been revising an hour a night for a month and it hasn't been enough for all subjects so i think she'll have to start in April for her June end of year exams. No rest for these kids!

portico · 10/02/2020 16:55

troppibambini, hi, did you say your Y10 child has exams in Feb. My Y10 sin has exams in June. In fact, his only parents evening will be in March.

I like your school’s style.

Original poster
indy69 · 10/02/2020 17:50

My DD will have end of yr 0 exams in may and then parents evening in June. So we get 1 month after exams to start yr 11 content I am not sure that thy will be able to finish everything in time.

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Original poster
indy69 · 10/02/2020 17:51

Yr 10 not 0 sorry!

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troppibambini · 10/02/2020 18:26

Portico yes they start a week on Wednesday she's on half term this week, goes back on Monday and then they start on weds.

Our parents evening was in November and we don't get another which is a bit bonkers.

We get an effort check and interim report after Easter then final report at the end of summer term so I suppose they still communicate but you just don't get chance to ask any questions..

Dd is supposed to be revising over the hols but she seems to be talking about it rather a lot and I'm not seeing any evidence yet...Hmm

troppibambini · 10/02/2020 18:30

Indy69 dd is assessed a lot they seem to do one every other week. I'm not sure if this is because it was the run up to us receiving predicted grades.

It's useful I suppose to see where she needs to put in some extra work but my goodness she takes it hard if she doesn't do well.

troppibambini · 10/02/2020 18:37

Is anyone's child doing computer science? Dd is finding it really tricky.

Toobuktim · 10/02/2020 21:55

@troppibambini my ds is doing computer science, he doesn’t say much about it really. We haven’t had our parents’ evening yet for him, just interim reports and he seems to be doing ok. What is your dd struggling with?

troppibambini · 10/02/2020 22:12

Toobuktim I think it's the speed of class combined with the fact she doesn't have a natural flare for the subject.
She chose it because she thought it would balance out her options a bit as she hadn't chosen triple science or further maths.
I think she's just finding it a bit hard going.
She had a chat with her teacher who was pretty supportive.

portico · 11/02/2020 01:13

Hi troppibambini
I empathise with you re Computer Studies. My son’s final subject choice was Economics or Computer Studies. Our approach was a negative one; we chose our least worst subject as opposed to our favoured one. We still haven’t got our head around gcse aqa Economics , and it’s the the one subject I’m learning- in order to help my son.

Toobuktim · 11/02/2020 07:40

I had a chat with ds this morning about what they’ve done so far in computer science, he said so far they’ve just covered pseudo code - how to do it and translate it so others understand. He says because he’s done python and other coding he is comfortable with how the teaching/learning is going but knows if others in the class who aren’t as happy as they’ve not really had much prior experience. To be fair though, this is what he enjoys and is good at - maths, further maths and computer science are his strongest subjects, he doesn’t have to put much effort in to do well. English however and German are his weakest subjects and are the ones he really needs to put more work in to get good results.

troppibambini · 11/02/2020 08:04

Toobuktim It sounds like your ds is my dd in reverse her things are English, RE and history and she finds the maths and science side more challenging.
She only did one term of cs before y1O so I think it's come as a bit of a shock to the system.
I think as well because a lot of the class are very maths-y the pace is fast.
At her school pretty much every subject has a lunch time support club you can drop into but cs doesn't, the teacher did say he's available whenever to see her so that's good.

Portico Between dh and myself we could help with every subject but cs it's like a foreign language!

Toobuktim · 11/02/2020 09:19

@troppibambini your dd sounds like my year 8 dd - she and her brother are polar opposites. Only having one term prior to the course isn’t great though, but it does seem to be a subject that gets compromised a lot. At their school they do two terms a year of one hour a week from year 7 - they use the other term to do pshe.
But I’m sure your dd with help from the teacher will do well, a supportive teacher really makes a big difference. It will certainly stand her in good stead for future employment - there is such a shortage of skills in that area. Both my two have been on the free cyberfirst courses run by gchq that cover different age groups all round the country - they always emphasise how much they want kids with training - for all sorts of jobs, not just for them. They especially want girls and are crying out for them. Being able to combine geography or history and so forth with coding skills helps cover other parts of the spectrum that might not be covered by their main intake of boys/maths/science - there are so many opportunities out there!

troppibambini · 11/02/2020 18:53

Thanks toobuktim that's really good info, dd is an all girls school that specialises in maths and science so are really good at encouraging the girls into more maths and science based subjects.

In fairness she has really knuckled down to some revision today and is tackling her least favourite subjects first.

Toobuktim · 11/02/2020 21:34

My ds is pretty laid back and hasn’t even contemplated revision as yet. But they do have tests every half term and full on end of year exams in June, so I’m hoping he’ll knuckle down soon as start getting into the habit of it. He just doesn’t like doing anything at home - does all his homework at school so he doesn’t have to!

Titsywoo · 12/02/2020 20:50

DD has her last exams tomorrow thankfully. She has worked really hard the last couple of weeks so I hope it has paid off. She already got her art grade back and got an 8 which she is fairly happy with (with art she is only truly happy with 9's - crazy!).

Looking forward to some relaxation in half term (apart from all the art coursework of course!).

TeenPlusTwenties · 14/02/2020 17:17

TGIHT.
DD is shattered and was only hanging on this week by her fingertips.

troppibambini · 19/02/2020 13:58

Dd starts her exams this morning. She was really nervous bless her, school do pile the pressure on a bit more than I'd like.
English lit and non calculator maths today.
Fortunately her timetable is not to bad with two exams a day for the rest of this week then three exams on Monday and three on Tuesday.
Study periods in between I think that they could have done with some pe sessions too just to get them out and not thinking about studying.

Hope those on half term are having a nice breakSmile

Toobuktim · 19/02/2020 22:08

Have you already had half term....or is yours next week @troppibambini?
Hope your dd had a good start to her exams x