Starting Year 11-GCSE2021 (title edited by MNHQ)

[indy69]

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

DD has work set for each subject she has that day ie following the timetable. She is mostly following it but really needs teacher feedback and communication. The remoteness is lending itself well to a lack of quality. Understandable, self management is a skill we tend to learn later in life.
I do worry how the whole year group will be disadvantaged and ultimately what the government/exam board will do about it.

Bumping up the thread. How are you all coping with online schooling and the lockdowns?My DD is now flagging as watching a screen all day is exhausting. Plus she has not seen any of her friends since March. We had an online presentation evening yesterday. She won something after all these years and now won’t get a certificate or medal or photo. That was a little sad but hey ho life goes on. We finish in 2 weeks(not in the UK) but I am very sceptical about what the students have managed to absorb in the last term. Don’t know whether the reports are going to make any sense at all. What do you all think?

DD had three hours in school this week and all her class minus two students were in and they put them all in one large hall with exam desks to fit them in and distance them. The school have been great throughout (in most part). But once DD came home and was chattering about her friends it really hit home how much she was missing out. The next day, home schooling again she was actually very subdued.

People keep saying that why do students need brick and mortar educational institutions. Education is more than just academics. The emotional growth and learning the students have over the school year and the interaction with their peers teaches them so many skills which a screen cannot. I took my DD to her art lesson today after almost 4 months. She came out with a huge smile and was cheerful the whole evening. Back to online school next week and spirits will be down again

My DS starts next week and gets allocated one day a week. They are doing proper lessons in maths, English, physics, chemistry and biology - with subject teachers. It will be a two week rolling rota in these subjects, each lesson one hour and fifteen mins. He and I both wish it would be more. His other choices will just continue online and they are just beginning to introduce Microsoft Teams for lessons. The reason they haven’t gone down this route before is the logistics of getting kids online at set times and trying to ensure that all students have the facilities to do so. A lot have parents working from home, not enough devices for kids and parents and siblings.

DD is getting no in school time, we are both very disappointed. The only kids going in to school are the ones who are not engaging in work at all.

She's trying to keep her motivation going but it's hard, she has been meeting up with friends for walks and to sit in the park the last few weeks which has made a huge difference.

Too hot here to walk outside at the moment. She is getting desperate to go out but her 75 year old grandma stays with us so we are being absolutely paranoid. Not sure whether it is helpful. On another note does anyone know the themes foe edexcel art for gcse 2021 or are they released later. TIA

DD's mental health crashed around about the time term started.
Now finally on meds and slowly improving but from a very low point. Next to zero schoolwork getting done.

Booked in for a week of school, but no idea whether she will make it through the door or cope when there.

School have been very supportive, but it's all pretty depressing.

Indy Tough if you are shielding someone, can't help on the Art bit, sorry!

Teen Really sorry to hear DD is having such a difficult time, my DD has some anxiety/panic issues that got completely out of control at the beginning, we seem to be in a more positive place right now. Hope you are getting support too.

Ds was back in for 3 hours a week from last week. The learning online has finally started too after 3 months of very little. He's really demotivated and said all his lessons are very generic, so no differentiation for the sets/ ability levels. School didn't want to open but were forced to by the government and I think it reflects in their offering. Ds biggest issue is his lack of motivation, zero accountability demanded from school leading to poor interaction, and poor mental health as a result of being locked indoors for 3 months. Prior to this he was a very sporty, Very social 15 year old, in top sets and fully engaged with learning. He misses school, friends, sport, routine. I honestly don't think some of the kids will be able to get back to their previous learning levels. My priority at the moment is making sure his mental health improves, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't really worried about gcses next year.

Good evening all,
We just got the end of year 10 report. Not too bad but I was wondering if anyone could shed light on how much an average student progresses between the end of year 10 and the final gcse? Is it the same generally as year 10 or is there a grade or two of progression? DD school has been pretty good with online learning however I am worried about exam skills and timings. Any advice?

Are the grades you've been given 'working at' or 'projected' grades?

It is hard to tell. DD didn’t sit SATs so no benchmark and no working at or exceeding grades. It is ‘finger in the air’ time but teachers have predicted grades verbally early in the year but so far haven’t put them down on paper.

Although DD enjoys her current school and is thriving there she is also keen to confirm that by looking at alternatives but the lack of written predictions isn’t helping.

In the normal course of events, exam skills can improve a lot during y11, as they start doing more exam style questions and the pupils start understanding much better what they have to do to gain marks (e.g. being very specific with language in longer science answers).

But this isn't a normal year...

Bumping this up as people will have more interest now. Has the Uk begun their summer break. We just finished and will start back on august 30th. Bring on year 11 with all it’s charms.

Also how can you share the link to this chats. Thanks in advance.

The independent schools may have broken up but DD is in the state sector and has one more week of ‘school’ which involves going in for a few hours on Tuesday plus reduced home learning as ‘they don’t usually do very much in the last week’ quoting DD when I asked why her schedule for next week was so slim.

DD breaks up this Friday, she has her first time back in school Monday and Tuesday to really just have chats with all her teachers. She can't wait.

DS1 and DS2 are in Y12 and Y10, so we’re facing the perfect ‘shit’ storm next year. Not sure I am looking forward to school start in Sep, followed by mocks in Nov. I don’t think any schools would, understandably, have got a mitigation to deal with hone learning - so quickly during lockdown. Also, the Ofqual consultation proposals do not make good reading; as one poster put it - ‘it’s just minor tinkering at the edges’. Our school does 2 year GCSEs, so a bit dicey for us. That being said, there is still a fighting chance. We have missed studies in half of March and all of April and May; nothing is really done from June onwards - so hoping to catch up in the summer hols.

Finally, I urge all posters of Y12 and Y10 to complete the Ofqual consultation, from their child’s subjects perspective, and submit by 16 July. I would say the same for current Y11s, too, as many will sit AS Levels in 2021.

Hi hope you don't mind me joining in. Just wondered if your schools like ours did assessments during the lockdown. Ours did- and just got the results via their end of term report.

They have marked down DS due to not having handed some parts in however it seems the google classroom link didn't work to tell me there was anything missing. So for example, a B/C in science even though two A's, due to the third being missing. First I had heard

Also DS qualifies for extra time due to slow processing speed and has struggled with it all being online. There has been quite a lot of work and assessments instead of their usual summer exams.

We only got the letter from the SENCO about extra time at same time as the report. I know things have been tricky but feeling a bit lost with all this. Also as the tutor rang to tell me DS was engaging well- they got the ones not engaging into school to work on computers under supervision. He's been working every day from about 10am-5pm so I feel sorry this has happened as he is able.

Also subjects such as DT and music have bene tricky and his grades have really slipped. I have to pay for music tuition due to the GCSE but that has been online too. He hasn't been managing that properly and not predicted a D.

I have emailed the tutor as hoping these grades are not used for the final GCSE if the exams do not go ahead next year. Apparently they will do more assessments when back and then mocks in January. It just seems so up in the air.

So has school come back to inform what is going to happen in the next academic year. Just worried I missed something.

DD had end of unit tests and some assessments but we have been given no results or grades, we got an end of term report directly relating to their engagement with home learning, parents evening was cancelled due to lockdown so the last proper assessment we got was at Christmas.

She's been told to expect lots of testing/mocks in September so has been told areas to revise over the summer.

DS did assessments via forms online and an aural for his MFL via teams. his report gave his assessment grade and a working at grade. He needs an average of 7 across all subjects for direct entry to sixth form . currently he's just under due to a 5 in one exam. He's not learned how to revise and practice questions yet everything night before but annoyingly he did well on it in majority of subjects. Hoping to get him to make a set of revision notes over summer as there is some much for English, drama , RS and biology

We have been told what is happening when they go back @indy69

Staggered start/finish times, year group bubbles with different entrance/exit for each group. Each year has their own area of the school. Classes based on their science sets. School day for year 11 will be form, lesson 1 (1 hr 40), break, lesson 2 (1 hr 40), lunch, lesson 3 (1 hr 40), short break, lesson 4 (1 hr).

DS has had some end of unit assessments but nothing exam-y.

He has Maths lessons through the summer as well, which he's not too happy about.