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

@UncomfortableSilence

Thanks billy glad your DS got through them before having to isolate! Guess that takes you pretty much through to the Xmas holidays then.

He's back this week all things permitting. They are talking about doing the last week online only but he'll still have two weeks in school first.

@UncomfortableSilence mocks starting here too tomorrow for ds, I hope you both have a good couple of weeks - and most important, stay clear of any isolations!!

It seems those of us in England are due an announcement, it states in one broadsheet newspaper today:

“GCSE students in England will be told their exam topics in advance and marked more generously under plans expected to be unveiled this week.

Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, may also announce that students who had lessons heavily disrupted by the coronavirus could get grades with asterisks to indicate to higher education colleges that they should look kindly on applicants.”

How they will identify those who were more disrupted than others I haven’t a clue. DD had to stay home due to DH having cancer treatment but that wouldn’t have been recorded as due to Covid but it was a by product of Covid hospital requirements. There are so many permutations.

@PettsWoodParadise

It seems those of us in England are due an announcement, it states in one broadsheet newspaper today:

“GCSE students in England will be told their exam topics in advance and marked more generously under plans expected to be unveiled this week.

Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, may also announce that students who had lessons heavily disrupted by the coronavirus could get grades with asterisks to indicate to higher education colleges that they should look kindly on applicants.”

How they will identify those who were more disrupted than others I haven’t a clue. DD had to stay home due to DH having cancer treatment but that wouldn’t have been recorded as due to Covid but it was a by product of Covid hospital requirements. There are so many permutations.

Agreed and it doesn't account for those who have been disrupted by their teachers self isolating! My DD has been very affected by this.

Hour before she's due to leave for her first mock call from the school she has to isolate, no mocks for her I'm devastated for her, she's worked so hard, I could cry.

@UncomfortableSilence

Hour before she's due to leave for her first mock call from the school she has to isolate, no mocks for her I'm devastated for her, she's worked so hard, I could cry.

Oh no! Do they not have anything in place for this?

Who bloody knows, last week was a shit show, supply after supply teacher, no email just a frantic phone call making sure she didn't come in

@UncomfortableSilence oh no that's awful, your poor DD. This is exactly what people don't understand-how the level of disruption is affecting our kids. We're still waiting to find out if DD is back tomorrow for her first mock - tutor tried to say official date given was wrong but no other child has been told this, think it's a bit of a cock up on his part. No teachers in school today as "inset day".

How much have all your kids revised for their mocks? Too late for DS now who is half way through, he has 3 Science mocks this week and the last Maths mock. He has done zero revision :(

My niece who is now Year 12 used to bring revision to family parties, was constantly doing school work etc. DS does his homework (reluctantly) and that's it!

He's going to bloody fail!!!!

@Hellohah probably not as much as she should have. DD struggles with revision and having been isolating for the 2 weeks before her mocks there's too many distractions at home. She benefits from the discipline of the school environment. Still in "normal" times this is exactly why they have mocks, to help them learn how to revise, learn from their results where they may need to change their techniques etc. With no yr10 exam practice they are at an even bigger disadvantage when it comes to revision. I'm just telling her "do your best".

DD still can't work out why she's at home as she said she doesn't sit near the child who's has tested positive.

Revision wise DD did around 3 hours a night and weekends for the last 6 weeks, she really worked hard, just spoke to a friend who said in her school those who were isolating did their mocks at home!

@Hellohah very similar to your Ds mine hasn't done enough frantic last minute cramming.He wasn't helped by school saying in assembly work hard it may all depend on these mocks. They have fortnightly tests in some subjects so hopefully he can make it up later. No idea what his predicted grades are everything seemed ok from end of Y10 but as they weren't in school don't count.
I don't see how we can use assessed grades based on mocks if there not all sat in school or how it takes into account kids isolating or having little education last term. There seems to be no plan what so ever from Boris apart from ignore it till too late followed by blind panic then make something up upturn at last minute change it again then it up!
I have doing A levels as well and as its allied health career no drop in grades like other subjects.

Hoping exams go ahead but can't see in what format they could be fair to all

@neversaygoodbye and @eatthatfrog... Thank you, that makes me feel better. DS was self isolating the 2 weeks before mocks too... He doesn't pay attention at home, he is quite a quick learner but does so much better in lessons.

We've had expected grades a couple of weeks ago, but a couple of the teachers put a note on to say that these are minimum expected and not aspirational, so he's well aware if he works he can do better.

@UncomfortableSilence... I really wish DS would show that level of dedication, I'm going to put a rocket up his arse this week and tell him he needs to do an hour a night on a different subject, and an hour on weekends on 2. Will see if he listens 🙄

My DD has been doing around 2 hours a night for the last month (I helped her make a timetable to get her organised). They are also doing some revision lessons at school at the end of the day and she has weekly maths and science tutoring as those are her weak subjects. They split the options and core subjects into seperate sets of mocks which helps a lot. There is also a second set of mocks in Feb/March where I assume you can use the GCSE papers from this year now the resits have taken place.

Word in the papers today looks pretty good on what will happen with the exams next year. I really think they are going to go ahead now. I think they'll be able to take their books into Eng Lit - thank god as all that memorising quotes is a damn waste of time and I hope that it is a permanent change. It also looks like they will have a better idea of what topics will be in the exam and will be marked more leniently (whatever that means). More promising than the radio silence previously though! I feel like schools have been treading water waiting to hear news so hopefully they can forge ahead now (well if there are any teachers left in school to do so!).

@Titsywoo that is what I have been reading which sounds promising...my ds has exams in January- pushed back from December...he has no time revise since homework is piling on and lots of tests ....loosing the will to live on some subjects...the idea he has to revise over Christmas will not be good- I can see it going down hill!!!

They can't put this year in the same category as last year since they didn't miss any lessons compared to this year...

My ds is not mature enough to let the mocks count - since when he was off there was hardly any online teaching - I love his school but was disappointed in the online learning and I expected more from a selective school.

Having the exams in Summer would be better assuming I have understood what is going on in the news at the moment...

Thank goodness I have this forum as my sanity check and I am not alone!

@UncomfortableSilence

Hour before she's due to leave for her first mock call from the school she has to isolate, no mocks for her I'm devastated for her, she's worked so hard, I could cry.

Devastated? Oh come on!

It's no wonder some Yr 11s are gibbering wrecks given the example their mothers are setting them.

Stop putting them and yourselves under such enormous pressure for GCSEs. Show them how to roll with the punches. Roll your eyes when the school start to catastrophise.

Share a pizza with them whilst watching Schitts Creek and assure them they'll get through this.

@EleanorRising that is uncalled for. Do you have a year 11 this year? If not maybe take your nasty comments off to another thread. This is a support thread not AIBU.

@AsPerMyLastEmail that's great to hear, you must be very proud of her.
After much back and forth we've finally received official confirmation that isolating DD won't return until Wednesday missing her first mock tomorrow. Just glad it's now resolved. Looking on the positive she has longer to revise for what would have been tomorrow's exam as that will now have to be rescheduled.

[quote Titsywoo]@EleanorRising that is uncalled for. Do you have a year 11 this year? If not maybe take your nasty comments off to another thread. This is a support thread not AIBU.[/quote]
Actually, I don't think it's uncalled for and it's certainly not nasty. This might be a "support thread" but it doesn't need to be an echo chamber! We need to take the pressure off these young people and that starts in the home.

I have a DC in Yr11. They've been off school after testing positive for COVID. Done their mocks and are now off again because a classmate tested positive. It's a challenging time and we as parents need to show them how to face it.

Thanks for the advice Eleanor **

Unfortunately you are so very wrong in your assumptions that I am making things worse for DD, I've raised my girls in a supportive encouraging way that they know that however they do in school they will always be able to achieve. There never has and never will be any pressure to succeed so you can step down.

Rest assured I wasn't sitting here this morning blubbering, however there is nothing wrong with feeling upset that after working so hard she didn't get the chance to sit them.

Oh and yes you did come across as rude making assumptions about what type of mother I am.

Great news Asper, long may it continue.

Uncomfy - you said you were "devastated" for your DD because she couldn't take her mocks - that's an overreaction that isn't healthy for you or your DD.