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

I'll have a nose through them this weekend. I got the maths, science and english ones (they do ones for each text including the poetry). I'm also trying to persuade DD to do flashcards for each topic as she does them (particularly maths and science) although I doubt she'll listen to me and will just do her own thing

We got all the cgp flash cards for science in time for his end of year exams in June - my ds hates reading lots, but really liked these cards, found them really helpful. I’m going to look and see if his texts for english have them too as that’s where he really struggles.

Hello all. My DD has just started yr 10, taking 2 English, maths, separate sciences, Spanish, DT, computer science and history. So far going well, she’s so pleased to have dropped the subjects she didn’t like!

DS sat his GCSEs this year, under the 9-1 system, so it’s not all new for us although her subject choices are a bit different from his. He used a great revision system from thestudybuddy.com, which I found through Mumsnet! It made a huge difference. Planning to get it much earlier for DD so we can track how they’re doing against the syllabus and use it for revision for yr 10 exams as well as in yr11.

2021 will be A-levels and GCSEs in our house. Planning a great holiday afterwards to recover!!

DD sorted her English issue . She had a word with the teacher , and mentioned her 'pupil passport' (for SEN pupils), teacher was fine. All happy.

A levels and GCSEs together sounds like a tough year. But at least you can go off on holiday before the end of term and peak prices!

How are we all getting on 3 weeks in?

definitely not bumping above all the school choosing threads

DD seems pretty happy so far, and is doing homework after school without fussing! We saw An inspector Calls at the theatre the other day - ace production.

Hi Teen, all good here, DD is very happy, she's working hard, doing all her homework/revision and getting some good test results.

She's very happy with her teachers although the teachers are amazing at her school, she's very lucky. She's really enjoying her new subjects.

She is most definitely feeling the pressure a bit but to be expected.

DS cruising along like he usually does. Enjoying all his subjects apart from the obligatory Welsh!

Glad the nights are drawing in so might be in with a chance of getting him to stay home and buckle down a bit. Change in weather has meant big wave action so he's been surfing straight from school every night this week.

DD1 seems happy but we were a bit shocked that she will be sitting her first GCSE exam early January.

It's because they are going English Lit in just one year -year 10- but she’s a late August birthday so seems really young not even 14 and a half.

English department was also only one that seem to be chaotic in first week many including DD1 were put in different sets told they were doing mixed sets with no effect on papers sat then week later told it was admin error and she was moved up to set she was expecting to be in.

She seems happy though and I went and bought everything I could find for the sections – Mice and Men and Unseen poetry section so she has them and trying to get her to use.

I wouldn't say she was enjoying the Welsh either but she says it's going okay.

DD seems happy 3 weeks in. Has already had a bunch of tests. Happier with English this year and has a fab teacher for maths. Chemistry is still the bugbear as she finds it much harder than physics or biology. She also started the Duke of Edinburgh award so that will be on top of everything else.

Still, the year has started positively. Long may it continue.

This has got so far behind all the school application threads.

DD is pottering on OK but missed 3 days school last week due to illness so that got her out of routine somewhat. Off to see Macbeth at the w/e in preparation for whenever she does it.

@TeenTimesTwo... I've just googled Macbeth in Chichester, looks like your Macbeth will be more traditional. We went in Manchester last month, Macbeth was female and they came out with machine guns 😮
They stuck to the original text (apart from changing the "hims" to "hers") but it was all very bizarre and not at all what I expected.
Looks like An Inspector Calls is the same company you saw though, so looking forward to that in January.

Sorry I think I've got confused here with my Teen poster names! Thank god its Friday

indy69 Chemistry is DS's weakest science too and I was hopeless at it too many years ago so i can't help much. There seems to be a lot of homework so far this year but he's coping with it at the moment.

One child has already expelled from his year plus another one asked to leave!

Hello You didn't get confused at all, you very cleverly used my previous name. . The AIC was fab though there was some stuff we didn't get the point of (in terms of extras acting, not main script). A nice traditional Macbeth is what I need so hopefully it will be OK. Will be nice to compare with the David Tennant RSC version.

DD is still relative low on homework load which is a mixed blessing. It might be that lower sets get less homework.

Ah Teen I went back and realised you changed your username! Hope you enjoy Macbeth.

DS seems to be getting quite a bit of homework, particularly Science and History.

Not just in terms of frequency, but also depth.
On educake for Science previously they were doing quizzes with 20 questions. At the moment, it's about 50 - 100.
History they do on seneca, and they have about 7 tasks to complete a week, and reading all the information and answering the questions can take a good 2 hours.

I did read on here in some previous threads that the history content is huge though.

All going pretty well here, DD is getting a huge amount of homework which she is managing to get though. She is doing really well in some of her tests and also struggling with biology and chemistry but excelling in physics.

She had a bit of a wobble on Wednesday as I think she felt a bit overwhelmed with the pressure the teachers are putting on her and also found out the amazing head will be leaving in the summer. She had a good cry and felt better after.

Still trying to encourage her to do little bits of revision regularly, not sure how well that going

She has a big test next week before they break up on An Inspector Calls, I think she's a bit worried about remembering quotes.

Back from Macbeth. I'm not an English expert, but a nice solid good performance in my view. Nothing particularly innovative or brilliant, but a good performance for those studying it for GCSE.

DD seems very light on tests so far compared with all of you guys. I don't know whether to be worried or grateful!

Can I squeeze in? DD2 is in year 10 and so far loving art, music and history but maths and science are stressful. There seems to have been a bit of a showdown in maths lessons this week, with her teacher giving them all a rocket about getting motivated and not just doing the minimum to scrape by.

DD2 is feeling unfairly treated. Personally, I think he is spot on.

It's probably going to be a long year!

Chicken Teachers do give generalised pep talks. I just tell DD to ignore the ones where she is doing what is needed.

DDs school loves a good pep talk. I do tend to think that DD is of the do the minimum to get by but has definitely realised in a short space of time this won't cut it.

Half term for us all here but she has lots of work to do and lots of socialising planned too

Mostly going well here, dd certainly happier now she’s moved away from the mean group and has made some new friends.

She’s working hard and doing well in the subjects she likes but ignoring or doing the minimum for the one she doesn’t i.e. maths! She only told us at the weekend that she got moved down a set at the end of yr9. Ive tried to help her revise maths but we end up getting frustrated with each other. Not sure whether to email the maths teacher and see what we can do over the half term or just back off a bit...

Currently on half term break and DH has been told by DD no holiday this time next year or Easter - she is usually a ‘bare minimum’ type and seems to do well but i hope this thought about holidays is a sign she is starting to realise she might need to put in a bit more work.

After a maths blip last year she is back in top set but much to her disgust as the school are hoping she will do further maths - they are doing the main syllabus at a faster pace to leave time for FM but she plans to use this time for more revision and not do FM. Does anyone know when they have to make a decision about whether to enter for a particular exam? DD thinks it is April 2021 but that seems too late in my mind and I wonder if when they school mentioned April cut off for a decision they mean April 2020.

April 2021 sounds about right.
You certainly don't have to fix tier of maths/science until around that time as I remember discussing it with DD1 after her mocks.

We're thinking re holidays in y11 too. I think we won't do any full week holidays over half terms but might do some last minute short breaks. With DD1 we did 4 days in Jersey over Easter which worked well but I wouldn't have wanted to be away for longer.

DD has her 'y10' exams straight after Easter, so that is out for this year too...

Our half term is next week, and will include Halloween and Fireworks so that's good.

Good Where is your DD with her maths? Top set to set 2 is OK, but if she is at risk of not passing then intervention from somewhere earlier rather than later would probably help.
(I've been doing 10mins a day (on a timer) before school with DD2 and it is definitely helping to keep things ticking over. She has always been reluctant to have me help before but the timer seems to make it acceptable to her!)

Thanks Teen, it isn’t just setting the tier of maths - DD is at a grammar and all girls do the higher level, it is a separate extra exam for Further Maths that is being proposed and that is a fair amount of extra revision and exam time too, a whole extra equivalent GCSE more or less. I personally think she should just concentrate on the main maths exam, especially as she is not proposing on doing Maths A level, but schools these days seem to promote STEM at expense of arts subjects and whilst it may be trying to redress the balance - for some it just isn’t always the right path for them.