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

We had a meeting at school last week titled 'Coping with GCSEs' mainly based on effective revision, was quite informative although probably nothing we don't already know. Was helpful to receive all the exam boards so we can get past papers etc.

DD got her report yesterday which she was really disappointed with, she has been given target grades across all subjects of a 6 except RE which is a 5. For someone who struggles a bit academically I think this is great, tried to impress on her that predicted grades are at best an educated guess however she was having none of it

Thanks. She managed until 12:45 which is better than nothing. Once home she had a sleep then tomato soup. Early night tonight, try again tomorrow, if she can last until lunch that would be fine as PE after lunch then INSET on Friday.

We had a long instance in the holidays, but she was seasick on the way there and then was worried about coming back.

Had she suffered prior to the sea sickness incident? Just wondered if it could be linked to that. I have emetophobia, I know most people on Mumsnet think that's a load of crap, but it's very real and very debilitating.

Silence Yes she had, but that is an interesting point and I will consider it.

re grades. Are they target (which might be set from y6 SATs) or predictions, or what? DD has a target of 4 for English based on SATs and desire to pass, but end y9 was predicted a 2/3, and recently got 5 on an assessment, so all over the place really.

A bunch of 6s would be like Bs in old money, so great for someone not massively academic.

She's been giving a grade of where she's sitting now and predicted grades. Like you I still think in old money so a set of Bs would be amazing.

Sorry to hear about your dd feelig sick teen.
I would be encouraging my dd to school even with nausea. Mine have to be in bed and sleeping/ resting or in school.

Does she eat breakfast?

A friend of mine had a dd who was always feeling sick in the morning. Visit to GP revealed she wasn’t eating breakfast and the dr told her always have breakfast and it went away straight away after that.

these are my gcse options •-•
~compulsory~
•maths
•english language
•religious studies
•latin
•biology
~3 options~
•chemistry
•geography
•home economics/history idk what to pick
~reserves~
home ec
computer science

Hello,
With Seneca what do people think of free version rather than paid?
What are experiences with it.
Thanks.

I'm quite liking the free version so far, though I haven't seen what I'm missing with the paid iyswim?
We've been using it for Biology, Chemistry, Food & RE so far.

Yes, just looked at the biology and did a quiz thing.
Good thing I am not the student!
Will show site to ds when he is in the mood.
He is watching I'm a Celebrity on catch up so his interest is zero at the moment...

It looks to me like it will be quite good for getting the basic core knowledge learned but I don't know yet on 'applied' knowledge.

Some bright spark has decided it's a good idea to do a y10 English Exam & a Maths exam on the same day next week. Just as we are struggling to keep going in our house.
(I know it's reasonable from the school's point of view, but still.)

@TeenPlusTwenties Not long until Christmas now, and a nice break. Hope you and your DD keep your spirits up.

DS had English and Maths tests today.....bad enough he thought, till he found out that pe was country dancing that made his day pretty much unbearable

Country dancing?! In year 10?!! DD would have loved that (we love a good barn dance in our household), but I just can't imagine a load of awkward 14/5 yos having to do grand chains and baskets etc.

All year groups have to do it from year 7-11 and we’re not even in my homeland of Scotland!! I think it’s brilliant.....the kids not so much

Both my girls are crawling to the end of term....I work in a secondary school and I feel the same

DD had a physics exam today, Business tomorrow and History next week she also has her first go at her English speaking next week.

Bit peeved as her Business teacher left last week, her replacement said he doesn't like teaching AQA and has changed them to OCR

Right that's it. I've officially had enough of this term. DD is actually being sick now (as opposed to the stress feeling sick but not sick we had last week).
She is feeling very sorry for herself.

Oh no, do you think it's related or maybe a bug? Hope she feels better soon.

Just a bug I think. No doubt she'll perk up tomorrow.

We had parents evening last night.
DS now has Head of English, never been taught by him before. He said the most lovely things about DS which made me quite emotional.
It's nice to hear that someone thinks your child is pretty special, and not just because of academic ability but because they can make someone see the world and the subject they've been teaching for a long time a bit differently and brightens up their day.

I went with the hope that he was reaching his targets and doing well, but came out realising that actually, whilst his academic performance is important, other things are too and I'm so proud that he's a bloody lovely dude who is really happy and has loads of amazing qualities that can't possibly be defined by a load of tests.

Will try and keep sight of this in the next few years when we argue about lack of revision haha!

Does anyone know how much progress is expected between now and final exams?

We've been given current GCSE grades, which are supposed to improve steadily between now and exams, but I'm not sure how much by!

(DD does have target grades relating to KS2 SATs, but hers are a bit squiffy) so not very helpful)

Hello That's lovely and ultimately what is most important, the kids are under so much pressure but it's just lovely to hear teachers speak personally about them rather than just results etc.

Lynette We have been given current level and predicted level at GCSE. This though like you say is based on SATS etc. The school I work in, teacher friends tell me it's not unrealistic to go up two grades from where they are now however that is based on so many factors that it's just not accurate to predict and at the end of the day predicted grades are just an educated guess.

@UncomfortableSilence A two grade increase sounds reasonable and realist