Thread 3: Continuing to GCSEs Summer 2020 - Happy New Exam Year!

[OrangeCinnamon]

Continuation of previous thread
Thread 2

Thread 1 Year 10

At the end of last thread there was a bit of talk on prom dresses ( recommend Fonthill Rd in London if you can get there) by @proggymat and @crazycrofter

@TigerMum had a query regarding moving to foundation level at this stage.

Sorry peeps thread progressed without me noticing so none can reply to your queries!

Orals - assuming it's AQA, no presentation on a subject (there is in iGCSE tho).

They have a role play and a photocard to talk about, unseen in advance but have time to prepare, then 5-7 mins general conversation, starting with questions on the chosen theme (of three). IME schools tend to give the students a booklet of questions to write answers to, these questions could come up. A good teacher will try to support the student and draw them out. They need to use three tenses and ask at least one question of the teacher. Spec and lots of example questions is on the website.

Andwhenyougetthere is your ds doing IGCSE?

Anneofcleavage (love this name) she will need a lot more than five answers but if she has skills she should be able to formulate answers. The idea is NOT that students learn 80 answers. They will have general chat for five mins if doing higher, maybe about 20 questions, depending on how much they extend their answers.

Sorry for multiple posts!!

I’m fairly sure she doesn’t need to learn all 80 answers either, especially the quite lengthy paragraphs she tends to write. But she won’t listen!

I suspect this is her school pushing them above and beyond what is required. They do IGCSE for English so have coursework - dd was given a guideline of 1500 words so wrote over 2k, which was apparently fine according to her teacher. But when I checked the spec it said 650-800 words!

It’s so annoying. I’ve always been one to take shortcuts, do the bare minimum required to get the best grades etc so this just seems wrong. Yes, they get lots of 9s but it’s not worth it!

Thank you so much for all of your recommendations. I am looking into them now 🙏🏻

DS hasn’t used it yet but Dr Frost for Maths is apparently good for those looking at higher end of Maths,

What I really don’t understand is why DD insists in preparing completely made up answers for her French speaking. She’s busy learning how to say ‘my two younger sisters enjoy playing tennis and I can help them to improve their tactics’ when it would be far more truthful (and therefore surely much easier to remember?) to say ‘my older brother enjoys playing rugby and I can help him to select new trainers’.

Because she can, you are not meant to understand!!

But surely in a pressured exam situation, it would be easier to remember something that was actually true!

I don't like the fact that our 6th form insists on business attire/a suit. I just think it's nonsense.

I’m absolutely with you and long ago gave up trying to understand!!

I don’t like business attire either and it has put both DS and I some schools.

All the schools near us seem to say "smart casual" (so polo shirts and chinos are fine; random T shirt and jeans not fine) for sixth form near us.
Which I think is better in terms of giving the sixth form students more choice over clothing without it being a free for all.

Clary thank you [preens] I love my Tudor History. Eek indeed for all these questions to memorise. DD is doing foundation and we will be delighted if she gets a 4 as she consistently gets 3s as French is her nemesis. Am even more jittery now. Her actual oral exam is in April with a mock in a couple of weeks.

Kings I'd let your DD remember whatever French she wants to regardless of truth. I remember in my French oral I was asked to describe the view from my bedroom window and I stupidly was truthful which was a very short and boring sentence and so I have told DD to embellish whatever she likes and make stuff up 😂

Ahhh, sorry everyone - I'd forgotten ds is doing edexcel for Spanish: so that spec may be someone what different to others if most are doing AQA!

Our language teacher has said she will stick fairly close to the questions that they have in their booklet but learning answers to all those questions still seems like bonkers use of revision time to me ....

I've spent years trying to persuade my DCs they don't have to tell the truth in language orals - just say what ever is easiest!

I still have nightmares of tying myself up in knots in my O level French oral - I had never spoken to a real French person before, and in those days an actual examiner came to the school for the test, not just your teacher. So I was struggling with the accent, panicking because I was rubbish at French and trying to work out how the hell I had ended up trying to say that when my family went on holiday last year, we had hired bicycles for the fortnight. I ended up saying that we had bought them!! How I passed I'll never know.

DD is doing igsce Spanish - 5 topic areas. Her teacher has given them hundreds of suggested questions that could be asked for them to work out answers to and 'learn'. They have been doing this since the beginning of Y10 though, and have had mock orals at every set of exams they have done, so an on-going process. They also have to choose a photo on one of the topic areas to take in with them and then have to speak about for 3-5 minutes. The rest of the exam is taken up by a few questions on the photo and the remaining other topics.

For prep for the French we have been going through the topics and ds writes down weird vocab and useful joining words for each one and we practice me rattling through it at top speed. Although 80 seems a lot, it is really only 40 in practice as some of them are the same but specific for circumstances.

Some of them will never be asked as well - i.e. if there is one about swimming at school when your school doesnt do swimming. Shit example but yswim.

Seeline What you have just described for Spanish sounds like what my DD had for her Spanish AS.

DD’s (all girls) sixthform have no dress code at all, which seems to turn into a identikit costume of jogging bottoms, t shirts and enormous trainers. Now of course if that was the uniform, they’d refuse to wear it...

And yes, I put the child benefit form in the drawer. Better set a reminder to send it off!

DT coursework is taking over DS's life at the moment. Expecting him to stay after school one evening a week for the next few weeks to make his model. French is looking more likely to be collateral damage although DS attended lunchtime French revision clinic yesterday. He has another Eng Lang mock exam this week and the last Eng Lit mock end of Mar (after they actually finish the last text).

Definitely not encouraging Y8 DD to take DT. She wants to do Art and I've told her that it's not a good idea to opt for Music or DT as well as Art due to the workload. She had to make some initial option choices for Y9.

I'm fighting the urge to post on the 11+ thread ... For the love of God don't do Art at GCSE unless your DC has a spare 6 hours a week or so!!!

Feel that might not be helpful....OMG...the amount of time on Art does my head in...

Aaarrggggh!! Email from DS's music teacher that DS should have already submitted his music composition coursework and he now needs to have it in by Friday in whatever state it is in. DS has been dragging his feet about this for weeks and assuring me he has plenty of time. I have told DS he now needs to get it finished (in theory one piece is finished and the other he was just "improving" so this is hopefully not a total disaster) but he has spent more time moaning about his music teacher not talking directly to him about it, than actually getting on with it!! He hasn't recorded his performance pieces either (again, I think they are ready, but I'm going from what he's told me). Shame there is not a GCSE in procrastination.

DD (currently in Year 9) is taking Art GCSE (and yes, we heard all the warnings in advance). She does spent a lot of time drawing/painting already so I'm hoping the coursework will just happen in this time iyswim. Worried now!!

DD would have got a 9 in procrastination! Sympathies Redsky for the music and everyone with Art and DT. Having seen the fraught looks of friends who have gone through it I was grateful DS can’t draw.

After being in for 2 days DS’s Tutor now has to be off for 14 days. Boy we take to school has friend just back from from Italy and being tested as showing symptoms.