dd given a past paper to do at home under exam conditions - what would you do?

[LetterOfTheLawFella]

dd was meant to be taking her gcses this year but obviously things have changed. She's been struggling with French and got a 3 in the mini mock she did before Christmas. This was the higher level. We talked about maybe doing the foundation paper instead and it looks like her teacher is thinking the same as he's sent an email asking parents to supervise her doing a foundation level past paper under exam conditions. 45 minutes and no external support. He's confirmed this will be used as part of the teacher assessment.

Would you help your child in this situation?

Given how shit people are at languages in this country, I'd be surprised if many parents are in a position to improve their child's French exam performance (as well as it being wrong). Likewise the help with 'grammar, vocabulary, argument' - I bet lots of people overestimate their own abilities in these areas too.

@LetterOfTheLawFella

What about this scenario - dd does the paper in the right conditions and you see she has made some silly errors. Would you say/do anything?

I scribed for a year 11 student in his mock exam before Christmas. It's not my job to do that but school were in a bind. I have an a level in the subject I was scribing for and I knew I was writing down wrong answers. I wrote them down verbatim because that's the job.

I don't understand why you wouldn't want to know exactly what's she's capable of? So what if her friends get higher marks, this is where she is at.

Also by 'helping' you are fudging the areas where she needs help and the teacher is the best person to know how to plug those gaps.

I’m also assuming the teacher want to know where she’ll be on the foundation paper so they can make a true judgement of whether she should be given foundation or higher level assessments when they’re released. Regardless of you having no moral compass, you could actually seriously mess this up for her.

All you can do is help her beforehand to revise everything she needs to know. You can't help her cheat.

If you have time can you get her to practise some past papers and go over the answers before she does the mock exam? Usually past papers are easy to get.

The time to ‘help’ her was when you first noticed she was struggling or when she got a 3 in the mini mock before Christmas. Duo lingo, GCSE bite size, testing her on regular and irregular verbs, making sure she has her tenses straight. ‘Helping’ her on a home test is going to be stunning obvious to the teacher when she’s been doing so badly.

i can answer this hand on heart as ds (Y11) has just done 2 weeks of mocks online.

don't help. what's the point? I remain confident that the teachers know what he deserves and that there will be a "leg up" in the form of gentler marking and reduced syllabuses.

If she's already only achieved a 3 in a mini mock in the last month, no way would the teacher suddenly accept work of a radically different standard as part of her grading......

My Y11 DD is helped by DH and me providing a quiet place to work, printing off revision timetables she's created, buying post-it notes etc., not by cheating in a test or encouraging her to correct wrong answers.

I'd suggest that if you're looking for a way to help her get the grades you think she deserves, you complete the Ofqual consultation about how grades will be awarded this year. www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-how-gcse-as-and-a-level-grades-should-be-awarded-in-summer-2021

If she got a 3 before Christmas then miraculously improves to a grade 5 in this paper the teacher will totally be able to see that you have cheated and treat the grade as an anomaly especially when the next one done in school (assuming they ever go back) drops back down again.

Give her lots of support, revise with her, encourage her but don't teach her to cheat.