Study leave for Year 11 has been banned

[BellaBear]

SMT have just announced that study leave for GCSE year has been banned (by the government) and as such, there is no point having any for mocks in two weeks time.

On a personal note [noooooooo I am a year 11 tutir and was looking forward to two weeks of no registrations!)

I understand the reasons are exam results improving in schools where this has been trialled. I think that it has added to our workload and I'll bet nothing gets taken away!

Does anyone work in a school that doesn't have study leave? How do you manage lessons after the exams have occurred? Do you still teach planned lessons or do lessons become general revision sessions?

My children's school don't have study leave. They are expected to attend each lesson until they have done the exam in that subject. In reality they aren't there much once the exams proper have started. Official leaving day is the date of the last exam.

ggirl, get ready to have some teenage whinging

saggar - what do they do if they have a history lesson after the history exam? Do they just not attend that lesson or do they revise another subject in it? (genuine question, not whinging, promise!)

Ours used to revise a different subject. Sometimes in school, sometimes they would go home.

We have some students who do a non examination science course. Once their portfolios were finished andsamples sent off for moderation they used to do other subjects' work in science lesson time. we liased with other subjects, most english and maths.

I really really really don't want anyone to think I don't want kids to do well in exams, I always run extra curricular revision sessions (am doing an AS one tomorrow evening!), I can TOTALLY see the point in not having study leave.

But it is becoming obvious that I will not be able to do as much curriculum development in the summer term because I won;t have as much freed up time in my timetable as previous years and that is a shame. Except that I will be expected to do it, and that is a bigger shame! Dear oh dear.

I had a thread on this earlier in the year! DD's school had results jump to 74% when they started this last year, so DD's year were forced to attend revision classes up to the May half term.

However, DD is extremely self motivated and HATED the group noise, which she said stopped her doing productive revision. She prefers old fasioned writing of notes etc. She got soooo wound up (other kids not working) that in the end we kept her home - after phoning school to tell them.

She got 11A* GCSE's.

However, I would agree that for MOST kids this is a good system. The teachers need to allow for a few individuals though.

They don't have to go to the lesson once they've done the exam - they can go to the LRC and revise another subject.

Seems to work OK. Also you don't get that one day when 'Skools Out' and they go round letting of the fire extinguishers and putting shoe polish on the toilet seats

Interesting point milliways,there can be more distractions in school at times.

Milli, a 'blind eye' was turned for some students

I'm glad MB

My DD is a born swot, but when it is DS's turn I'll probably be taking him in to the lessons myself!

To be fair, the teachers that circulated a revision programme of what they would cover each session were great, so DD DID go to some selected lessons that she needed the help on.

I was Sooo impressed by all her teachers and the care & effort taht is put into every student (at her huge school). They now have 420 in the 6th form!

We do the same thing. A time table goes up at the start of the revision time.

Not that many 'blind eyes' were turned, as most of the kids wanted to use the lessons.

MB - do you still have am and pm reg during exams?

Milli-How is your dd getting on in 6th form ?

We're currently deciding on As levels.

tbh, I can't remember, beacuse in the last two years I haven't been a year 11 form tutor!

Ggirl, she is doing Maths, Eng Lit, History French & German so has NO free periods. She is enjoying the friends & social side of things but the work load is a killer as she also has a part-time job. She is always still doing her H/W up to 11pm!!

I do NOT advise taking 5 subjects. She should drop one at the end of the year, but if has to do so before hand then that would be fine. She was originally wanted to start with 4 & keep them all on till A level, but the school persuaded her to try 5.

We were soo proud last week at the Prizegiving. She got the "Academic Achievement" prize and 2 subject prizes.

no need to blush! Thanks for all your input on this

So does this mean - that for the mock GCSE's in the last two weeks of this term, the year 11's will have to attend school each day instead of being at home to revise?

governoment has banned study leave, so our SMT said there is no point having it for mocks either. So in our case, yes.

Sorry - I dont understand what is smt? I have had a look at the list but can't find this one

Senior Management Team

Sorry, eduspeak!

Head and Deputy Heads

dd has already sat her mocks this yr.Is that unusual then?

milli-wow she's doing 5! Good for her.

dd is thinking of doing physics,maths(already started aslevel),french and maybe music or accounting.

how is your dd finding french,is it a huge leap from gcse?

French is her favourite subject, and she is loving it as only 3 in her class! (Everybody took History!) I think they are therefore progressing really fast.

Maths is her hardest - quite a leap from GCSE.

Ours have just 1 week for the main mock exams, and are allowed home when they don't have exams.

So for most students this is 11am - 2pm most days, or longer if they don't have an exam that day.

Mocks next week and the silly season has started. Yr 11 dimwits setting off the fire alarms 10 mins before the end of the school day. Absolute chaos ....... Roll on Christmas when the anxious parents start to bride children to get as high as grade as poss. £100 for an A* anyone?