Year 10 exams

[FluffyPJs]

My son has recently done his end of year 10 exams. He's got a few of the grades back, for example a 5 in some subjects that he was predicted a 6-8 on his last report. Does this mean he is now likely to get a 5 next year, or by getting a 5 now is he on track for a 6 or above next year? I really don't get it!!!

We will be getting a progress report from his school at the end of term but I can't stop going over it in my head! He didn't really study for these exams so if he didn't do well this should hopefully give him a kick up the arse so he puts in more effort when he's in year 11.

No he will be able to improve on those grades. They normally go up as they learn more and develop exam technique etc

You'd have to ask the school as it will depend what was set. If it was a full GCSE mock (unlikely tbh) there will be work he hasn't covered.

OTOH if it was tailored to his Yr 10 learning, then he should have done better. But they may be marking the exam as "he would get" or "he did get", as you say.

As per others, it depends how the school set the exam. DD was set real GCSE questions for her Year 10 exams, so the grades she's got are what she would have got if she'd sat GCSE now, and in most subjects I'd expect these to go up by at least 1 grade if not 2 or more in the next year! If it's an internal paper, the school may be grading differently. Most DC won't be hitting predicted GCSE grades at the end of Year 10 though (though this partly depends how they were predicted; if based on SATS and flight paths, the predictions may not be worthy of much note).

There is definite movement upward from year 10 to actual GCSEs. How much movement depends on your son. What you can help him with now is looking at where he can improve his marks, in my son's school it is called green for growth where they write in what they missed for each question. This helps them see what they should have written on the exams.

So go over his exam papers with him and drive home the more work he puts in now and over the summer the less he will have to cram into year 11.

Thank you everyone for replying.

The maths paper he brought home was the Pearson edexcel higher tier paper, so a proper GCSE paper as far as I can tell. He got 40/ 80.

I'm hoping he can bring other papers home so we can see clearly where he went wrong, to help with making improvements

At our school they do proper GCSE papers and only grade up to an 8 plus in year 10 and expect them to go up 1 grade next year.

@clary I believe you teach MFL, can I possibly have some guidance? And it may help others too with improving grades.

Ds2 is taking French, for year 10 mock which was a full GCSE past paper he got a 9 in speaking, 8 in writing, but a 5 in reading and a 4 in listening although they were told that the listening was a difficult one. The reading was low as they needed to use more complex sentence structures which they will learn next year but where can he look for help with listening? Is there anything you recommend? He is a very keen learner (thank goodness)

@FluffyPJs

I'm hoping he can bring other papers home so we can see clearly where he went wrong, to help with making improvements

@FluffyPJs In school they are told that for every exam you start with zero marks, so you can't lose marks just gain them. It is all very positive rather than where they went wrong, just what can you write to get more marks.

@OnTheBenchOfDoom
When I said 'where he went wrong' what I meant was if he can see which ones were incorrect we can work out what the mistake was, for example a miscalculation or wrong method. Then he would know how to answer the same type of question next time.

If he's taken an actual maths GCSE paper then 40/80 sounds pretty good! He won't even have covered all the syllabus yet, so there will have been questions he couldn't attempt.

@FluffyPJs ah right I see with a miscalculation. Makes sense, from a positive spin getting 40/80 with little revision is a good start especially as he won't have covered all the content and in particular the more difficult stuff which is worth more marks.

[quote OnTheBenchOfDoom]@clary I believe you teach MFL, can I possibly have some guidance? And it may help others too with improving grades.

Ds2 is taking French, for year 10 mock which was a full GCSE past paper he got a 9 in speaking, 8 in writing, but a 5 in reading and a 4 in listening although they were told that the listening was a difficult one. The reading was low as they needed to use more complex sentence structures which they will learn next year but where can he look for help with listening? Is there anything you recommend? He is a very keen learner (thank goodness)[/quote]
Well it's great that he got such good marks for speaking and writing, as they are the ones that many students find hard - or at least fear they will do badly in as they are quite open.

Listening can be so solid to be fair. I am not sure about the reference to more complex structures for the reading paper, are you sure that's correct? That's something you would use in writing.

The reading paper tests understanding rather than ability to use the language - yes, some questions are in French but even then, answers can be brief and simple.

Listening - he needs to listen to as much French as possible. watch some French films or even use the French version of English films he likes. Les Choristes is good. And you can buy a workbook with listening tasks in - or do all the past papers you can find. Don't worry what board (is he doing AQA btw?) as they will all help. There are lots of legacy papers - the point is listening to someone speaking French and decoding it.

The same for reading really - look at past paper questions, try to do them and see what you got wrong by looking at the mark scheme.

To be honest if it was an actual GCSE paper then there will be topics he's not covered so he did pretty well. The translation can trip people up - it's important to recognise each word even if you don't translate it word for word. For example:
C’était une région industrielle qui est toujours polluée. - "It was an industrial region which is polluted" would be a good English sentence, but the word "toujours" has been omitted - students might know this as "always", but here that makes no sense, it is always polluted, so they need to think around it - and hopefully get to "it is still polluted". If you missed out the word then you would drop a mark for that phrase. It's a good skill to practise.

I think I'm probably over worrying!! But I do appreciate all of the replies, it helps to see it from a secondary teachers view point. I'm a primary teacher so really don't know what I'm doing with the GCSE stuff!!

sorry for the novel as an answer!! I could talk about this for hours :)

My DS is in year 10. We only know his maths foundation from his mocks (we are awaiting the result from his higher.) He got a 4, he was 5 percent off a 5. I hope his performance improves over the next year! It's nerve wracking waiting for the results and it's not even the real thing!

@DrDreReturns
I'm glad I'm not the only one!

My DS is in the same boat, they’ve been told they can expect to improve by 2 grades - obviously dependent on them putting the work in.

I’ve said to him that after the year they’ve all had and missing year 9 mocks completely, he’s done well to sit the exams and this is good to see what to expect next year and to know what preparation is needed.

It’s really good to read the responses on this thread as I do feel really worried for him.

@clary that helps thank you. Yes it is AQA.

To be honest I don't like to look at past papers until he has covered a lot of content as I don't want to demoralise him but we will definitely look at the mark scheme when he gets his paper back and then I can see where to help him.

He has read your reply and took it onboard and we will start to watch some stuff in French over the summer.

@FluffyPJs this is my second child to go through GCSEs Ds1 is 18 so now I know how to play this game a bit better than I did the first time. Going over the papers with your Ds and writing in (if not already done in class) the full mark answers will help him with key words and knowing what the mark scheme is specifying. Revision is a 2 part process, one is understanding and memorising stuff, part two is learning how to apply that knowledge to questions.

I volunteer in a primary school which is my comfort zone with education. I will be back in year 4 in September. You are right to help chivy your child along, you want the best for him and the more qualifications and higher ones you have the more doors they open in future. Year 10 mocks are great for showing what went right and what needs to be improved.

I'm a year 1 teacher and, as my son announced during the first lockdown, apparently I'm rubbish at teaching GCSE level work! I did point out that I'm used to 5 year olds!!

@FluffyPJs

Thank you everyone for replying.

The maths paper he brought home was the Pearson edexcel higher tier paper, so a proper GCSE paper as far as I can tell. He got 40/ 80.

50% on the higher paper is a grade 6 (although obviously it should be three papers). A prediction of 7/8 would be reasonable.

40/80 is not bad at all - look at the grade boundaries (they're online somewhere) from 2019. Many schools seem particularly uncertain this year (not surprisingly) but the standard flightpath suggests a grade of progress could be expected to be made in a year - so 6 now, 7 at GCSE.