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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

GCSE English resources to help DS improve

19 replies

thelastgoldeneagle · 21/07/2021 11:54

AQA English GCSE. I'd like DS to improve his grades by practising over the summer - can anyone recommend any resources with exercises/questions for him to answer? He's just started GCSE work and is predicted a level 4 in language...
We have the AQA revision guide and he watches Mr Bruff YouTube videos.

OP posts:
clary · 21/07/2021 19:18

Hi OP, I am assuming he is finishing year 9 and going into yr 10?

And do you know (probably not but hey) if that prediction of 4 is "this is what he would get if he sat the exam tomorrow" (fairly useless imho unless given in April of yr 11) or is it "this is what we expect him to achieve in two years time if he continues as he is now.

Assuming the latter (more useful) then he has two years of school to improve. If I were you I would have a look at the AQA GCSE Eng lang mark scheme (don't do past papers, toooo early) and see what sorts of things he needs to have mastery of.

For instance - is he all over the parts of speech, does he know what a metaphor is, a simile, alliteration? And more to the point, does he know why they are used and what effect they have? If not, that's a good place to start. Find some texts, maybe things he knows, passages rom a favourite book and start to analyse what effect the author is aiming for and do they achieve it. Look at the structure and devices used there. Try to find another passage and comare the two.

And make sure he reads, reads a range of texts - try discussing what he is reading - can he verbalise anything about it? It's skills he needs to be acquiring just now.

portico · 21/07/2021 20:51

Aqa Eng Lang gcse is really hard and we were still trying to get the hang of it on the day of the mini assessments in May. I know a few aqa examiners who tutor and cite the CGP Revision guide as a very useful pedagogy

MrsHamlet · 22/07/2021 08:14

OUP have a set of AQA GCSE workbooks and revision guides for English which, unlike the CGP guides, were written by examiners.

thelastgoldeneagle · 22/07/2021 15:38

Yes - finishing Y9, going into Y10. He's working at 3+, predicted a 5 if he continues as he is now.

Thanks - will check out those resources.

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towdenbursgi · 22/07/2021 15:48

Google Stacey Reay - she has top tips for Q5 on both Papers 1 and 2. I am an English teacher and tutor and her advice is brilliant. Q5 is the area you can easily make the most improvement through simple things like punctuation and sentence structure. Both question 5s are worth 25% each of the whole English Language exam so well worth focusing on.

portico · 22/07/2021 16:05

Best thing to do is ask your English teacher, to show you a transcript of Exampro Highlights for a given exam paper, to view examiner marked/reviewed exemplar answers - wish we had known to do this!

thelastgoldeneagle · 22/07/2021 16:24

Ooh, thanks @towdenbursgi amd @portico - I don't want to disturb ds's English teacher in the summer hols, though, and we only got the report a day before term ended...

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FenceSplinters · 22/07/2021 16:30

There’s a big crossover in skills between the Lit and the Lang exams. I’m an English teacher and an examiner, and I would advise finding out which texts they will be reading for Lit, and having a read of them over the summer. Getting comfortable with the Lit texts means they will find it easier to analyze them, and therefore the analytical skills needed for Lang will be more embedded.
Chances are the texts are Macbeth, A Christmas Carol, An Inspector Calls and the Power & Conflict poems. Those are the most popular choices.

marly11 · 22/07/2021 16:41

I strongly second @FenceSplinters comments. Specific question guidance is not relevant at this early stage - it's just too early. It's no good him picking up revision books on things he's not even been taught yet. That's for a years time. The best thing you could get him to do over the summer is read - good YA fiction. There is a strong relationship between regular reading for pleasure and GCSE achievement - not just in English but across the board. If he can develop a reading habit now this will help him enormously. Also regular reading of a quality newspaper. Much of the reading and writing in GCSE English will draw on general knowledge and cultural capital - writing letters, writing reports, writing persuasive speeches etc. They need to be able to reference elements of contemporary life whether about politics, football, racism, the environment etc. Many students just don't have enough of a bank to draw on.

MrsHamlet · 22/07/2021 17:01

I hadn't realised he was in year 9! Get him reading and let his teacher work on the exam technique

thelastgoldeneagle · 22/07/2021 20:36

He does read a lot - he's just finished Animal Farm. Didn't like 1984 so much. He prefers modern books and has read all Mallory Blackman's books and The Hate U Give recently. I have a reading list from school. He can choose some of those of the summer.

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ittakes2 · 25/07/2021 10:29

Thank you helpful thread

lozengeoflove · 25/07/2021 10:37

Hi OP, I’m an English teacher and an examiner. I agree with posters who have said that reading is key. I’d recommend of summer reading of different texts: not just fiction. Non-fiction is examined in Language Paper 2 and one of the texts is from the 19th C so I would suggest he starts reading these types of texts too. They are quite difficult to grasp as the writing is so different from modern styles. Dickens and Mayhew have some excellent literary non-fiction pieces.

lozengeoflove · 25/07/2021 10:38

*^ lots of

thelastgoldeneagle · 26/07/2021 21:29

Thanks, @lozengeoflove!

Argh, not Dickens. Any other ideas for 19th-c writers? Stevenson would work, wouldn't he?

OP posts:
Blueemeraldagain · 26/07/2021 21:34

Mrs Whelan is great on YouTube. She goes through the thought process of each question really clearly.

Focus on the exemplar answers.
Focus on implicit analysis.

Starlightstarbright1 · 28/07/2021 23:12

I asked my ds's english teacher what he needed to work on and sent him to Kip Mcgrath one session a week.

He needs to have a break too.

Lavieenrose01 · 30/08/2021 21:49

Hi, sorry I just saw your post so a bit kate for Summer revisions but thought this might help you. My son used this amazing website offering on-demand GCSE online courses and just loved it!!! The fact that he could review the videos as many times as needed and at his own pace was simply perfect for him. GCSE online courses also have a bit of a quiz so the kids can check ic they understood the lessons and explanation. My son recommended it to all his friend and thanks to these courses he managed to get higher grades than expected so definately worth having a look.

www.gcseonlinecourses.co.uk/

Hope that helps.

jsangh · 07/09/2022 10:46

Hi can you please share the details for the examiners who tutor for gcse,my son is in yr 11 and need help with English literature and language.thanks

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