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Secondary education

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Original poster

1000 word essay for y9 triple science student

51 replies

Mumdiva99 · 08/10/2021 14:22

A young girl I know is just in year 9 and has started her GCSE study (still do 3 years study here). Her homework is a 1000 word essay on one of a number of subjects. She's chosen the one on vaccines.

She is struggling for a number of reasons including some SEN which means she struggles with writing stamina (that is a different issue).

Is this a usual task for science GCSE's? I thought the assessment for all 3 sciences are question based and not essay based so can't see how this helps her study....

My son is at another school and also doing triple science and has nothing like this as homework.

-- she will do the task. Parents have tried to help but there is the usual resistance to parental support....she's said she will let me try tomorrow. I just feel this is a lot of unnecessary stress and worry for a child who already struggles with school work and she won't accept handing in something she hasn't given 100% to.

OP posts:
Original poster
Mumdiva99 · 09/10/2021 09:43

Thanks @user1471530109 and @legoclone as this child has identified issues with writing stamina it just feels mean to me. If I was mum I would be raising merry hell. I'm not and can only support by supporting the student today. (She's also been told these marks are part of an assessment....which piles on the pressure for her and her inability to cope....it all just feels mean and tough). I have said to the mum the internal assessment is not important in the grand scheme of things....its not part of the gcse marks. I'm in no way suggesting that work set isn't important or you shouldn't support the school school...but this child isn't getting the reasonable adjustments she should be to support her needs and I see the fall out and it really upsets me.

OP posts:
HarveySchlumpfenburger · 09/10/2021 15:29

What reasonable adjustments does she normally get in subjects like English when writing essays?

CuckooCuckooClock · 09/10/2021 16:19

The thing is if she never has to do extended writing then her stamina won’t improve will it?
As a science teacher I’m saddened that so many here would argue against this task because she won’t need it in the exam. A good science education should be about so much more than just what students are examined on. We would give this sort of task to our students at my school. If you think it’s ‘busy work’ to do extended writing then you are really missing an insight into your students true understanding. Properly prepared and structured extended writing will give masses of assessment information. It’s just a pain to read a class set of essays so most science teachers don’t do it.

Heyha · 09/10/2021 16:24

Crikey I've never set that for anyone below year 12- I can't see what it will achieve? Six-marker and six-marker style questions absolutely, even at the beginning of the course. I could possibly see an open-ended 500 word one as a revision summary type of thing for an older student being worth a go too. I hope she gets on ok with it and it's definitely a question to ask if it becomes a regular thing.

SallyDoTheDishes · 09/10/2021 16:34

Even for English lang narrative task in an actual GCSE is around 600 words.

I am going to focus on the reluctance to use the help offered by her Mum. Ds2 is in year 11 so basically up until now any help I have given him we call teaching him to fish, obviously in the GCSE exams he will be fishing all by himself but right now, structuring essays or learning the best way to answer questions is being taught to fish. I also remind Ds that his teachers are teaching him stuff, we are just supplementing that teaching. We are not doing the work, just guiding him on how to do the work.

A 1000 word essay at 13 that is not warranted by the course feels weirdly unnecessary and as a parent I would ask why it has been set.

Original poster
Mumdiva99 · 09/10/2021 17:49

@cuckoocuckooclock obviously I'm not in the lessons so this could be wrong....but from what has been said it is that lack of preparation and support that has caused the meltdown ....just being given the task on paper. I do hear what you are saying about well rounded education.....

OP posts:
Original poster
Mumdiva99 · 09/10/2021 17:51

Thanks everyone for your input and support. Now to see if she'll actually let me help.....(not do it for her but help her get a manageable structure).

OP posts:
peewitsandy · 09/10/2021 18:40

I think this type of homework requirement, highlight's huge inequalities in pupils backgrounds, access to articles and their abilities. All year 9 children with this type of project are going to ask their parents for help and guidance. I can't think of many year 9 kids who would not need parental help for this assignment.

Therefore, it will become obvious with how the essays are structured, whose children's parents went to University and which one's didn't . DD1 is year 12 at a Grammar School, she achieved a 9 in Chemistry GCSE and she is moaning about having to write '1250' words piece the structure of chemical compounds !

CuckooCuckooClock · 10/10/2021 07:16

Yes I do agree that without proper guidance this would not be not a good homework task. I’d also say it’s quite early in the school year for something like this.

CuckooCuckooClock · 10/10/2021 07:19

And by year 9, homework should be completely independent of parent involvement (except a little prod to actually do it) apart from in cases where send mean the students cannot work independently at all.

Original poster
Mumdiva99 · 10/10/2021 08:27

@cuckoocuckooclock there is SEN here. She's a good girl and tries her very best. This has been completely overwhelming though.

OP posts:
user1471530109 · 10/10/2021 08:33

I disagree completely with @CuckooCuckooClock. (Sorry!). A year 9 student?! Come on!
Surely if the task was to 'broaden their education', give them an article on vaccinations and their history and get them to summarise or evaluate it. Something that would actually be useful both for getting them to read around the subject but also for their exam (evaluate 6 markers).

Also OP, if a student I taught was this upset by a task I'd set, I would want to know. I'd get her parent to contact the teacher and HOD. I'm sure the student is not the only one struggling. Poor kid.

MakkaPakkas · 10/10/2021 08:40

I think this is a lot for year 9. I teach science undergrads (but for a humanities related topic) and their assignments range from 1000 to 3000 words.
Something that might help, as well as breaking it up as PP suggested, is to have a bank of connecting phrases to use: www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/ this is a good link for a bank of them.
There are similar (less detailed) ones around, but I've linked to an undergrad one there partly because it's a bit more precise and partly because those phrases will up the word count.
She could make notes for PPs sections and then fill in with the right connecting phrases if she lacks confidence with her writing.
Good luck! I feel your pain with getting teens through anxiety brought on by school!

DoubleTweenQueen · 10/10/2021 08:45

@Mumdiva99 It's a useful task as the students will have to do a bit of research and gather pieces of information to put together into a nicely structured narrative.

She needs to do some reading around -
What is a vaccine?

The history of how it all started and diseases tackled - type of vaccine used in each case useful detail

Present day - regime of vaccines used throughout a person's life, from infancy

Vaccines you might need to have if travelling to other parts of the world

New vaccines discovered - including the different types against SARS2 (covid - but she needs to use correct nomenclature)

Very exciting new vaccine against malaria.

Round off with a summing-up/conclusion.

Should easily be 1000 words. I imagine she will do it on a lap top as it will count words as she goes along, and can start document with her notes as she finds them, and edit to finished article.

midgedude · 10/10/2021 08:50

It's only 2 typed pages ?

DoubleTweenQueen · 10/10/2021 09:00

@Mumdiva99 I would also say to her to do what she can! This exercise is for her to grow her skills.

Once she has some sort of plan she will hopefully not be overwhelmed, and in my experience it's supporting them to see a way to tackle what seems an insurmountable task is the key.

I usually sit down with my daughters and talk through the task and lead/support them into coming up with their own way to approach. Then they grow a little bit in confidence for the next time.

CuckooCuckooClock · 10/10/2021 13:33

No need to be sorry user you do what you think is best for your students and I’ll do what I think is best for mine. There’s more than one way to skin a cat!

TeenMinusTests · 10/10/2021 19:34

I think some previous posters are spectacularly missing the point of what average 13yos are able to do let alone those with SEN issues of writing.

Research around an untaught (or not taught at that detail) subject can be fraught with difficulties (finding relevant info at the right level of detail)
Note taking can be hard
Organising the information
Writing it up so it is ~1000 not 500 or 3000 words.

Highly stressful.

peewitsandy · 10/10/2021 19:57

There is a reason why Universities often impose penalties on essays that do not come within 10 per cent on either side of the word threshold.
This is because this is a skill that comes through experience . This is usually a skill undergraduates learn in their first Semester. Therefore, to expect a 13 year old child with SEN to construct a sort of mini version of what is expected in Higher Education is ridiculous!

RedskyThisNight · 10/10/2021 20:26

Absolutely Teen. Being able to find suitable sources, research information, pick out important points and to summarise in your own words are really difficult skills. Let alone being able to write 1000 words worth.
Even the candidates in line for top grades in English are only expected to write around 700 words and they only have to worry about the writing bit there - not the pre-reading and extracting information bits.

Madcats · 10/10/2021 20:33

Year 10 child in selective £ school probably spends about 20 minutes per subject on homework.

Is that teacher new?

She chose GCSE subjects part way through year 9, BTW.

DoubleTweenQueen · 11/10/2021 10:22

We are also in a selective school, and my yr 10 has 45mins per subject for homework, or longer if it's a researched piece of work/essay over a week or two.
This sort of request she's used to, for a number of subjects, but clearly not all schools, and particularly students, would be.

What I would say is that any student who is finding any piece of work stressful or insurmountable should really talk to the teacher who set the work. If the student in question has particular difficulties, perhaps the teacher could ease the task by altering it to what she is able to manage - reading around then a private discussion about what she's found out, to show how much she has understood, rather than the formal essay?

NateAlexander · 23/07/2022 12:40

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KindergartenKop · 23/07/2022 22:26

1000 words is probably a stretch for a y9 but not for a y11. A level essays tend to be about 4-5000.

Not sure about why they're doing a science essay though.

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