Anyone want a thread for starting year 10 this autumn?

[MyOtherProfile]

If so, here it is!

Hoping not to be Billy NoMates...

Hello all my twins ( eldest of my 6DC) all start in year 10 on Wednesday. Scary really for me. GCSE start in year 10 at their school. They both sat GCSE French this year as are fluent in the language. Both got a 9. Thank goodness as if one had and one hadn’t my life would have turned to drink.
one DC can’t wait to start the other not so.
good luck all

Our school have some that they recommend / set work on. I think you need a school log in for them though. Might be worth contacting school but probably they will be in touch about them. Off the top of my head I remember Mathswatch, Tassomai and something beginning with S like Seneca.

DS used BBC bitesize a lot.

So DS and I have just had a massive sort out in his room, which included him joyfully discarding his History and French books! I was slightly startled to realise that he was doing GCSE content in sciences and geography during year 9 (might have pushed him to do more revision for his end of year exams if I’d realised!), so we’ve sorted out that content as he’ll need to come back to it.

i have no idea what the best organisation system will be; with so many subjects at once, how can they keep track of everything, plus adding in flashcards, revision books etc? Keen to know what systems other DC have got going, especially those with older kids!

Does anyone know do we visit colleges, 6th form in year 10 or wait untill year 11?

I'm in. DD is my only child, so every stage is new and a one-off. She's bright but doesn't apply herself, does the minimum at the last minute which infuriates me!

She's been put in the triple science set, this was a borderline decision and I have my suspicions she'll ditch it at half term because of the extra work.
Her options are:
Spanish
History
Classics
Music

I'm hoping she'll be in teaching groups with her friends, we had a terrible time last year with anxiety due to this. She's also signed up to Duke of Edinburgh and I hope that will help her confidence too.

There's no school sixth forms in our area (apart from private) so that's the next thing to start researching. Currently DD wants to be an English teacher, but last year it was a vet, so I just roll with it.

Look at the colleges websites and see if it says when they do their open days but in my experience the school sent out emails to say when they were. My eldest has just finished year 11 and open days were end of year 10.

DC, 14, starting year 10. It's quite a change as their school has an upper school on a different site to lower school and the whole feel is a lot more 'college-like'

DC is doing well academically, but is wondering about being assesed as ADHD (their brother has a dx) - they find school much easier than him, but are some signs of ADHD; mainly quite organised, but surprising lapses of judgement, clumsiness, easily overwhelmed and so on. We'd have to pay, as with DS, as we'd never get on NHS but it may be worth it if it helps them get support for exams. The school is quite good at preparing them and initial signs are they can do very well, but they find it hard to work out how to revise for things like English.

My dts starting Y10 too. They are both keen to get back into the swing of it. DD delighted she’ll get to do Music 3x a week now she’s chosen it as an option.
They’re not back from DH country until next week though so will be missing the first week (DH messed up booking…😫).

Schools seem to differ on whether they make recommendations for specific revision books, and subscribe to different online study websites - there seem to a lot of subscription options for maths, and for science like tassomai and mygcsescience.

We’ve been gradually making note of teacher YouTube channels / free websites for the subjects DS have chosen, so will list them here in the hope they help. Some may be more helpful for certain exam boards. Some I found just by searching on YouTube for e.g. “gcse geography aqa”.

Physicsmathstutors - sciences, geography, some others I think
Savemyexams - sciences, maths, and past paper links for other subjects
Freesciencelessons - sciences
Seneca - just about everything, but I’ve heard you need to top it up with other content
Primrose kitten (YouTube) - sciences, geography
Mr B (YouTube) - geography
Craig’n’Dave (YT) - computer science
MrBrownCS (YT) - Computer science
Bizconsesh (YT) - Business
Guiglit (YT) - English
Mr Salles (YT) - English
Mr Bruff (YT) - English
CorbettMaths (YT) - maths (his website also has question papers)
Stacey Reay (YT) - English
Takingthebiz (YT) - Business
News in Slow Spanish - Spanish listening practice

There doesn’t seem to be much that’s GCSE-specific for languages, I guess because of Duolingo and Memrise.

I’m sure there’s plenty more I’ve missed!

@Geometric , wow! Thanks so much for such a comprehensive and extensive list of resources. It is very generous of you to share - and once my six-year-old goes back to school on Tuesday (cue cheering, bunting & the popping of cheap fizz bottles), I will be checking all of these out.

Managed to have a nice 1;1 lunch with DS2 yesterday. He is hoping to change drama to Art today when back at school. Should be fine as long as there is room as in the same
block.

He doesn’t really know what he wants to do but said he thinks definitely something more towards the creative side - specifically , he said he wants to design football kits. We took a glance at various A levels and he needs a 6 in Art for Graphics A Level and a 5 for Photography. He is middling, mostly because he puts barely any work in so is an old B/C but can easily slip to D but he has also agreed to maths tutoring so hopefully he’ll work hard and get a load of 6s, if he does better a massive bonus but he is mostly about doing just enough.

That's interesting @MyOtherProfile Like @Plumbear2 I was wondering about when 6th form open days were too.

I hadn't really thought about it before as I just assumed DS would stay on at the same school for A levels but I've been looking at the website of a local [well regarded] college and it's very impressive, and offers a large variety of subjects.

DS has no idea what he wants to do once he leaves school. His favourite subjects are History and English. He also really enjoys Mandarin but I'm not sure he'd want to do an A level in it. The large local college doesn't offer it, so unless his current school is planning to offer it it won't be possible anyway.

If he took English Lit and History A level I'm thinking maybe philosophy or law as the third A Level? All his other subjects are maths/science so don't really fit with History and English. Apart from psychology I guess. But he says psychology is boring so I doubt he would do an A level in it anyway. We were given this website as helpful: sacu-student.com/?page_id=5203

That’s a brilliant list @Geometric - thanks for sharing.

DD goes back tomorrow and seems excited to catch up with her friends. (It’s been a whole 48 hours since they all went shopping together!) They’re a lovely group and it’s going to be bittersweet seeing them move off in different directions after GCSEs. I think most or all will do A levels, but they’re generally aiming for competitive 6th forms - state selective and private - so won’t end up together.

Re flashcards/revision notes: what has worked for DD so far for the GCSE material covered in Y9 is to team up with a friend or two at the end of each topic and prepare a short Powerpoint presentation (so a slide covers what a flashcard would cover). The girls share the slides they have made and when you put them all together they have a set of slides stored online which perform the same function as flashcards. At least that way they don’t end up strewn across her floor with everything else!

My youngest started his Y10 today, it's going to be an interesting couple of years! My next one up starts uni in a couple of weeks - #2 went back to his final year today and eldest starts a Masters soon - so he'll be the only one here which I'm not sure he (or we!) will feel about it once it happens.

He's at a boys' grammar and on the face of it, is very bright but has an ADHD assessment later this month. All his older siblings have it - as do I - and I'm hoping that by picking it up in him much earlier than the others, he might stand a fighting chance of getting the grades he's capable of achieving. @Echobelly we've had to pay too but he actually requested that we do it. It's made a really big difference for the older once at uni in terms of the support they can access.

A key area will be the teachers he gets, we know a couple of them well and they know his quirks and difficulties. I just hope there's been some sort of handover to the new ones as knowing him, he'll disengage v rapidly if it's not working for him. We were promised an IEP last half term which didn't materialise and there's now a new SENDCo...

Hi all, place marking. my son has just started year 10 and this is all new to me. Grateful for the thread.

Well first week went ok, though DS2 had Friday off as he was not feeling well. I was annoyed as it really transpired his legs were hurting and he was tired from football training the night before. He won’t get away with that again.

He is taking a very relaxed approach but has agreed to Spanish and Maths tutoring to ensure he can be entered for the higher papers. He is prob 5-6 student in these but want him to have the opportunity to get that 6 or higher if he works hard whereas the foundation papers will restrict the grade he can get.

We are supposed to be decorating the bedroom he shares with his year 7 brother so really need to create some workspace - currently he has sprawled his gaming stuff everywhere.

Two days off school here already - bad sore throat (but covid negative). At least he’s already contacted people in his class for their notes. He has his first topic test coming up, remains to be seen if he follows his earlier plan of revising properly for topic tests and making revision materials, I’m not convinced! He has organised his shelves though - seems to be getting a fair few textbooks sent home, unlike previous years.

School have already emailed out the plan for the year, so when they get reports / grades, and when the year 10 exams will be, after Easter rather than after May half term which previous ones have been. Which is good news - we like to go away for May half term but it screwed up his revision a bit last time. Obvs can’t go away the year after!

Hope things are going ok with everyone else!

Going ok here.

DD seems to have realised it would help her if she had a wider group of friends, so seems to talking with others in her options classes.

She struggles with friendships and confidence. I've been guilty of stepping in to tell her how to solve problems, but I'm now getting her to tell me how she's going to tackle something.

Homework hasn't been too bad so far, although she had a lot over the summer. No doubt it will start increasing.

She's doing art and not yet figured out how to juggle the big art case and equipment, particularly on PE days.

We've not had a timetable for exams etc. im yearning to book a holiday for next Easter but guess I should hold off until we know more.

DD has actually come home and done some homework without prompting a couple of times this week already. Long may that continue!

Checking in after week 2.

DS2 seems motivated, verbally. But I am yet to see him actually sit down and not pick a PlayStation controller! Though he has been out to football a fair bit.

He has agreed to maths tutoring which will hopefully get him to a position of being able to sit the higher paper at least,

I’m glad to see that this thread is still flourishing and it’s great to hear everyone’s updates. DD seems to have made a good start to Y10; in the eight days she’s been in school, she’s been awarded 25 achievement comments and not a single behaviour comment. The latter is a considerable achievement in itself for DD, who is blind and has ASC and ADHD, as the children are punished with negative comments home if they, for example, forget their reading book for the one day a week of form time they’re meant to use for quiet reading.

In my ongoing campaign for an EHCP (I’ve been pushing since Y7), my local authority finally agreed to a needs assessment (school has never supported as they think they are meeting her needs and the head of SEN has repeatedly told me that the LA won’t give her an EHCP so there’s no point in applying) and I’ve received the educational psychologist’s report back - which basically confirms absolutely everything I’ve been saying to school and other involved professionals for years; that DD is lonely as she has NO friends at school, she doesn’t know how to sustain friendships, that she is massively anxious but masks incredibly well. Fingers crossed for a full EHCP.

The upside of having no friends and social life is that DD does have plenty of time to do her homework! But what I wouldn’t give for a few detentions in exchange for a ‘normal’ teen girl who was too busy having fun with her friends to meet her deadlines.

First week was fine. DS 2 settled into new classes well and started to receive a few commendations. However week 2 has gone downhill. It started on Sat when he banged his head in the first game of the season so now can't play or even train for 3weeks. Then on Tuesday his school bag disappeared from outside the dining hall (they are not allowed to take them in). The bag had about half of his brand new work and text books, all his stationary and his headphones. We are hoping it was taken accidentally and will therefore turn up in school somewhere eventually as it will have been dumped when the culprit realised it wasn't theirs. However he has had to cope without it for the last 3 days and is gutted about the headphones.

@Mumski45 , oh no, I can only imagine how my DD would react to the loss of her headphones. And I most definitely would not be able to afford to replace them. Fingers crossed that they - and the bag - turn up soon.

Hey everyone.

my DD has just started Y10 too. She’s done well at school up till now so hopefully that continues. Had lots of friendship problems over the past few years that I really hope are over now - she’s moved into a new group that seems to be working out I hope. Think she’s got a boyfriend now though which is a slight concern!

she’s trying to decide whether to do further Maths as an extra GCSE, will have to stay after school for one hour a week (doesn’t seem long enough to do a GCSE in?), anyone else know much about this?

Hi @DistrictCommissioner - I know a little about it, as DS is likely to be offered Further Maths GCSE too. There’s a good discussion about it on the thread below. What’s confusing is that there is also something called Additional Maths, which is slightly above a GSCE level course. DS will do it because he wants to do A level maths, but I don’t think the content gives you a particular head start.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/4178816-GCSE-Further-Maths-Does-your-school-do-it