Anyone want a thread for starting year 10 this autumn?

[MyOtherProfile]

If so, here it is!

Hoping not to be Billy NoMates...

Mine has been revising all week! I had to make her stop and come for a walk today. What's happening!

That’s impressive @woohoowoohoo - does she have tests after half term or more general revision?

@EmmatheStageRat DS is doing Geography and we don’t subscribe to anything - he’s never been one for reading non fiction magazines, though we’ve tried! He does watch things like the Simon Reeves documentaries with us sometimes, some good irfan geography issues in those. Younger DS is the history buff, might need to find equivalent for him.

irfan = urban - fat finger typing!

She has tests, they're seemingly constant !

Just coming back to this to ask a question - have any schools had a careers fair yet? DS’s school is having one with a range of local-ish employers and universities, and the year 10s are invited along with the years above. As DS has only very vague ideas about what he might want to do, I’m hoping this might help, there are a few engineering firms coming which he’s expressed an interest in before. Anyone know how it tends to work, and how to make the most of it?

Our school don't do a careers fair, sadly. Sounds like a great idea.

Hello, may I join in? I have DS2 in yr10 with a big brother who started university this September.

DS2 does quite well at school but is now at that age where he wants to socialise more and seems to spend most of his time either on Whatsapp / Snapchat on week day evenings and hanging out in town with friends at the weekend. I don't mind this so much as he's actually quite an anxious person who used to hate going out and so I think the social aspect is good for him but I'm worried he's getting the balance wrong.

He , like everyone else I think, is doing lots of small subject tests at the moment and seems to be doing well enough other than in geography - not sure why as he quite enjoys that subject..

Hey all, how is everyone doing?

We had parents evening this week - and actually in person for the first time since primary school! I was grumbling beforehand thinking it was going to be chaos, but it all ran smoothly - I think we must have all got used to what ‘5 minutes’ feels like with the virtual ones in the last couple of years. Actually found that in person was better.

Overall the feedback was positive, though some stuff to work on. It was interesting how focused the teachers were on recent test results - seemed to be the main way of tracking how the kids were doing, rather than class work. No talk at all about predicted grades though those will be in the report card we get later in the year. One or two mentions of A levels though! I really liked his teachers, came away thinking that they know the kids and know what they’re doing.

Reporting back in for duty! DD is working hard but she is not on track for her target grades for a number of her GCSES, according to her latest monitoring report. School is a slog for her due to her several disabilities, the most profound of which is that she is registered blind. She actually has a mock GCSE exam for RPSE on Monday as her cohort takes this for real at the end of Y10.

I’ve just had to collect her from school as she is feeling sick; there is a D&V bug doing the rounds but I’m wondering if anxiety and stress is coming into play here?

Sorry she’s not feeling well Emma, hope it passes quickly. It’s tough when they’re working hard but not seeing that come through into results - only thing I can think of is just checking that she’s working ‘smart’, so spending time on stuff that helps her learning the most. Some homework doesn’t add lots of value and some revision activities don’t either. Fingers crossed for the mock!

How are your kids doing with time management? This, along with general anxiety, seems to be DD's biggest stumbling block. She has the knowledge, but takes too long to get it down on paper.

She's been referred to the school counsellor, but this also seems to be taking a long while to progress. She wishes she was still at primary school, she's scared of being older.

@Gazelda , at parents evening we talked about time management when doing tests with the teachers a bit. They talked about the importance of quickly jotting down a few words as a plan for answering any wordy question, using the number of marks available as a guide. So, 3 marks - what are the three points to be made, likewise 6 marks. For the higher mark questions this also helps you to see the best sequence to put them in. The hope is it cuts through any tendency to over-explain or waffle, concise but accurate is what’s needed.

Bumpity bump, how’s it all going y10s?

Very little work been happening here, school really don’t seem to be setting much homework. But i suspect there are some topic tests happening that DS is not telling me about!

My Y10 doesn't seem to have much homework either.
They have definitely been doing regular mini tests. And they're doing health and social so had course work for that.
DD has fairly high anxiety and many perfectionist tendencies so we're trying to get her to have more of a work life balance. It's tricky because her friends also seem socially anxious so hard to get them to do activities outside of school - even just meeting up town.

All going pretty well here, with the main stressors being social (FOMO - are the other girls meeting up without me?). DD got a lovely report at Christmas and worked well on an assignment over the holidays which she presented to her class on the first day back. The big challenge for 2023 will be making a plan for post-16 and getting applications in for sixth forms in the summer/autumn. She’s unlikely to be heading in the same direction as many of her friends, so it’s going to be a big change after a reasonably settled few years.

Coming back on here as we head into Easter - DS has his y10 exams shortly after the holidays, so is meant to be doing revision. I’m a bit doubtful about how this is going to go!

The school held a y10 parents’ meeting recently where they were basically starting the countdown - showing the year ahead (only one set of proper mocks for DS, in January), and talk of revision techniques etc which made it all seem a bit closer! I think y11 is going to go very fast.

How is everyone else? Interested to hear how different schools are handling things right now, whether they ramping up expectations or not.

It's passing very quickly. Mocks in June, November and February here. Crazy. We also had the year 10 talk revision revision revision. My child is not in the zone at all.

Lurking to read through later

It’s suddenly got real for DD - she has her first piece of assessed coursework coming up after the Easter holidays - an invigilated timed essay which will count for 20% of her final grade (IGCSE English Language). They do one more of those later in the summer term, so will have done 40% of English Language assessed work before Y11 even starts. Then to decide which 6th forms to apply to in September/October. It will all come round rather quickly.

DD has exams after Easter too. She produced a very comprehensive revision timetable, which I thought was too much and I felt she needed time to relax as well, and she now agrees and has gone out with her mates for the day. She will start on Monday. I don’t want her to burn out so I’m making sure she has breaks and fun as well - next year is for the hardcore working as they have two sets of mocks.

I agree it’s gone so fast - can’t believe we’re into the final term of Y10, and her school is only up to GCSE so she’ll be leaving in just over a year. I’m looking forward to her time at college on her behalf though, no uniform, just subjects she enjoys, more freedom, she’s going to love it.

My DD is struggling with motivation because she doesn't really know what to do next. Her sibling had an idea at least of what a levels and which 6th form so was more motivated.

I'm wondering if helping her look at potential careers might help. Does anyone know a website where you can put in subjects and interests and get some ideas of potential careers?

@MyOtherProfile She could try the What Uni careers quiz:

https://www.whatuni.com/career-guides/career-matcher/detailed/

@MyOtherProfile and/or the UCAS one:

https://www.ucas.com/explore/career-compass

Thank you for those @Marisquita

Hello everyone, I was here at the beginning but life has got in the way of posting, but it’s becoming a real slog with DS2 so I need some help.

He is predicted (currently, not official predictions) mostly 4s and 5s and I would be ecstatic with this if I knew he was trying hard. The issue is school have communicated to them that a 4 is a pass and he is currently managing that without any effort so is basically just not doing any work. He is doing art and wants possibly to do some arts based subjects at college but he has done not one piece of art work at home and is predicted a 5. He has refused my offer of a tutor for any subject (I’ve suggested maths at a min); does all his homework in about 45 mins on a Sunday. He is refusing to engage in any revision even though at parents’ evening they said even 15 mins a day over the holidays would help. Today, I let him off chores when I went to work if he did the small amount of revision I sent him. I sent him a 4 mark history question (he likes history so I started with that). He hasn’t done it but been on his phone and P.S. all day. I’ve said we might have to consider taking it away if he won’t revise even 15-30 mins when I am literally providing the work so he doesn’t even have to work out how to revise - I am literally giving it to him on a plate. He said I can take it away but then he’ll just sleep all day.

He thinks he can cram at the end because he thinks that’s what his brother did, but his brother worked consistently hard all the way through so had a decent foundation and worked continuously hard at every piece of homework and did actually revise even if DS2 thinks he didn’t.

He just won’t understand that the grades are about keeping his options open and allowing him to chose what happens next rather than being told. I just don’t know how to inspire him. He just says he’ll do whatever course he can get on then do whatever happens next, prob a job.

He has decent role models, all the resources, I just want him to put a bit of effort in so he can pick the sixth form/college and the course(s).