Year 11 22/23 support thread.

[PritiPatelsMaker]

Does anyone fancy a support thread for the just about to start Year 11's.

I'm not Mystic Meg but even I can see a rocky year ahead of me...

Anyone fancy joining me?

Hi all. I’m currently getting pushback from our school as I want my year 11 to drop one of their GCSEs. So from 9 subjects down to 8. I’m a relative newbie to the British system, how common is it to drop a subject? It’s French by the way. She’s not failing, but only just passing, she takes Spanish and will continue that to A levels. She won’t take maths as she has to work really hard to pull in decent marks and she really wants to achieve a 7 or 8 as we know that a solid mark for math is important if she’s not doing it at A level.

Unless its an independent school they are not very keen on dropping subjects. My son is dropping a subjects in that he is not revising for it and won't sit the exam (we will have to pay £40 fee to the school for not sitting the exam) but we feel its worth it for his mental health.

I dont really understand what you mean about maths though. Are you saying she's not doing it because she won't get a 7 or 8? You really need to do maths GCSE.

@Hellocatshome Sorry I wasn’t clear, I meant to say she won’t take maths for A levels, which is why she wants a high mark for GCSE math as this will give her more tertiary options. So far she is working super hard in Math, and pulling a 7. Just. It doesn’t come as naturally to her like it does her siblings. She thinks she may scrape through an 8 if she has the extra study time. She has the idea that if she drops French now, she will use the extra time to study maths.

It’s an independent school.

I guess that is option B then? Dropping it by not studying for it and not sitting the exam?

Why does she need a high grade in maths GCSE if she’s not taking it for A-Level?

Is a high maths grade needs for one of her A-Level choices? If not the really all she needs is a 5 or up.

Some university courses she wants to consider require maths gcse, if not taken at A level. Business degrees for example. They don’t stipulate 8. More 6-7. She’s keen to come across as numerate.

DS has got mocks next week but really struggling to revise. I can't remember what I used to do. Any advice appreciated!

DS has been doing a bit of revision, and my take is that anything is better than nothing. The only tip I'd pass on from my own experience as a teacher and as a perpetual student is that "sitting and reading your notes" is generally rubbish; encourage him to have short bursts of writing out summaries of important things. Also, it's easy to revise the subjects you enjoy/are good at... so tell him to forget about those and focus on the ones he doesn't like!

DD’s mocks start tomorrow. She was away over half-term on a course and was home ill from school at the end of last week with a temperature and a cough. Am not holding out much hope for these mocks.

Can I join? I have a year 11 DD, currently half way through her mocks. She seems to have calmed down since they actually started and the only one so far she felt went badly is English. We haven't looked at any other sixth forms as she only wants to stay at her school. It took her a long time to settle and make friends, and moving again would be a lot of upheaval.

@W0tnow I am not sure about dropping subjects in general, but if she wants to do Spanish A-level, I would think it would be good to keep French GCSE. They are so grammatically similar, that learning one will support the other. I did French A-level and was able to do Spanish GCSE from scratch in Y12 as it is such a similar language.

I wanted to ask what happens after results day. Would it be okay to go on holiday the following day or is it likely they would need to go into school to enrol? She is planning to stay on at current school, if that makes a difference

@ColouringPencils I'm afraid it varies from school to school, so you'd have to ask! Probably the Head of Sixth is the right person to email.

Sympathy to those with DC doing mocks at the moment, DS has three left to go in the first half of next week. He's generally happy with how they've gone. He certainly wants to stay at his current school for A levels!

Oh ffs so not only is it practically impossible to get DS to focus on school work even though he has a conditional offer from college requiring 5 GCSE passes he has now admitted being addicted to vaping and has decided he wants to live with his girlfriend when he turns 16 in April!!!!!

DD’s mocks finished on Friday. They will get the results for those by the end of the term. We are going to wait for those before filling out applications for 6th form. There are four she would like to apply to and they all have January deadlines.

Does anyone have recommendations for any authors for ds who has just turned 16? He's hundreds of books and an avid reader but I'm after new releases of something that could become a series.

Oh i don't know @NCTDN, sorry. Despite taking my DS to the library for years, reading to them again for years and reading myself, neither of them will touch a book.

My DD is exactly half way through. maths was a pleasant surprise - in Y10 exams they gave top two maths groups an extra hard paper. So the standard Maths higher level paper came as a nice surprise

This is good news: GCSE pupils to have extra help with exams next year www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-63820126

Just about to start 2 weeks of mocks here. School have run some revision sessions at school in lunch times plus lots of online revision after school and at weekends. Great in some ways, but has also piled on the stress for those who are already taking it very seriously and doing lots of work. Very difficult to cater for the whole year group who have such different abilities, expectations and attitudes.

I'm a teacher, and the students who turn up to revision classes etc are normally the people who don't need them! DS finished mocks two weeks back, he gets results next week. Thinks they went OK, and he did an appropriate amount of revision; not to the exclusion of his normal weekly activities. I hope that was a healthy balance!

My DS is the exception that proves the rule. He has messed about and generally had a shit attitude to school his entire life. But this year has been to every revision class going, has requested he be able to miss core PE to go to extra English sessions and has even been found in the library!!! All this and he will still be looking at 4s and maybe the odd 5 but his teachers are amazed. If only he had bothered his arse for the last 10 years at school.

@Hellocatshome Good for him! I will always remember a particular student like that in my subject. The mocks were his wake-up call and he managed to improve something like two whole grades across the board just through hard work. That's wonderful!

@PhotoDad didn't realise you were a teacher. What subject?

Our school hand them all a results slip on a specific day in January, which is supposed to replicate the real thing. Then they have a parents' evening. This combination has been known to galvanise some erstwhile laid back types into action! (But will cause utter woe in just as many because they haven't got 'perfect' scores).

@NCTDN I started out teaching physics, but now I teach philosophy and RE!

DD had mocks in October and another lot due in February. She didn’t do too badly in the October lot but the school have set up a lot of interventions for them to attend ( although some clash with other subjects), and she is making an effort to go to as many as she can .