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?

Signing in

I wish DS1 had had Nov and Feb mocks, not Jan mocks. He’s supposed to be doing art this half term, haven’t seen much done yet!

Has anyone got a good revision planner template/wall chart? Happy to buy!

Hope everyone is doing ok - young people and parents.

@PennywisePoundFoolish - how is your DS doing? One of my DD’s friends is taking a much reduced GCSE set of exams because of mental health difficulties over the past 18 months. Hope the school are being supportive.

@SheilaFentiman - I helped DD make a timetable for half-term just in a table in Word and printed it out to stick on the wall.

She also has art to do this half-term and that combined with music practice means revision comes a distant third. At least writing it down on a table looks more like it might get done. Am starting to realise that she is much better at doing something concrete - e.g a past paper or a worksheet but if it’s just ‘revision’ without an actual task she flounders a bit.

For art she has to do another photo shoot for her final piece as her teacher wasn’t keen on the last one plus go to a gallery and do a gallery page. I will probably help her do another timetable after half-term. It needs to be something in between the school’s suggested version - which has back-to-back revision suggestions and no time to eat or actually travel home from school - and her own version which has 3 hours of music practice and not much else 🤦‍♀️.

School had them in for a revision session for half a day yesterday. And we had a panic over the weekend - she had a go at a past paper and marked it with the marking scheme, looked up the grade boundaries for that year and read it as she would have got a U. Cue me downloading the exam spec to see where I could possibly have a go at tutoring her myself before checking the grade boundaries to see she had read the table wrong 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️. It’s going to be a long 4 months.

I hope the photos DS1 had done for his final piece are ok, he was a bit slow at doing them and not sure if the art teacher saw them before the break.

i don’t think he’s done much yet this break, though I have bought a stack of CGP revision books.

Aargh, still not much happening on revision and coursework. How are other teens doing this half term??

Our half term in next week DS has had mocks all week and will have 2 more weeks of mocks after half term. He has actually done some revision but we are talking less than 1 hrs a night whereas lots of people seem to be saying their kids are doing 2 to 3. He is going into school for 2 days over half term to do some revision classes so at least that is some structure.

DS did mocks in Jan and I think Nov and Feb would have been much better for him! It’s been a bit relentless and he wants to kick back, but the art is due in about 5 weeks so he has to crack on!

Hello, good to see the thread active.

I'll do a massive rant about DS2s school then try not to mention it anymore!

His school's starting response to him being unable to attend due to anxiety was "mental health issues are not illness" and they put it down as unauthorised. What makes it even more staggering is a Yr11 pupil took their own life when DS1 was in Yr7. We live in a semi-rural area and the school serves the local villages, where everyone knows everyone or at least Friend of friend kind of thing.

They have since backed down after I pointed out the DfE guidelines etc. But have yet to actually respond to my letter on it.

The SEND Team have been kinder than the attendance, but in saying that the promised action from the meeting has not happened. The school have not replied to my emails asking about iMedia Btec and Geography.

DS2 managed to go in for the last 3 periods last week which was a massive increase.
The headteacher came in to observe a lesson and sat next to DS2. Picked up his workbook and said it was very scruffy. He said "yeah". She then said it looked like he was missing a lot of work and he said yeah I've been off for a while.

Now I know they will say the HT didn't know who he was. But as it was Children's mental health week, I've pointed out that perhaps the HT needs to reconsider they she interacts with pupils she doesn't know.

Rant over

That’s awful @PennywisePoundFoolish

DS also struggled in year 10, luckily school were brilliant with a counsellor and other support and he is doing better, though I’m keen to keep the balance of encouraging and not pressuring!

@PennywisePoundFoolish I’ve name changed as this could be outing but just wanted you to know that you have my sympathies and support, as my DS in Y11 has had an awful secondary school experience due to MH issues, injury, diagnosed with ADHD. It’s been a journey, one I’m glad is almost over.

DS has a reduced timetable and is only taking 5 GCSEs. We did have the help and support of a local charity who have been great at putting things in place with school. They are there to support children, young people and their families. DS originally was supported by one of their counsellors (when the school couldn’t offer help due to there being a waiting list).

I’ve no idea currently if DS will achieve any GCSEs as there are many gaps in his learning. He did manage 4s in English Lang and Maths his mocks before Christmas, so we’ll see.

Main priority is getting him through these next few months, then we’ll cross that bridge!

@GinGella if it's OCR then we're using the revision flashcards bought via Amazon. DD has also had to pretty much teach herself as her teacher is hardly ever there and just sets work online for them to do. Or does massive catch all sessions where everything is so rushed that the kids don't have time to learn anything. For example, DD has an assessment this morning on three full topics that they only covered yesterday in 40mins.

Thank you sounds very very similar to here except the exam date. Really frustrating as it has really put my DD off she has always been into coding etc and now cannot stand it.

@PennywisePoundFoolish im really sorry to hear of your DS struggles. I’ve been researching alternatives for my youngest who is autistic and after only 6mths at secondary isn’t going to last in mainstream even with a really supportive school. I’ve found a lot of really good information on the face book group “Home Education UK - exams & alternatives” their wiki information pages are full of really good information and it’s given me a lot of hope I can find an alternative route for my DD.
Meanwhile my 16DD has done minimal work this half term, I have printed off different past exam papers and suggesting she does some with her books alongside and that has helped to give her some structure for chemistry, biology and PE.

Things have gone from bad to worse here. DS2 mocks started this week, we had no idea until last week because he's attending mentor group, so no letter was given to him with timetable etc. I went to a yr11 school meeting and it transpired his mentor had no idea DS2 had been in school this year.
He tried to go to his mocks today but I ended up bringing him home as he got in a state. He was in a state for most of the morning. I really don't know what we're going to do; his only interests are maths and sciences, his identity is really tied to being academic so he's just so lost atm.

Sorry for the rambling I'm on nights this week and not had enough sleep today.

@ThePenOfMyAunt oh gosh, how shocking for him!

Hi everyone. First time posting on this thread. How do you go about putting together a timetable for revision (for final exams)? Do you go through and list the spec for every subject and then take topics from that? It feels like a lot to fit in doing it that way. I really am clueless on this and so is my son so any advice would be really welcome.

The best way of revising is to do questions. The more you have to actively access the things you need to know in your memory, the better you'll be at doing it. I subscribed DD to Save My Exams, which is not too expensive (£30 for three months). It has lots of past papers and also mark schemes and model answers. He doesn't have to do a whole paper in one go, he can do a question at a time and then go over the answer carefully. Maybe save full papers for later on when he is more confident - there's no point in doing a whole paper now and getting discouraged about what he doesn't know! Also, you can do a paper/question more than once. Do the paper/question, compare with mark schemes and model answers then have a break and come back in a week or a few days and see if you can do better in structuring your answer and including the important points. Even looking at a question and looking up everything you can't remember can be useful. Again, do this and come back to it in a week or something and see how much you have retained.

DD did write lists of what she needs to know, but she also divided them into things she feels confident about and things she knows she doesn't know well. So she is concentrating on the things she doesn't know as well. Flashcards etc can be good for some subjects eg equations for Physics, definitions of things in Biology, vocab for MFL. Other things might not fit so well into that method. So eg Eng Lit, she has written a list of themes for the book she is studying, a list of characters, a list of major plot points etc and she has identified quotes to support anything important she needs to be able to say about all of those.

Don't know if that is helpful! Hope so!

#BonjourCrisette this is exactly what I was looking for. Think I will sign DD up for the 3 month subscription. Thanks

@ThePenOfMyAunt your poor son and the schools for not supporting. My youngest is autistic & has been struggling in mainstream school so I’ve been researching different options. The face book group Home Education UK & Exam alternatives- has a brilliant wiki page with lots of information about how to take igcse and at different times of the year. It’s eye opening as to why would you take 10 GCSEs in May when you could spread them out over 1-2yrs and still use them to get into college options. It may give you options for next year if this year doesn’t go to plan.

Thank you. This is really useful.

We went through all this in the summer and DC used the CGP revision books which were brilliant. They knew the topics they needed and went through every single page and learnt them. Biology and History in particular. There are definite ways to answer questions, especially in History and English, but unless you know the facts you can't answer anything. Tick lists for when they thought they knew them.

English Literature - DC had lists of themes, characters, plots, and lots of quotes to demonstrate these. Flash cards, white boards etc etc. Look.at a couple of quotes, statistics, equations etc every day and they will eventually stick. And we started now, the week after half term so there was plenty of time.

How many hours revision per evening are your children doing? Is 2hrs acceptable after being at school all day? Or should it be more. Conscious not to overload my DS, but want him to bedoing enough. He has no idea.

Ds doesn't do two hours per night after school apart from when he's has mocks.