Mocks not meeting expected grades

[HeadAboveTheParapet]

Dc is Frustrated by their mock results.

All through secondary they have been given expect grades of 7+. AIM for 8/9.
Every parents evening this is reinforced and no problems are ever raised. Good work ethic, effort grades excellent etc. parents evening the week before mock all talkin about 7+ to 8/9 in GCSE's
They put in the study time all the way through.
Then the results for mocks are a real mixed bag. 5,6,7.

Dc is frustrated and disappointed. Not really understanding why they aren't doing better.

We have a math tutor.

Can any teachers reassure us that it isn't the end of the world and that they can still get the 7+ in their GCSE's

They need to go through their exams and understand where they lost marks.
Did they not know the info? Did they not understand the question? Did they not provide and answer that fitted the mark scheme, why not?

And go from there.

Please speak to the teachers.

In my subject, with my mock paper students can go up 2 grades from now.

Thats different in other subjects in our school (for various reasons) but we make sure that we make parents and students aware of this.

Email their teachers and ask if it was a shock to them / where did they go wrong?

Are the expected targets genuine expected marks or are they autogenerated from SATS (i.e. are they realistic, or was your DC always destined to get the marks he gets in mocks?)

I agree. I would always expect grades to go up. Two isn't crazy two. More than that it might be worth checking what's happened.

I also agree with PP who said to check with teachers. Getting poorer than expected marks in mocks is not necessarily a disaster - they have months yet to hone exam technique and spend more time on targeted revision.

(I think my DD's actual GCSEs were all at least 1 grade higher than mocks, and in some cases 2 or 3 - she didn't do anything particularly different for them, it was just the result of working consistently).

This. They should go over the paper in class. At my DC's school they then write in the answer if they didn't get full marks meaning they can see what they should have put.

Some schools want to keep the mock papers in school. If you ask super nicely they may photocopy it for you. The only way to discover where they didn't score marks is to look at the papers and identify why they didn't. As Teen says, is it knowledge, is it not using the right terminology, did they misread the question, did they only write 2 points for a 4 mark question, did they do the maths wrong. Only when you look at why do you see where they need to focus their work.

We spoke to DC's teacher who provided incredible detailed help and DC did incredibly well in the real GCSEs.

Thank you.
We've emailed the teachers