GCSE - improvement between mock and actual exams

[bendmeoverbackwards]

I hope someone can reassure me!

Dd is in Year 11 and just finished her mocks. She is diagnosed ASD and in Year 10 had some mental health problems resulting in erratic school attendance. From September she was much improved although her attendance is still low (around 60%).

Just got her report today with her mock results and I'm not sure how bad or otherwise this is -

Classics - 3
English Language - 5
English Lit - 6
History - 6
Maths - 6
RS - 4
Spanish - 1
Double Science - 6 6

She needs a minimum of 42 points from the 8 best GCSEs to stay on at her current school sixth form (which she wants to do, all her friends are staying and to move would be a huge upheaval for her).

How much can they improve between now and the summer. She is a very able student who should be achieving 8s and 9s, however in view of her problems I don't care about top grades - I just want her to get to the next stage and feel happy with herself.

I think you should talk to her teachers about it and see if they recommend focussing on certain subjects. Best of luck

spanish looks like the lowest hanging fruit

Could you afford a tutor at all? I hired one to improve my DS's French grade, and it turned out she knew a lot about Eng Lit and they both jumped up 2 grades with 2 months' tuition. A bit of one on one makes a massive difference.

You can improve immensely. But it depends how much effort the kid put into the mocks. I don't think DS even passed a single mock. Pissing people off was a badge of pride to him. Nine A*s and two As, were his results in the real thing. Back in the days of GCSEs

@ActingTheMaggot I am very happy to pay for tuition and we have tried it in the past on dd's request. However she really struggles with 1 to 1 interaction especially with someone she doesn't know. It turned out to be stressful for both of us and I had to pay for the session anyway in spite of her not managing it.

The 42 points she needs look to be within reach but take nothing for granted. The sixes are very encouraging, she has done well. I wonder whether, given her grades in English and History ( similar skills used ?) she could get a couple more points in RS with some guidance from the teacher and some targeted revision? Same could apply to her Classics? Always worth paying plenty of attention to the English language as it is key to further study in most schools/subjects. The Spanish may be hardest to tackle but I don’t know whether the differences between the grades at the 123 end are small and therefore a few more marks might make a big difference? Or maybe she missed too much in year ten to catch up? Talk to the teacher about what she thinks is needed for improvement. Did DD miss any parts of the exam completely?

I think she might have missed the Spanish speaking due to absence.

Dd said a while ago she doesn’t care too much about Spanish or RS, she just wants to pass them ie a 4. But the others she wants to do well in.

Yes, there can be significant improvements between now and GCSEs.

Some students won’t have studied much for mocks but will slave before the real thing.

Students with particular SEN can face additional challenges certainly….for some it means getting down to effective revision is really difficult. Strategies to help with that and perhaps really focused times lots and goals for each will be needed to achieve their potential. Without this, they might not revise effectively or procrastinate.

Definitely talk to the school if there isn’t a parents’ evening very soon.

A tutor can help with knowledge and technique and giving specific tasks. It might be the SENCOs help is needed because it isn’t about subject knowledge but aspects to do with the SEN which means studying or completing the exam is problematic…even with extra time. But they will have seen it before and should be able to help.

Would duolingo help with the spanish - little but everyday in a fun way could make a big difference.

SenecaLearning might help, they have a premium paid option which offers support, which might work better for her than 1-2-1 if she finds that off putting.

Would the school have any wriggle room for extenuating circumstances?

My daughter went from;

5 to an 8 - Chemistry
7 to a 9 - MODS
7 to a 9 - History
8 to a 9 - PE
6 to a 7 - Biology
5 to a 6 - Chemistry
6 to a 7 - English x 2
8 to a 6 - Maths

Definitely doable to move up at least one grade in most subjects. She didn’t have a tutor but did work hard.

Also is there any leeway from school - does she have to get 42 points as they are aware of her background and know she is an able student. What if she got 42 over 7 subjects - is that not allowed?

I meant 5 to a 6 in physics not chemistry!

I think there might be a bit of leeway. The school have been very kind and supportive of her issues and know she’s bright. But I’m worrying that they’d prefer her to leave as she affects their attendance statistics 🤷‍♀️

As a very loose rule of thumb we tend to predict around a grades improvement between mocks and the real thing if that helps. Obviously individual circumstances may mean this isn't accurate for everyone.

There are some tutors who work with small groups rather than individuals if she would find this more comfortable. Also a lot of good resources online. Pretty much all past papers and mark schemes are there. For science revision I always recommend the 'free science lessons' videos which are all on YouTube.

The Spanish might improve then if there’s a whole speaking exam missing, but don’t expect too much if she’s saying she’s not very interested. Perhaps check out the dates of the real speaking exams because they are usually earlier than other gcse exams and can be done before the Easter holidays. So that’s not far off. Perhaps her teacher could do a practice mock speaking after school one day to give her practice and feedback.

That's already 42 so I wouldn't be worried at all, unless she was lucky with some grades.
Just work smartly across all subjects and try to pick up extra marks here and there? Especially in any subjects she is thinking of carrying on.

On the other hand, if it has to be the 8 best GCSEs and she currently is taking 9, then improved points in Spanish might not help anyway? Then she would be better focussing on raising grades in the other subjects. Perhaps discuss this with the Head of year /Lead tutor for year 11, or whichever senior teacher is in charge of admission to the sixth form and see what strategy they advise. You could also stress how keen DD is on staying on at her school.
However if DD does want to pass Spanish then I still recommend she works with her teacher to prepare for speaking test etc as these can be a bit nerve wracking

That's 42 already. It wouldn't be surprising for several of them to go up a grade; there will be more teaching and revision in school as well as what she does at home. She's still got about a sixth of her GCSE courses to go. It sounds as if her attendance has improved a bit, and you can also ask the school for recommendations for revision on days when she doesn't make it in.

@Beansontoast45 wow that’s great, well done to your dd.

@bendmeoverbackwards How motivated is she? Personally I would want to try to improve that English language grade up to a 6, there is a lot she can do to prepare for that exam before she goes in. Also nudging that Classics grade up to a pass.

I would say rule of thumb is one grade but both my children did more than that in a couple of subjects. However, they weren't missing content nor did they have ASD. How much help can you give and would she lean into that or hate it?

My two were happy to have my input and teaching but not all children like that. Ds1 got a 6 in History in both year 11 mocks, he knew the content but needed to master the essay structure. His teacher spelled it out to me so I could help him and he got a 9. Ds2 struggled with English Lit, hated it, got a 5 in his November mock, worked his backside off, got a 7 in February mock and an 8 in the actual exams.

The best thing we did was walk through past papers, so one tab with the question and another tab with the mark scheme and do one question at a time. This really helped with English language as both of mine are maths/science lovers, they like cold, hard facts not wishy washy feelings in poetry or texts. Would Duoling/Memrise help with Spanish? Or is she just writing that off?

Thank you all, this is all really helpful.

@BenchOfCompany I am happy to help her but it's always on her terms. I am rubbish with English but ok with the sciences and helped her revise a bit for the mocks. But only when she wants it.

I think with Spanish she wants to pass. But languages are difficult when a lot of teaching has been missed.

She asked me last night if I was annoyed with her. I asked her what she meant and she showed me a screenshot of her mock grades. She thinks they're awful and she's not clever any more. I told her the 6s are good and the others can be improved on. She does seem much more motivated this year but I'm worried the grades have knocked her confidence.

In any case I'm going to be a nervous wreck until August.

@bendmeoverbackwards with Ds2 I just sold it as this is the last time you will ever have to do the subjects you dislike so let's knock this out the park. 6s are freaking great and considering all she has been through she has done amazingly well. As the youngest she is aware of her sibling's successes which may be in play here too.

Re English lang, I know you say you aren't great at it but we both know you are a smart woman and this is English GCSE so try just looking at the past papers. There is no foundation/higher so they make it easier for lower level students to come out with marks. Mine didn't do AQA which is the most common exam paper for English lang but just have a look yourself at the paper and mark scheme. I got Ds to print out the reading booklet and highlight the answers in the text. Skim the text, then read the questions first then re-read the text highlighting as they go. Mr Salles Teaches English on YouTube is fantastic, I know everyone rates Mr Bruff but I don't.

Re Spanish @clary any help here? She really helped with Ds2 and French.

Have you got access to any of her papers? Did they go through the papers in class with the answers so she knows what to add to the answers? I think that helps because you know what you should have put and helps you to see it too if you are helping her.

Also this doesn't define her, there are MNetters whose children didn't do great at GCSE and are thriving at college. School isn't the best environment for everyone, one size does not fit all.

Tell her there is definitely time to make a real difference. In lots of the subjects she’s starting from a really good base and top grades won’t be out of reach.

Focus on the fact these mocks weren’t the end.

Make sure some serious revision begins at Easter.

The school will do lots of focused revision once they’ve finished teaching the courses. There will coverage if the content and exam skills - she needs to have good attendance to ensure she’s accessing all those lessons and resources.

You can help her too with organising her stuff - particularly keeping hold of marked exam papers and practice papers is important and making sure her exercise books are in a good state.

Check you’re clear on which board she is doing and which options for each subject. Some CGP revision guys can be a good buy too.

I would recommend the CGP books for all her subjects (except I don't think there are any revision books for Classics), they're easy to revise from and have everything laid out neatly with good explanations. The physicsandmathstutor.com website is very good for revision, lots of questions, past papers, flash cards etc. There are also some good youtube channels with teachers going over everything in a condensed way. Mr Salles is very good for English and Primrose kitten is good for science and possibly maths, I can't remember if she doe that too.

Doing past papers is really useful, she can look them up on the AQA/OCR etc websites, look at how they want questions answered from the mark scheme and the examiners notes to see where students tended to go wrong in previous years.

If she can start doing 30 minutes of revision a night and then an hour a day over the weekend and then build up from there. With the English language DS (also has ASD) found Mr Salles book on persuasive writing really helpful - and used a lot of ideas/structure from one of his examples in his actual exam.

I would also recommend getting dd to write a few very descriptive stories that could fit into or be adapted to fit into many of the very open sort of titles they tend to get. DS did one about sitting in hospital waiting for a diagnosis - we then talked about all the titles it could be adapted to fit - anything about being happy or lucky (get's good results from doctor) or conversely fits anything about bad luck, unhappy event, life changing event, fear/anxious time (bad results from the doctor), even things like a betrayal ie you could feel betrayed by your body. The other one he did was a fantasy beast one which could fit in with anything magical, other worldly, dangerous, seaside, day in the country etc.
This list of really old titles was useful to think about how you could adapt the descriptive stories to fit into all different titles.
www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3046511

These are the resources DS used and he got all 7-9.

Hi @bendmeoverbackwards and @BenchOfCompany sorry, missed this yesterday.

Re Spanish, there are certainly ways to improve that but should she focus on others and ditch it?

If she wants to get it to a 4, there are ways for sure. The F paper is intentionally basic. She can draft some answers to some questions for speaking and they will be useful for writing too. Remember that the picture description task in the writing is just looking fir very simple sentences - you can use the same verb each time if appropriate.

Other than that, vocab revision, make sure verbs in basic tenses are secure - regulars and basic irregulars (ir, ser etc) and then past papers and go over the answers to see where she went wrong.

But she may be better, given the limited time, to focus on core subjects.