GCSE supporting - to half term, and beyond!

[SheilaFentiman]

Making a new thread to support half term revision and the set of GCSEs afterwards!

Pretty sure my daughter said that AQA themselves have said agreeing is easier. Doesn’t seem so today.
As long as the answer was justified either way it will get the marks.

@ReformedWaywardTeen they probably would, ds is a huge Stranger Things fan

DD texted after the exam that it went really badly and she didn't have enough time to finish the 40 marker.

Turns out after analysing it that she's probably done more than fine.

The life of Pi she just explained it so I guess that means she agreed. She said there wasn't much to go on with regards to the text and it was hard to extract decent things to write about. She explained the humour with regards to the hyenas receding hairline and that the author used humour to make the scenario less scary. She had 30 mins for the final question 40 marker so I'm sure she wrote enough. She threw everything at it description wise and has been revising for Eng Lang so was more aware of what was required.

I told her a couple of days ago about the story I remembered writing about in my Eng lang GCSE and she used that to go on as it was animal related so I feel pleased that I managed to contribute something useful at least

This is full on cheating if the invigilator actually said this. That's not allowed at all.

Spanish here today, it's ds's least liked subject and he's dreading it

Same here, DS is on track for a 2 so hardly seems worth it. We asked the school in year 9 to let DS not do it, some of the generally less academic kids are allowed to drop it in favour of another option, but they refused as he is average in his other subjects.

Spanish also a source of dread here!

Just to confirm I got it wrong about the invigilator saying to ‘agree’. It was actually the English teacher in a pep talk before the exam when she was wishing them luck etc and reminding them to ‘agree’ when they got to question 4. No cheating- just reiterating what they have always been taught. DD said she did find examples to use but just found it a bit weird.

DD hardly done anything for Spanish - she has decided to "sacrifice" it and has focussed on maths and history which is a double exam tomorrow - she is looking exhausted and this drawn out length of exams is taking its toll! It's hard to keep up the motivating (it will be over soon, last push) type of talk daily!

This is the plan in our house too.

DD is quite calm about the Spanish but she's done a lot of work for it because she wants to take it at A level. Tomorrow with History will be a different story after the horror of the first one....... (although apparently they've done more work at school on the two later papers)

Yes Spanish has been well and truly sacrificed here. There comes a point where no amount of learning/revising at this stage is going to make any difference after 5 years of doing the bare minimum and sometimes not even that.

RS here this afternoon, ds gone into school for revision. Beginning to tick them off now!

What makes me nervous is the seemingly quite different advice/teaching on this. My DD said her teacher told them to neither agree nor disagree (and definitely don't say say you agree somewhat) but to come up with your own 'thesis' (which is what she did). I suppose doing that implies either agreement or disagreement depending on what the thesis is. I worry DD takes the things her teacher says slightly too rigidly or literally. I think he's a fab teacher but he has very definite views which DD has wholeheartedly adopted!

It's weird with all the telling to agree on English, DD had none of that told to them, their teachers told them to write what they feel and use language to back that up?

I'm not sure whether it's because of different exam boards?

I’m also nervous about the different teaching on this and other subjects. My DD also sticks rigidly to what she is told and finds it hard to even talk about her revision and exam preparation because she doesn’t want to hear or discuss anything that might confuse her brain and make her doubt the ‘technique’ or ‘strategy’ she has been told to employ to get a good mark. I just hope it all works out in the end.

Reformed I'm not sure what DD wrote for the Life of Pi question but I haven't heard anything about having to agree. The impression I get is that all opinions are valid provided that the evidence and logic behind it are sound!

‘Don’t look at Mr Salles’ was another bit of advice from the teacher. He presumably contradicted what the school teaching prep was for English.

When it comes to English especially, this is exactly what my DD is like too. Makes it hard to support her (I did English at uni so it's probably the only subject I can help with) as of course everything I say is rejected unless it's exactly aligned with what her teacher has said. Fingers crossed it all pans out ok anyway!

Same! And definitely not Mr Bruff (or whatever his name is) 😂

Either our children go to the same school or this is widespread advice. I feel your pain/ especially if English was your subject at uni. I am trying instead to simply admire the bull headed determination to do all her revision completely independently as I didn’t think I would see anything like this if you had asked me 6 months ago. Her work ethic is pretty impressive.

We have a fairly "easy' week this week. iGCSE Eng Lang is out the way, so just Maths tomorrow morning and Biology on Friday afternoon. It's one of the few weeks when most of the kids are in to sit the same exams (and then hang about to socialise). Just 6 more to go for us.

That is great. Good on your DD. Mine is not hugely into revising but has been relatively conscientious throughout school which I think is paying off now (at least I hope it is). English is her one wobbly area but she has developed a love of reading in the last year which has made me so happy. She feels her English exams have gone as well as they could for her which is all you can ask for really!

DS2 has definitely sacrificed Spanish.
A linguist he is not!
At his school, students have to take a language, Spanish or French.
Whilst in theory this is a lovely idea - as English speakers we tend to get complacent.
But, not all children enjoy or respond well to learning a new language and his very low grade (he’s doing Foundation level) will go on his records.

Ds is fairly academic and has a clear idea of what he wants to do for A levels and beyond. His school are very keen to push the academic students down the EBacc route and I had to argue the toss with them to get him out of triple science so he had more than one option subject, there was no way they were going to allow him to not take a language too. I had his head of year in year 9 telling me, an academic, that universities value the EBacc. I explained very politely that they don't and that all of the years I have worked on the clearing hotline, I have never once looked at the EBacc when considering entry criteria. Ds is okay at Spanish, he is likely to come out with a 6 or a 7 but he hates doing it and would prefer to spend his time on History which is one of his A level choices