Poor English gcse mocks

[GrumpyNeighbour]

My DC (year 10) recently did their mock GCSEs.
They got a 3+/4 in English lang/lit. On contrast they got 9s and 8s in maths and all sciences. (And 5/6 for all other lessons) So I'm unsure about why English just isn't clicking.

They've been referred to support by the school with looking into whether they need more time in exams, I'm wondering if they are questioning some sort of dyslexia or similar??

I'm wondering if tutoring may help....or should I wait and see what support staff say at school.

The problem is, if they don't get at least a 5 they can't stay on at sixth form at the school, and doubt they can get any of the a level courses/apprenticeships that they are looking at.

Am I worrying too soon? After all they have a full year before real GCSEs.

DD was similar - English way below everything else - and it definitely wasn't dyslexia (excellent SPAG, KS2 scores). Her teacher, at year 10, was still assuring us that DD was much better than that and no need for a tutor, but November mocks weren't much different. The teacher thought it was exam panic, despite DD pointing out that it was only English that was affected.

We got a tutor after the November mocks, which took her up a couple of grades in language. Much of it was knowing what was required, and where to start with answering each question. Whilst in humanities she had a very good idea of what needed to be addressed in answering particular types of question, she had little idea for English. The tutor was better than her school teacher at giving her a recipe/formula/checklist. I think the school teacher just assumed that the ability to make intelligent contributions to class discussion would translate into ability to answer exam questions, and it just didn't.

I wish we'd got a tutor earlier - we'd probably have got the literature grade up as well, and possibly another grade on the language.

Agree with@lanthanum , get a tutor because English can be improved but needs time and practice. You have summer to get it going. It is a subject that needs time to improve. In fact you can’t cram language and DC needs to know where marks are being dropped.

They need to know exactly where their problems lie.
do they know what the mark scheme wants?
do they know how long to spend on each question?
do they know know the subject terminology?
I spend a lot of time drilling those things with my students. Their books have all that information in, and they get question level feedback all the time.
I wouldn't jump to a tutor until you know whether your DC had that information

I would have a more detailed discussion with the school about what happened in their English exams. It sounds like your child might have run out of time/ not managed to finish the papers and this would have a huge bearing on their grades.

English is a subject that students tend to peak for just before their exams, and they can score very poorly up until that point as all the skills/understanding of the texts can take the full 2 years to cement. At my school, it is expected that students will jump 2/3 grades between their mocks in January and the actual exams.

This is what I'm hoping....that it will take DC up to a 5/6.

I may email the teacher again after half term and ask if DC finished the exam or just wasn't detailed enough.

Then I might discuss with DH about a tutor.

I may email the teacher again after half term and ask if DC finished the exam or just wasn't detailed enough.
What you need is a copy of the marked paper. "Not detailed enough" will mean different things on different sections.
I often end up scanning papers to send home so parents can see the issue.

In our case, no books, and next to no feedback - very little marked work was set - partly due to lockdowns. I don't know exactly how many practice questions they did in school, but I don't think there was any individual feedback on those, and there were next to no practice questions for homework. Knew the subject terminology, knew the timings, but no clue how to get going.

Wow. And not in a good way.
I will have done 3 whole papers with my y10 before their mock, and marked every question with feedback.
Even managed that for my then y10 in the first lockdown. Now that things are back to "normal", I would expect a lot more.

Maybe a tutor can get a lot of past papers done with your DC in the summer. So DC do a past paper time and they can go over the mark scheme and where your marks are being dropped.

Well he's seen the student support and done some tests with them. They say he has below average writing speed and well below average processing speed.
They are going to trial him having extra time in any tests they do in class to see which lessons he will need extra time in his GCSEs.

I doubt he needs the extra time in maths and science, it seems to be the subjects which need a more in depth written answer.

"I doubt he needs the extra time in maths and science" I am a support invigilator - for English, where they now, if they have reading/processing issues, have the paper on a computer file which they can hear and re-hear, but for maths a reader or nothing BUT if you look at some of the papers, there is often quite a story in the questions ( https://www.mathsgenie.co.uk/papers.html).

Please do ask for extra time for all exams if you can get it. Also ask for a prompter (yes it is a thing) if you think he might need it. If he knows he is being watched, he may focus, but I see young people simply freeze mid-way, and we are not allowed to prompt unless it is in their adjustment plan. Now that he has a "failure" mind-set for English, he may well need that.

Additional marks:

1. You have a year to get their speed reading and writing speed up - practise, practise. Past papers are a good source of reading scripts. ( https://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/english/gcse/english-language-8700/assessment-resources )
2. Many a clever child has failed by not getting to the end of an exam - so talk about pacing, dividing the time of the exam into the number of marks for each section (it says on the paper). If you run out of allotted time per question, you can leave a spare page, so you can go back and add if you get to the end. It is tidy practise to start a new question on a new page anyway, but if you do end up with a completely blank page, write PTO on it, so examiner does turn over.
3. If you cannot immediately answer the question, you can go on to the next. As long as you clearly mark the question number on each page, they do not have to be in order.
4. English now mark spelling and punctuation highly, so go back to basics on those.
5. Does he speak and pronounce well? If so he will write better.
6. Go through questions with him - many fail simply because they do not answer the question asked. e.g

"Reply to this email, giving your opinion....." needs to be set out in email format, with a subject heading (starting with re:) You can get one mark simply by writing "In response to your...." "Write a letter to" needs addresses - you know a letter format, but does he? 5 I have recommended a student write on alternate lines on their paper, where their writing is bigger, loopy and not entirely on the line. Remember that teachers and markers are very busy and have huge numbers to do, so they do not have time to decipher overlapping words. And there is plenty of spare paper if needed. 6 Some questions actually ask for a plan, and they can get marks for showing where they were planning to go with their answer

I would get a tutor ASAP. I myself tutor and work with tutorial day colleges. I see many talented kids being failed daily not just by state schools but by private schools as well. It could simply be that she has not been taught exam technique, how to approach different tasks. UK is notoriously very bad at teaching essay writing for instance. Another issue certainly would be that she has not been taught grammar, as UK educators believe it's not important. I come across this problem all the time as I teach French and once it comes to the explanation of grammar, the students confess that they have never been taught English grammar, hence I have to teach it first so that I can teach them French afterwards. Surely, part of your answer lies there as it is ultimately preposterous that anyone can master any language well, at a high level, including their mother tongue, without studying the grammar. I'd start with 1 hour per week, even a few weeks can make a huge difference to her, or do an intensive course during half-term or other holiday / weekend. Personally, I would not count / wait for the school to help. The schools in the UK have a very neoliberal mindset where they place all the responsibility / blame onto the pupils, and this from Reception. You might be lucky with your teacher, but I'd say as a rule that is very rare to find a highly competent teacher in the UK system who would care to give this feedback. For them it's just easier to leave the struggling pupils behind. A very shocking model that I had deciphered over the years spent tutoring.

Another issue certainly would be that she has not been taught grammar, as UK educators believe it's not important

Have you ever seen the KS2 curriculum?

I'd say as a rule that is very rare to find a highly competent teacher in the UK system who would care to give this feedback

Nonsense.

That grammar comment is ridiculous. The amount of grammar my kids have had to learn is off the scale!

My DD is in a very similar situation so reading all this advice with interest.

The other thing to consider is what the mocks were.
I'm guessing the science/maths papers were bits of papers, based on topics already covered.
English may be formatted differently - and as I understand it, a LOT of Y11 is about honing technique for English, where as science is it definitely further subject matter.

To the poster saying increase writing speed, improve SPAG, if there are learning differences in play, this isn't straight forward. And writing can physically hurt, hence one reason for the slowness.

Hiya, I teach GCSE and A-levels, so seeing students AFTER KS2. NONE of them knew any grammar. They do not know different past tenses English uses, they do not know what is adjective and adverb etc. This does not mean that they do not use them, they certainly do, but they do not know the THEORY, meaning that they cannot then learn a second language because they have limited means of acquisition as they cannot rely on 'mother' tongue acquisition of the second language. If your DCs were taught grammar, it was not done effectively. Either way, the result is the same. Compared to European countries, that's very bad and I suspect that as I am seeing the problems in French, those same problems will exist for English. I see similarly ridiculous approaches to literacy in KS1 by the way, as I am having to teach my own kids grammar which is not taught in school. Yet, somehow the school expects them to write and spell correctly. Utterly bizarre, but in my view the problem is much larger - the British establishment does not value languages, though they certainly must value English as it is the local language here, the consequences for how much institutions invest in linguistics in general has an impact on that too. You may disagree with me, in which case do not take my advice. I do have to say, however, that all of those students I taught ended up getting grades 8-9 despite being projected as 'failures' by their school teachers.

As others have said, speak to the teacher first. And if they are not clear enough then speak to the head of English. So much of this tends to be about exam technique with English. Be careful with generic tutors. Techniques for AQA Reading questions for example are not exactly the same as for Edexcel or OCR. Writing skills are much kore similar so less of a problem. so perhaps better for tutoring. Ask the teachers to give you a clear question level analysis about which questions dropped and why.