GCSE Support - nervously waiting

[Hellocatshome]

Hopefully everyone from GCSE Support The Final Frontier can find this new thread!

In town this morning buying DS a suit/shoes/shirt/ties for sixth form (yes, very old-fashioned dress code). Hope he's stopped growing, at the prices we paid!

I made the mistake of looking at the A-level thread yesterday - I really hope the GCSEs haven't been marked so harshly.

DH said in the end clearing was only a bit busier than a normal busy clearing and there always so upset for individual students

DD1 happy enough but waiting on admin steps and a security e-mail that seems to have gone missing so starting to worry.

College here is next day for enrollment for DS - he's already met GSE maths grade having taken it early and the English lit counts towards five needed - so just need 3 above C including physics at B and English. English is only a little worrying and that's due to lack of teachers constant change and lot of substitutes and a department in chaos so fingers crossed that doesn't fuck him over.

DH is in HE and was in charge of soem aspect of clearing for his department this year - they'd been braced to be flat out yesterday and wan't as bad as expected.

I teach A-level and was in at my school most of yesterday. It really seemed like "business as usual" (pre Covid) in terms of triumphs and disasters with grades and clearing. The trouble is that people in the system (students, parents) other than teachers haven't experienced that version of "normal"!

Fingers crossed for everyone.

Asked ds what his plans for on Thursday.
"Thursday?" he says. "Why would I have plans for Thursday?"
"Results day."
"That's not until the 24th... oh yes, maybe..."

He's going into school, but not to pick up results, that bit is irrelevant apparently. He's meeting his friends so they can all go swimming together. They'll probably pick up the results while they're there.
I've told him if he doesn't at least text me his results, then I will hang around the exit and when they come out I will fling my arms around him and shout "and how has my darling baby done?"
He's got the picture. I'll get his results. 🤣

One thing to bear in mind, which I am stealing from a post @noblegiraffe made on another thread is that GCSEs and A-levels may not follow the same pattern exactly.

Students who sit A-levels are a group that have been selected by schools and are to some extent self selecting- they're the top end of the cohort, and arguably the ones who coped best with lockdown and all the disruption that came during their Y10 and Y11. Equally, students can drop out or switch courses much more easily during A-levels than they can during GCSEs.

FWIW, in my subject at A-level, whilst the grade boundaries for A*-B grades have gone up, the grade boundaries for C-E grades went down- suggesting a longer tail. For students hoping to get 5s, that might be good news.

But it's not really a comparable group of students. I don't know if that's reassuring?

Ended up having a long chat with DS last night about expectations for next Thursday. He'd also been following some of the A Level news and was second guessing a little bit.

However he still remains confident he'll make it on to Biology (got to love the optimism of youth!) but agreed that a back up option was a good idea so he wasn't pressured in to making a snap decision.

So having been through the prospectus again he now has 3 ranked options he thinks he would enjoy and he can meet the criteria for if his maths grade doesn't deliver.

Hopefully he won't need a back up but it's a good exercise in always having a plan b or even a plan c.

The type of students who take GCSE Maths and A-level Maths are really different though- I don't think you can generalise from one to the other.

True. I guess there's the whole thing about a self selecting group vs everyone doing maths.

Biology is very content heavy and time consuming as an A-level though. It's really not one I'd recommend as a third option he's not totally committed to. If his strengths are more English lit/arts, then he'll very likely struggle with it- and although there's not coursework as such, there is the practical endorsement to keep on top of.

Has he thought about something like psychology or similar?

In most schools, maths is the most selective A-level, and students often look to drop/swap it because they're finding it difficult. The students doing maths at A-level are all very able, and very keen to take it further.

At GCSE, I'd say the majority of students doing maths are looking to scrape a 4/5/6/whatever they need for the next step- it's like a necessary evil, right? It's very possible boundaries could go up for the 7-9 very able students- especially if the papers were straight forward, whilst dropping in the middle/bottom as more students taking the paper have an insecure grasp of more basic skills due to covid.

It's also worth bearing in mind that the current cohort of A-level exams are in the unique situation of sitting A-levels as their first public exams, which impacted them a lot, I think. Whereas at least for GCSE students, that part of the situation is more "normal"?

8 years ago for results day I gave DD1 very detail instructions.
She was not to ring and say 'I'm really pleased' or 'I'm disappointed' as her idea of pleased/disappointed were different from mine.

Instead she was to say something clear like 'I passed everything' or 'I failed Eng Lang but passed everything else' and then we'd know where we were. (She passed everything 5B 3C which was better than feared.)

I suggested Psychology or Sociology but he's just not interested. He does really like Biology even though my post above didn't suggest that. In fact he does fairly well at all 3 sciences (he's doing triple science and gets 6s and 7s on average) but prefers Biology over the other two.

As a student he's a bit of a good all rounder with maths being the weakest link albeit slightly above the average 4 grade. So he's in a position where he could have leaned more in to humanities or the other way into science. He's chosen the former for now but I think he wants to keep the door open a little bit for science leaning Uni options.

Well, hopefully he gets the grades he needs, and continues to enjoy biology at A-level then! Art is definitely hard work, and can be hard to balance with other A-levels, so good luck with that too!

Thanks. Art is his passion subject and has been since he could first hold a pencil so he'll stick that out come what may.

He does a lot of art based extra curricular stuff so I think he does recognise he could take a non art uni/career path whilst retaining it as a much loved hobby if he wants to at the end of Yr 13.

The world is their oyster still in some respects even though it won't feel like that to many whilst they are navigating through this period of their lives.

At aged nearly 50 my A levels seem so utterly unimportant now but even knowing this I'm still invested in the importance of his in the here and now. 😄

My DD did Art, (Ancient) History, and Biology (plus an AS in Class Civ) and it was a great combination for her. Bio is hard work and the most 'memorise this answer' of the sciences. Once she got an unconditional offer (which is still a thing for art schools, based on portfolio submission) she rather gave up on Bio, but is still glad that she took it.

@OvaHere my son was interested in sociology and psychology but won't get the required 6 for GCSe English Language. Both sound really interesting.

Class Civ is on the list of alternates. I think he would enjoy that even though he's doing Modern History rather than Ancient.

He's interested in Architecture at the minute. The BArch sort rather than the Eng pathway that requires maths A Level. I think it's too early to guess a direction at this stage though because a lot can change in two years of college.

I did both those for A Level. Was mad keen to do psychology but actually found it very meh. Enjoyed sociology much more even though I mostly took it because it seemed to fit with psychology. I think I would have liked PPE better although I can't remember now whether it was an option.

Good luck to him, @OvaHere! There really isn't that much overlap between Ancient History (which is political/military history) and Class Civ (mainly studying English translations of literature, much like Eng Lit in many ways). Yes, lots can change!

Joining this thread with an awful lot of trepidation given the press about the A-Level results.

My dd also needs 5 5s, one of which needs to be Maths. God, isn't it stressful?!

I don’t think he has given it a thought! @AnxiousElephant77. It must be nice being him 😂.

I feel a little better but whenever I think of Thursday my stomach flips, will be happy when this is over with. Good luck to your DD x

Also, same here @AnxiousElephant77, he needs English lit or Lang, maths and his 3 a level choices 😬

Just joining this thread as I've been reading the A level one and got the jitters.

My DD needs 30 points from 6 GCSEs to get on to her 6th form course ( so a mix of 4s 5s and 6s would work). The truth is that she is capable of much higher grades but missed a lot of year 10 following an accident in lockdown that affected her mobility.

She feels she did OK in her exams and she worked hard to try and catch up but I'm now feeling anxious on her behalf and I am usually pretty calm about this sort of thing!!!

I need to get next week over with! :)