Year 10 - 2023/2024 Support Thread

[QueenMabby]

Hi all

A new thread for those needing support (or just wanting to chat or rant!) with teens heading into their GCSE years.

Am I the odd one out? I don't buy new uniform over the summer, I used to always buy school shoes in august, but Ds had new ones early summer. I bought new trousers and shirts in March as Ds had a growth spurt. So I'm sure it all fits still.

No, your not @icanbewhatiwant.
We do the same - except for shirts, as they never seem to be outgrown, but do look distinctly grotty after a year.
But since mine havnt been wearing uniform since June, we upgraded all the PE kit then as i didnt have enough for 5 days of usage, and have needed shirts for both, trousers for the upcoming Y10, and shoes for both.

What shoes are you opting for

Have been awol as DD2 just had A level results and a bit of faff with unis. All sorted now though

Ooh crikey uniform. Think she’s ok as last years should still fit - plus she’s hand me downs from her 2 sisters who hardly wore theirs as covid. School changed the uniform radically last year but they’ve given a couple of years grace so I’m hoping between what she currently has and the hand me downs she’ll be fine until 6th form! She will need shoes but always tends to be around Christmas time.
She’s still not finished ‘An Inspector Calls’ despite having it since early July and being a rather thin book. We are on holiday but still…

@CatsOnTheChair mine takes his pe kit and it usually stays in the bag for 3 or 4 weeks before I remember to get it out and wash it 🤦‍♀️ only 2 pe lessons a week though and he's not sporty so he doesn't run about much. I do try to remember to get the socks out after each pe lesson. If left to Ds it would never be washed.

Yes hand me down for mine too. He's the youngest of 3. However, he's a fair bit taller than ds2 so only wearing ds1's now.

@newtothis15 - dd has lace ups for the first time! 14 years old and has always insisted on Velcro before now.... She has the ubiquitous brogue.

@NotDonna - glad your dd2 has got sorted. Where's she off to? At least An Inspector Calls is short - it can be finished the night before term starts if necessary!

@icanbewhatiwant - ah the dreaded PE kit. Ours have massive kit bags that have to be schlepped to and fro, in DD's case also with her cello - she looks like a pack horse! Dd has a single lesson of PE every week and also triple games which takes up one whole afternoon. We think year 10's games afternoon is Monday which means she'll have it the first day back....

Only socks left to buy now....

She’s headed to York (insurance choice) a little gutted as her first choice rejected her A*BB (needed AAB) despite the Astar being extremely aligned to subject choice. It’s been a bitter pill to swallow. I think DD3 is reading a sentence a week of Inspector Calls! 🙄

@NotDonna - York's a great choice. That seems a shame about the grades. What she got is basically the same especially if you look at the UCAS points. She'll have a fab time at York though I'm sure. DS is going to the open day next month to have a look for himself.

At least dd3 is reading the play and not just the York Notes.... 🤣

Thanks QueenMabby what’s your DS looking to study? Uni of York are one of the few who drop grades for core maths, if that’s relevant? Quite a few drop for EPQ but core maths is rare (Bath, York, Sheffield only ones we found).Is he yr12?

Thats true about York notes! 🤣🤣 I won’t mention those to DD3!

Hi Everyone,

Just dropping in to say hi, thanks for this new thread!

DS is also saying he's tired a lot of the time. He says his legs hurt, he's developed a few coughs recently, just feeling under the weather. He has had bit of a growth spurt recently, now quite a bit taller than me, although I'm only 5'2 so he's not that tall still compared to his peers. He's probably around 5'4/5'5 now. As he hangs around with lots of sporty boys due to his hobbies he seems the smallest of them all, whereas compared to the general 14yr old boy population he is short, but not massively. Compared to some of the lads he plays cricket with or go running, he seems tiny!
DS has not really been out socialising with his friends, although he is continuing to go to all his sports clubs which is a few evenings a week with cricket matches etc weekly, so he socialises then I guess. We've been away in the UK and in France quite a bit so not had a lot of time at home. He's does piano practise daily, so that's another thing, and the rest of the time he's gaming, a few chores at home, watching TV etc. Summer is flying past pretty quickly!

I love "An Inspector Calls", I think it's on DS's GCSE list too. He's currently reading yet another Neil Shusterman series, I think he's read them all. Although he did venture out of his comfort zone last week and read a murder mystery thriller called 5 survive, which he raced through and liked, although saying it was boring initially.

We got some second hand clothes at a sale at the school for both DS and DD. DS has a new tie and jumper for KS4. Couldn't get a tie, all gone by the time we got there. Need to get new shoes, DS is size 9!,

@NotDonna - DS's a-levels are maths, physics and chemistry. He's hoping to go to Bath to do physics and astrophysics. He's just got an A in his EPQ so will apply with that in hand. Many unis (including bath) will drop a grade for an EPQ at A or higher which is a relief!

@DataColour - I'll get dd some spares at our nearly new sale - there's normally one in the first month back. I might try for a spare PE skort. Girls don't wear ties which makes it a bit easier.

@DataColour ds3 is about 5'6" but ds2 was always the tiniest in his year. His mates are all over 6' he used to look funny walking along beside them. He still does. When ds2 went off to uni in sept he returned mid November to find his younger brother had grown taller. At 19 he's about 5'4" I don't think he will get any taller now. I don't think of him as small anymore. But he is. I'm only 5'2" we always joked that he wouldn't get taller than me.

Looking at grade boundaries and the string of high grades some students received today.

DD is on 7-9 pathway but I think it's going to be a hard two years ahead.

I reckon the As I got in my day were more 7s than 9s!

@TenacityWins. I agree. Dd likewise aiming high but I think sometimes it's almost a throw of the dice between a 7,8 and 9!

Yes agreed! My one A was definitely a 7 and not a 9! since the introduction of 9s, the 7s seem to be devalued and easy to forget that they are A’s! It does make a 4 sound low when in fact it’s a perfectly good ‘C’.

My DS has done quite well but I do think grade boundaries are very high, that if everyone is meant to be in education or training and A level requirements are also very high for universities etc now, that it all feels much harder for kids. I think teaching is much better now than it was in my day. The school DS1 has just done his GCSEs at and where DS2 is going into year 10 tends to get looked down on, but when I look at some of the threads about the competitive/desirable schoos in my borough and across North London, or other stuff, I do wonder. One of the things parents seem to worry about is schools that don't stream or not, and mixed ability Maths - I think in the last two years different options and qualification levels actually divvy students up anyway, but I may not be able to resist flaunting his incredible result in the next conversation when someone says oh you won't get your kids into a good school, only x or y, x being school for both my sons.

@elkiedee do some schools not put them in sets? When I was at school we had sets, but it was same set for everything. So if you were top set it was top set for all subjects. I like that ds's school has different sets for maths, English, pe and sciences. So in theory you could be top set in maths and bottom in English. Not all dc's are the same ability in all subjects.

Ds3 always aims high and that worries me. He thinks he's not good enough, even though his grades are good. It doesn't matter how much I praise him, he says he knows I'm disappointed. Of course I'm not. I think he will get the best grades out of my 3 ds's. The older 2 did well though. Ds1 had the old grades letter grades for most subjects. He didn't get and A* though. Ds2 didn't get any 9's. So it'll be interesting to see if ds3 can get a 9. But it's fine if he doesn't and I'm certainly not going to suggest that to him. They do seem to have so much pressure put on them compared to my day.

DD's school sets for maths (the top set does further maths as an extra gcse) and I think also unofficially sets for English too. Ds (17) says he was in set 2 for English. He was in set 2 for maths too. His gcse grades were 9 & 8 for Lang and lit and a 9 in maths. He's doing A level maths and is currently on for a high A maybe an A star if he has a good day!

Sets don't always correlate for ability. Sometimes it's to do with speed of working or something else. DS always did worse in the top set as they went too quickly. In the next set down it gave him the thinking space he needed to reach his potential.

DD will be in top set for both I expect.

DS school set only for Maths, never really understood why they don’t for English but they never have.

There is a difference between sets and streams.

Sets - each subject cam put you in a group of their choosing.
Streams - you are in the same group for all lessons. This is something we asked about at Y6 open evenings, as we desperately needed to avoid it for DS1 - who is very asynchronous in his abilities.

Down in Y7 with his brother we have struggled with un-set maths groups. We desperately need them to be set in Y8, and then hopefully DS2 stands a chance of appropriate levels of work.

Sets are better than streams but I think they're not the only way of making sure kids are at the appropriate level.

I was in the top sets so I wasn't negatively affected, but I went to middle school so we had less than a year before our options and whether we got to do CSEs or O'levels were determined, and what school you'd been to affected these decisions. And even top sets/O level sets got some very poor teaching so I worry for lower sets.

In year 10 and 11 there's very likely to be some separation out anyway as students will be grouped to study different options, to study core subjects at Foundation and Higher levels, Triple and Combined options for science, and for timetabling reasons,

@CatsOnTheChair that makes sense as we had A stream, B stream and C stream at school. Then they were divided A1, A2, A3 B1 etc. The sets at ds's school don't have a lettered order, so it's not so easy to tell the top to bottom.

@QueenMabby interesting that set 2 at your school still had high grades. Ds1 was set 3 for maths and only allowed to take the lower tier papers. He's really wanted to get a better grade. Ds2 was also set 3 but took the higher papers. I guess it depends on the how many children are better at maths in a particular year.

I don’t think we are comparing like for like though @icanbewhatiwant as it also depends if the school is selective or not. I think queenMabby’s maybe. DD3 (yr10) is set 5 (lowest) but still doing higher level - historically a handful of kids in the bottom set still manage to get 7’s but most are 5/6’s. Some are obviously lower. They tend not to move sets after yr9, which I’m pleased about as I think a higher set would be too fast paced and then knock confidence. Set 5 is just fine for her.

@NotDonna ours are all put in sets for year 10 after lots of end of year tests in year 9. Only top sets will do high papers and triple science.

almost nobody gets 7 or above below set one in maths in dd’s - now old- school- a few perhaps. But sets one, two and three often take higher papers.

Science has a triple science set so the top combined set is almost a second set and does well. Below that lots take foundation science.

A selective school would look very different- this is a (good) comp.