Year 11 2023-24

[Maxus]

Anyone else got kids starting year 11 in September?

Happy New Year to you all! Happy to have found this thread... yr 11 DD here.

My DD has done well so far with her mocks but lacks self-motivation and organization skills, so I'm doing my very best to help with that. (And I think I'm more stressed and tired than she is. I'm a single parent working full-time... and her dad isn't involved in anything school-related).

Most of her mock grades and predicted grades went up from the yr 10 Jun mocks to yr 11 Nov mocks - except in English and Art.

Her GCSE combo: English Lang, English Lit, Maths, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, History, German, Art, and FSMQ Additional Maths. For A-levels she plans to take Maths-Bio-Chem with either Further Maths or German as a 4th subject and is considering medicine or biosciences/biotech/biochem, hopefully one of the uni programs with a year abroad.

A couple of issues... Unfortunately, she "hates" her English teacher and it doesn't help that the teacher isn't too popular amongst kids 😬! Her Art teacher is great and she likes Art, but she's "only" predicted a 6... which she isn't too happy about. Her school's 6th form has a rule that says you need 7+ grades across ALL 9 subjects to be able to study 4 subjects at A-levels. (The 10th subject - FSMQ Add Maths - is excluded from this rule, as it is taught as an optional after school class).

Not sure why a 6 in Art should prevent her from studying FM or German as a 4th subject... I plan to ask at parents evening mid-Jan whether the school is flexible on that at all.

She's been revising for English over the Christmas break - especially English Lit where they didn't have a mock in Nov, but will sit a full English Lit paper in Feb mocks. Also worked on her Art portfolio assignments... that was very time consuming but not too tiring, as she loves art. Also loves that she is able to listen to music while working on it 😉. Apart from that, she's done several science and maths papers which were all assigned homework. This week she is revising for the German speaking mock exam, which is scheduled on Thursday.

Once that's done, she'll start revising for the next round of mocks, scheduled in the last 2 weeks of Feb straight after half term. Hopefully that's the last set of mocks before the actual GCSEs.

She'll also soon receive the externally set assignment paper for Art, as AQA sends them to schools on the 2nd of Jan. Tons of work on that one, but hopefully she can complete all the art work by April/early May, before all other GCSE exams start.

Oh and her school's 6th form is making conditional offers w/c 8 Jan, looking forward to getting that. She's applied to a few other local 6th forms (one selective and rest non-selective), as her school recommends that to all students -- but her own school is our preferred choice (local comprehensive mixed gender).

PS. Sorry for the long message, looks like I really needed a rant 😌

😭 DS just did an English past paper today DH just looked at it and committed he could hardly read the writing and looks more like a G3.

Examiners can read most things!

It's really odd that a standard comp would want 7+ in every GCSE subject @anoukis I would definitely query this.

Even the super selectives near me have a minimum of 56 points from top 8, not 9. Surely even the most able child has one subject which they might be weak in? For DS this is psychology where they were without a teacher for nearly all of year 10.

DS has his first sixth form college interview later this month. Typically, he has to take his passport as proof of identity and, the day before the interview email, I had sent it off to the passport office for renewal! I will email the college and explain. Hopefully they can offer an alternative. He doesn't have anything else with a photo on though.

DS has his MFL listening mock this week but has done no revision because "you can't revise for listening". I honestly despair.

@Waspie I think passport renewals are coming back pretty quickly at the moment.

Failing that, is he old enough (15y9m+) to apply for a provisional driving licence? That would be an alternative photo ID.

Good idea @Marisquita, thanks. I'll take a look at the DVLA website DP has just suggested a young person's railcard too.

DP and I renewed our passports in the Autumn and they came back within a week so DS' could certainly arrive before the interview (fingers crossed). We didn't do DS' at the same time because we decided to wait for him to turn 16 so that we could get him a full 10 year passport.

@Waspie that's right, it doesn't make sense to me either. It's a good state school with above average (not exceptional) results. The "all GCSEs at 7+" rule applies only for those wanting to study 4 A-level subjects. On top of that there are some minimums per subject e.g. to be able to take Maths 7+, Further Maths 8+ and sciences 6+.

I'm guessing the 7+ rule across all subjects was added because of the high workload at A-level - only the most studious kids are offered the choice to study 4 subjects? Might also be because of timetabling issues, as it's not a large 6th form, a little over 100 students per cohort. In any case I will ask at parents evening. On the application form for the 6th forms she's applied to my DD listed Maths, Biology, and Chemistry plus Further Maths as a 4th option.

However, we now have a family debate - whether to change Further Maths to German - as the 4th subject. She's predicted 9 in German and is keen to study/work abroad at some point. She has a EU passport which will be a big help down the road. There are other options for German if she can't do a 4th subject e.g. studying independently and taking A-levels exams or the Goethe Institute exams.

@anoukis it sounds as though it's a policy to try and dissuade students from doing four A Levels. Most schools seem to work in "blocks". If your daughter could do maths and further maths in one block (although this is exceptionally hard to do) they might agree. Four completely distinct subjects might be impossible for the school to facilitate. Your option of taking German via a different provider might be the best option. Good luck with your discussion at parent's evening.

We have parent's evening tomorrow. I'm in two minds as to whether to ask the school if DS can drop Psychology. They didn't have a teacher through most of year 10 and so they haven't really covered even 25% of the course. They have a teacher now (although this seems patchy - she's in for a couple of weeks then out for a couple of weeks). He got a 4 in his mock and is predicted a 5 at GCSE. Given the lack of teaching and instruction I think this is pretty good. DS, however, thinks this will reduce his points average and look bad on his record. It's his 10th GCSE so very much a "nice to have" rather than a necessity. He wants to drop it in order to concentrate on the others. I have sympathy with his argument but suspect the school will not!

(edited for grammar)

I usually spend this time of year planning travel for school holidays. We are sorted for summer, but what is the general consensus for February and Easter? Do kids generally want to stay at home and revise? We’ve got mocks for core subjects in February. And no other children to have to plan around!

Easter the school may well put on extra sessions your DC may wish to attend.

For DD1 we went away the 4 days on actual Easter, which might work quite well this year as Easter is at the start of the holidays.

My daughter wants to take politics and economics at A level, which she's never studied plus business, which she's doing at GCSE and loves. I'm wondering if it would be sensible to start 4 A levels (the 4th in RE as she's predicted a 9) so if she hates one of the other 2 she could drop it without missing any lessons? Is that a good idea?

I'm hoping DD will do the same as she's undecided between RE and biology. School have facilitated this in the past if timetables allow and the unwanted fourth subject has been dropped by the autumn half term. School feel that three A levels is sufficient and I agree for DD that will be fine.

What are boys wearing to college interviews? My son has a smart shirt and trousers but lots of his friends are just going in hoodies etc. what's the norm?

I've booked 3 nights over the Easter weekend. Extra revision sessions are the second week of the school hols, so I think the break the first weekend will give DD chance to chill and refresh.

DD is looking to do 4. History, politics, psychology, French.

I think this will be too much for her, but she can't decide which to take and I know at she won't be able to drop one mid way through the course because she sees that as quitting (no matter how much we and her teachers tell her otherwise).

Ah mine will be perfectly happy to drop one, I'm just worried she won't like economics but get stressed if she thinks she has to catch up on eg RE. I'll see what she/school thinks

I'd look at the dress code for the college and match that or slightly smarter.
For our local colleges anything clean and tidy would have been fine, including hoodie and jeans.

@Waspie if it's the 10th subject and predicted grade is low I would encourage dropping - unless related directly to career? It's a hard one.

No idea how blocks work are but our school has 5 of them :-) Maths and FM are not listed in a single block, so not sure how they can be taken together.

There is also a separate option for Accelerated Maths, I believe that's for studying the Maths A-levels in one year... not sure.

The question of starting with four a levels and dropping one is interesting. How would smaller schools manage to work out if they have the numbers to run the course with this policy? I can see that it would be okay for large colleges.

DS has applied for 4 A levels at only one of his six applications. This is at a larger sixth form college and after talking at length to the tutor (he teaches both subjects) at the open evening. The two subjects are closely related - Ancient History and Classical Civilisations. DS also wants to do History and English Lit.

The other schools and colleges he's applied to don't do Ancient History at all. One does Classical Civilisations and at the others he's chosen Politics (where offered) or Biology as the third A level. He wants to do EPQ, but obviously not if he's doing four A Levels.

DP isn't keen on the idea of four A Levels (he did 5 and said it nearly killed him mentally and emotionally), and all of the schools and colleges we have visited have warned against doing four, unless there is a very good reason to do so, as University's only tend to offer on the results of three A Levels.

Reading another thread in this topic I learned that interviews for state sixth forms aren't actually interviews. Apparently they can't be used to select students and are there only to assist the student and check that they've making sensible choices based on their abilities and their chosen career path (where known).

Thought I'd share this in case others where like me and hadn't realised this

I went through a past English Language paper the other day with my son, modelling what I thought were the answers and how to include quotations etc. I thought it would be pretty easy to get a Level 4 on it but actually it was quite hard. For the long question about the text extract there were 15 marks available and we'd included 7 points they mentioned in the mark scheme but we also had a lot more points that weren't included which my son thought we wouldn't get points for but as the scheme said 'responses may include' I'm guessing other answers could also be given. Also I'm not sure if it was a mark per point or a couple of marks for each one. But anyway, it was harder than I thought to get to the 4 on a Foundation paper! Then there's the creative writing part. The mark scheme is very vague (to a non English teacher) so I wouldn't have a clue how to mark that!

@Waspie my DD, to my surprise, said she will go to any 6th form interview if they make her an offer -- to get a feel for the interview and the school. She went to a taster day at Oxford in Nov and apparently they were told any interview practice is good. She's applied to 5 local schools: her own school (1st preference), one selective school, and rest are all local non-selective, distance-based - which she isn't keen on. They all have grade minimums for Maths and Science.

She will only consider 2 offers though: her own school and the selective (if offered). It's super selective though.. I guess it will depends on grades.

@AmyandPhilipfan Was this iGCSE or Wales? I only ask as English language GCSE isn't split to Foundation and Higher in England.

Oh, it was a past paper from 2017 I think, so maybe it's changed since then?

The old spec had tiers, but still had letter grades.
Not sure what happened right at the start of the new spec.