GCSE Support - the results are in

[SheilaFentiman]

Continuing the threads we had going during revision and waiting for results day!

I took my DD to her college sign up and 90% had one parent with them. I went because she missed one grade but we were able to discuss it and they accepted her onto her chosen A levels as she had exceeded the other entry requirements. I think if there are grade queries it’s worth being there as they want you to sign there and then so decisions have to be made quickly.

I went with DS as he needed to change his choices and it could have gone either way. However I was almost the only parent in there.
Today we're going to his preferred college and I'm going along again. I think it could be tricky choosing what he should do.

We've been advised that a parent should attend with the child to discuss their choices (generic response to all who have applied there).

@closethedrawer
@handmademitlove
Many many years ago I did German A level.
I got a surprising A at gcse. A level really just builds on the vocab and grammar learnt for gcse.
It was very german lit heavy. We did biedermann und die brandstifter about an arsonist. First time I'd had to read a German lit book and loved it!

I did - mainly because DD has a health issue that they needed to be aware of and she wasn't going to mention! Other than chipping in about that one piece of info, I sat back and left her to get on with the enrolling - took 3 hours!!!!

Loads of other parents there and many taking a much more active part in the enrolment than I did!

Hope all goes well!

I was the same. Loved gcse German and took it at A level. But after a couple of weeks I realised how big the jump was and ended up changing for English. But that was a long time ago so no idea how things have changed.

I am also embarrassing so I will not be attending the enrolment

To those taking A level German or any MFL - agree that it's a great idea to write down any vocab as you come across it. I would also advise a good bit of revision of grammar and vocab basics now. Ideally work should have been going on on this throughout the summer, but even a few days' work will help.

There's not loads of lit - usually one book and one film. The film in German is usually Goodbye Lenin! or Leben des Anderen, both great films. And the book is often Besuch der Alten Dame (a play, fairly easy language) or Der Vorleser (The Reader - made into an English film with Kate Winslet). Find out which before rushing to buy tho! More than 50 pp sadly but not too challening, English-wise. Those books and films are the ones with a revision guide available btw.

Hi we've had a response from DS school and they've suggested we could consider a review for one biology paper (still waiting to hear about history and geography) - he's one mark off the higher grade boundary.
Money aside - should we go ahead on this basis? Just looking for others opinions. Thanks.

Ask them to get the scripts first and see if there are obvious marking errors. Reviewers are not looking for extra marks

Ask the school to review and advise. DD was 1 mark off a 9 in history and her teacher has gone through every paper and said yes, she could argue that across the papers, she can see a couple of missed marks but that she would expect them to declare it fairly marked (it is) and stick with their 8. She says it's not worth it as each missed mark is in a different paper iyswim so you'd have to ask for all of them to be reviewed and if it's only one mark out, it is still a fair mark of a subjective paper. We are going with her expert opinion and leaving it.

Sorry we've had the scripts back for all 3 subjects. The head of Biology has come back and said she feels it would be worth considering a review of paper 2.

Another one here who was too embarrassing to be allowed onto college premises, but relegated to glorified Uber driver instead. DC reckons it was about 75/25 on favour of parents being there.

Still no scripts here. Keep getting told I need to speak to different people. Only one teacher has got back to me so far. Looks like we won't have even started the ball rolling until term actually starts 🙄

Only the exams officer can request them. But they belong to the candidate so you should be able to get them fairly easily.
Teachers are still on holiday so you might not hear from them until term starts.

They get a collective point score for their GCSE grades and that's used to generate A-level target grades so they will have the same prediction for all subjects. This means a kid who got a 9 in maths but a 4 in English might only have a target of an A for Maths A-level instead of an A*, but would also have a target of an A for English if they were allowed to take it.

Predicted grades should be teacher-generated based on performance.

@noblegiraffe is, of course, correct.

Target grades come from GCSE scores
Predicted grades come from teacher knowledge

@MrsHamlet thank you. When we go in to request them, how long does it normally take to actually see them?

@MrsBeetlejuice it's a download so it should be very quick

@MrsHamlet great, so then do you just forward them on to the subject teacher to see if they believe a review is worth while?

@MrsHamlet
So do you know how they well predict A level grades if they are taking A levels in subjects they did not do for GCSE?

@MrsBeetlejuice yes. Or the head of department

@bluegiraffe I teach English, so no. They're not always that useful for my subject either, frankly

@MrsHamlet thanks 👍

@Neversaygoodbye is it AQA paper 2 biology? We’ve got the same dilemma as she’s one point of G6, lucky college accepted her onto A’Levels as she was strong across all the others but I’m worried it may impact at University choices plus we’ve reviewed both papers and there’s definitely some odd marking going on. She was a very solid G6 on paper 1.