How much do grades typically improve between mocks and GCSEs?

[winterrabbit]

DS1 took his mocks before Christmas. Did very little revision so we're not expecting anything great but hoping to avoid a disaster as well. He got his results in Physics, Chemistry and Biology today and got 4, 5, 5 which I am a bit disappointed about as he got all 5s in the same subjects in the last assessments. No other results yet. Any idea what his predicted grades will be based on those and how much kids typically go up between mocks and GCSEs?

They agreed to let him do A-levels as he meets the point score even without 4 grade 6s. He's going to do French, Business and Sociology. Phew! Slept properly last night for the first time in ages! He'll have to work hard of course and behave but I think he can do it.

Mine had pretty grim mocks : 2 "polite" 4s (ie technically 3s); 2 more 4s; 3 5s, one 6 and one 8. He did eventually knuckle down a bit and the one thing he did so was know religiously what he needed to do for the questions so ended up with 2 8s, 7 7s and 1 5. Two of the 7s were one mark off an 8 so with just a bit more revision...... He could probably have turned the 8 into a 9 but I said it was much better to leave that one and try and get the others up.

..... so that was a long-winded way of not saying what I'd meant to which was that it really depends why they got the mock grades and what they do in between. If your mocks were a fair reflection and you'd worked hard, there's less room for multiple grade improvement but if you've been terminally lazy and pull your finger out, there's more chance of some leaps.

I'm not sure if I had posted already but DC had terrible mocks a few years ago.

Had had stretch grades of 8s (7 in Biology) but in the mocks scored a 3 in DT, 5 in Chemistry, 6 in Biology and a 7 in Geography. With some more focused revision from February onwards, managed to turn these into 8s.

I think in DC's case, they just hadn't done enough revision or in terms of focusing on active recall/past papers.

Sounds like he needs to worka lot harder for his A levels Hopefully this is the wake up call he needs.

Really pleased to hear the school saw sense.

That's good news @winterrabbit glad the school has come round. Sounds like it will be a good place for him to continue.

Hope he is prepared to work hard! Best of luck to him esp in French which is a great A level to take!

I’m glad he got in! His grades very similar to my dd (minus the 9!) - she’s taking A-levels too which I think will be hard but couldn’t find any btecs which interested her at all or were viable transport wise (live fairly rurally so limited access) - she changed schools mid GCSEs (long story) so we are actually very proud of her for getting this far as she changed exams boards too for 3 subjects which was tough mid-way through.

I hope he enjoys 6th form.

My DD improved one grade in half her mocks and stayed the same in the others.

DS got 1s and 2s in mocks, and 7s, 6s and 5s in the real thing. His 5s were in foundation papers so he got the maximum grades available at that level. Private tutoring, a cognito subscription, audio books for the lit paper and most importantly actually knuckling down to work did the trick.