Please, as we hit exam season in earnest – take a moment to check…

[clary]

… that your DC are prepped as they should be. I am not talking here about revision but exam rubric and spec.

I conduct speaking assessments for MFL and while some candidates are excellent and well-prepared, I am always surprised by how many have not filled in the form correctly, or have not checked what kind of questions I will be asking, or have not realised that they need to ask me a question or questions. This is at both KS4 and KS5. None of this information is secret – it is all right there on the exam board websites. Candidates are losing marks because they have not checked this out.

Yes, teachers should be flagging this up – but sometimes students do not listen to teachers. And of course many students will be sitting exams via HE, so may not have an exam-expert teacher or tutor to consult.

We are well into the speaking assessment windows for A level, international A level, GCSE and IGCSE now, but it may be that your DC still has their MFL speaking assessment coming up. If it’s AQA GCSE, they do not need to develop answers in the role-play, but they do for the photocard. They do need to ask the examiner a question in the general speaking. If they are taking Edexcel IGCSE MFL, the detail of the kind of questions they will be asked on the photo is online, and worth a look. If they are sitting Edexcel A level MFL, they are supposed to ask the examiner multiple questions during both elements of the conversation. And so on.

The same goes for other papers and other subjects too. In MFL AQA GCSE, there is a choice of two questions on the written paper, so please only write one piece, not both. For the 20th century text in AQA Eng lit, they only need to write answers for one of two questions. For AQA Eng lang, only four short answers are needed for the first task. There are similar details to bear in mind for all subjects – and like I say, the info is on the exam board website, under spec, or under details for specific papers. Please take a look. Better to know twice and be sure than to walk into an exam unprepared.

Good thread op. It's hard though for the kids to remember all this stuff for every subject isn't it.

MFL Aqa photo card when it says 'develop' it means say 3 phrases with verbs in for at least 3 of the questions.

So I would advise that in the prep time, candidates must prep at least 4 phrases with verbs for each of the 3 questions. Then for the surprise questions there's less pressure to develop, they can still get full marks.

DO NOT take anything into the exam hall except your clear pencil case. If you accidentally take your phone in, or a scrappy bit of paper, or anything unauthorised, you could end up in a world of trouble.... even if it was unintentional.

Yes this. They have 12 mins prep for role play and photo, and can see three photo questions - if they develop three that's "most" so they can access the top mark band of 13-15. It makes my teeth itch when they blithely give me a single sentence "ich finde es gut" when they have had at least two mins to prepare something better.

Yy then pressure is off for two unseen qus - just need to answer them ok.

Sorry this is v specific to AQA MFL! On my mind today clearly

Can I go and hide somewhere for the next two months? One doing GCSE's and one doing A Levels. No MFL though at GCSE.

Thanks for the tip about the scrappy bits of paper - he is a bugger for stuffing things in his pocket. He gets quite a few allowances - extra time, a laptop and a smaller room (autism) He just needs to slow down.

I once taught a kid GCSE maths resit because they took a scrappy bit of paper into their GCSE maths exam in their pencil case by accident. No notes on it, but the exam board still cancelled that paper. They scored 0 for one paper, then decent marks for the other two but it dragged their mark below a 4 and they had to resit in sixth form.

And the phones. Caught more last year than ever. Usually think they won't be found in the blazer pocket. Not planning on using them but can't bear to leave them.
Until they go to the loo, or they buzz!

I’m an exams officer and so run edamame invigilate. Your child won’t be allowed to wear a watch as all boards now ban them but adjustments should be made for your child to ensure they can see a clock. Speak to the exams officer or SENCO - we would ensure they were seated at the front of the room. We would also have clocks around the room not just at the front.

Many thanks for this, it is very helpful.

I double-checked, and it is indeed Edexcel that young Gunner is taking.

And yes, he does need to try and get the pronounciation and intonation right.

There is a very great deal of info available from Pearson
https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/qualifications/edexcel-gcses/spanish-2016.html

Ah that would explain the speech. Structure of Pearson/Edexcel is similar but the spec has five themes unlike AQA's three. So for AQA you choose one theme for general convo, the photo is on another and then you have the third also for gen convo. The roleplay theme will cross over slightly with one theme. With Pearson/Exexcel you have one theme for the roleplay, theme for the photo, one chosen theme for gen convo and one other allocated by Pearson/Edexcel. So one theme is not covered at all, by my calculations.

Anyway as you say, all the spec is there to be studied.

No need to ask the examiner a question on that Pearson/Edexcel spec btw.

Does he really get asked his name and age btw? Or is he just saying them as part of his speech? I wouldn't tbh if it's the latter.

I've just read this properly and it's not quite right FWIW - the AQA assessment actually includes a role play set by AQA, a photocard on one theme, a general convo on the chosen theme and further general convo on the theme not chosen and not the photo. There are three themes altogether.

So if the student chooses theme 2 (wise!) the photo could be theme 1 (family, festivals, technology or hobbies) or theme 3 (education and jobs). They will answer questions on theme 2 (holidays, home town, environment and social issues) and then the one non photo theme.

The reason I say choose theme 2 is bc then your teacher can ask you about holidays and your town (not too hard) and you won't get a hideous photocard asking what you will do next year to help the homeless.

@clary i have probably misunderstood. She chose the theme that they did most recently as her drafted responses were more complex so she thinks she can get higher marks. I just checked her flashcards for lang 1 and she’s picked theme 2 😁. She’s done a few rehearsals before school with the teacher too which thankfully have gone well.

So a few more days of lang 1 then lang 2 for another few days then I AM DONE! I don’t mind in the least doing flash cards with her for history etc but languages are very painful (for both of us!).

Actually reading that back I did misunderstand. She doesn’t seem concerned about the photocard aspect, which is why she’s mentioned the convo being theme 2 and then one of either 1 or 3.

Seconding the excellent advice about calculators - which also applies to Economics.

Plus, (as I don't know how many more times I can teach/revise this without going mad), talk to your son or daughter about the size of something versus the rate at which it is changing e.g.

"How tall are you now?"

"What speed are you growing at?"

"Did I just ask you the same question twice?"

Sooo many lost marks for that.

Ah great, theme 2 is the badger IMO, avoids the yucky (well, harder I think) potential qus on the photocard - which the teacher cannot amend or choose. I mean you might get holidays but you might get homelessness. This way her teacher will ask her some nice qus about her home town or when she last went to France - winner.

When it says "write about x and one other poem", it does mean one.

Brilliant thread, thank you @clary and I would like to add that a couple of years ago I PM'd Clary to ask about MFL and the specific advice helped my child secure a grade 8 which was incredible. So thank you to you and also the other teachers posting on MN to help children achieve an understanding that will hopefully increase their grade, not just on this thread but the others you add to too.

My piece of advice is that the school usually provide an exam timetable with all the dates and times on plus the exam paper number. I taught mine to always check you have been given the correct exam paper because occasionally mistakes can and do happen so triple check.

Also before you turn the page check the page number and make sure the next page is the actual next page and that you haven't missed a double page of questions. This also applies to the back page of the booklet too.

Ds2 is about to sit A levels but we have just changed the batteries in his calculator. His GCSE one was solar but his scientific one for A level maths/further maths is battery only frustratingly.

Aww shucks @WardenOfGarden it was and is always a pleasure to help in any way I can for sure :) Great tips about turning page carefully and checking page numbers - it is so easy for errors to occur here. Good luck to DS2 with A levels

Excellent thread OP thanks

And thanks also to the awesome contributors ... going to have a pow wow with DD towards the end of next week with many of these pointers

Wishing all Y11 kids the best of luck and sending industrial quantities of to all of you!

@clary my poor dd froze during her French speaking.. (being carried out by her French teacher).. and when asked what her least favourite subject was and why thoughtlessly stated that I was French because her teacher was boring.. apparently the rest of the exam was carried out in quite a tense atmosphere!! luckily she did quite well anyway... fortunately she didn't want to do it at A level!!

Nooooo! I am always happy with "I hate German it's very boring" if said in correct German! Actually I never ask that (nor which teacher don't you like) as IME most kids don't like to say what they don't like. Maybe in case you pass it on! Much better to ask favourite subject and ideal teacher.

if you have a number of long essay questions especially A level.. check how many you need to write.. pick out your questions then write brief essay plans for each one. believe me when you've written 2 long essays already and you've still got a third to go then having a plan helps.. and if for any reason you don't finish you'll most likely still get marks from the plan.

secondly some subjects require you to use certain key words in your answers.. fairly sire this applies to some biology a level papers.. identify which words and write them down early in exam and then use them.

check page numbers, check back page fior questions and if you finish early dint just go check you're happy with your answers

Can I ask, for essay plans for GCSE, where would you write this plan? That's useful to know

In the exam paper under the question it relates to, if the answer booklet has the questions (eg English Lang)
At the top of the page in a blank booklet - but make sure it's numbered with the correct question.

Thanks!

@tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz Ds had prepared essay answers for a couple of subjects, one was History and they had to answer a how far do you agree with this sort of question. They had been taught 4 paragraphs and a conclusion for certain mark questions (18 or 20 not AQA) so for every past paper question that had ever been asked he had prepared a yes or no conclusion and had then bullet point statements to elaborate on in exams. There is only so many ways they can ask a question about a topic. That meant he had already figured it out before he went in. He just wrote things like yes Babington Plot, no excom Pope date, Walsingham spy network, etc but then he was a History grade 9 motivated student. It meant he wasn't sitting there trying to think up what to write under pressure.

The same for English lit poems, he would have Form, Opening, Structure, Ending already to write about five poems he knew inside out. He would write FOSSE which is one of the Mr Salles's methods I believe and tick each letter.