Year 10 2024/2025 - come and join!

[36and3]

A thread for those with kids beginning their GCSE course next month.

Dd is my oldest so this process is a first for me. Her options are: triple science, Spanish, history and food/nutrition.

We've spent the summer organising her room. We've bought revision guides and files etc for every subject and she's excited to get started!

Would anyone like to join me for the ride?!

November does sound like leaving it late I agree. No mocks as such here which I’m slightly surprised by - there were some end of term tests but we don’t seem to have got the marks for most of them yet….Also been concentrating on some subjects over others due to taking some papers early. It has not been going very well though - hopefully whatever your DS did went better @waitingquietly .
Not sure what DS is doing over the summer - school have not set particular work (yet - they have a week to go). On the one hand DS is on his knees and really needs a break on the other hand he can’t afford to slack off entirely- especially with Maths (which he despises).

Next round of mocks in November for us too, followed by mini mocks in February. Alevel options night in September and final choices in by December. It’s all definitely adding fuel to the fire!!

Hi all, I hope you are all enjoying the summer holidays. My Yr10 DS has had couple of weeks off now, his Mocks results were OK but we and his teachers know he can do better.

Are your soon to be Y11's doing any revisions?

Hi! Dd has literally today started her first piece of holiday homework. She has some for every subject. We’re increasing her maths tutor frequency starting next month. Then it’s next set of mocks in November.

We also have alevel options evening in September with the deadline for choices in December! She’s currently thinking bio, chem, psychology and history. They have to choose four initially with the view of dropping one.

DS has also been off for a couple of weeks, he agreed to 3 hours study on week days (lots of school work set and all his y10 mock grades were bar Eng Lit and Art were 3 or below). He’s yet to do more than 90 minutes and mostly has done nothing! He’s capable of 4-6 grades, if only he’d do some work! He tells me in History his teacher has little class control, this is in a school where the biggest classes are 14 kids! He got a grade 1 in the mock.

We have looked at 6th form, he says he wants to do A-levels, he needs 5 at grade 4 or above because thankfully we’re in an area with a very inclusive 6th form.

It was his birthday last week, so I did cut him some slack last week. Deeply regret not keeping him back a year when he was 4. He’s so young in the year and quite immature for his age.

DD says there's a few bits of homework (sounds like only a few hours) and the teachers didn't say anything about revision over the holiday. She says she's going to do some refreshers and maths practice.

Very glad we started the English tutoring, she says she's covered a lot more detail of An Inspector Calls in that 1 hour a week than in the 4 lessons a week in school.

DD has been given a mind-boggling amount of homework to do over the Summer - officially four hours per subject, but some are taking much longer - she has already spent 2 full days on DT and isn't finished yet!

She's quite worried about DT and so am I - if this is anything to go by, the coursework is going to dominate everything next year. Anyone got any experience?

The whole lot just feels far too much. She did really well in end of year 10 exams - mostly 9s - so I really don't think this much is necessary. I get it if kids are underperforming or have stuff to catch up on.

My son has been told to do several hours revision a week. He has been off since Thursday and so far done maybe 3-4 hours in total and has a cold. There are also various grade boosting extensions which have been suggested, some more interesting than others. His school have a policy if not predicting top grades yet, so kids can get 9s on their end of year assessments and be predicted 7 as next year gets harder. None of the subjects have coursework though so that’s not something to worry about.

Gosh, I don't think mine has any homework or at least none that she has told me about!

She's generally out all the time with her friends, living her best life and not thinking about work at all. She did make some noises about making more flash cards when her exams finished but any time I've mentioned that, I've had massive eye rolls.

She did pretty well in her mocks though and the next set aren't until January so I guess she has time.

A level wise, she's thinking Art, German, Maths and either Further Maths or English. Her school also start with 4 and drop 1. But she is also still considering moving, and then she may do drama instead of Art. September and 6th form open days sound quite stressful. I feel like it's not that long ago, we were choosing secondaries - and not being able to look round because of Covid!

DS2 has quite a bit of holiday work to do I think - I’ve seen colour coded lists anyway . Nothing done yet - though we just came back from holiday last night so will start nagging in a couple of days … I’m quite reliant on hoping his best friend will be doing some as peer pressure ! His mocks ranged from a 1 ( in part of combined science ) to a 7 .. didn’t pass 3 .. so work is needed

also does anyone understand how the combined science grades work - DS2 got a 5/4/1 which school have said is a 4-4 - anything I can find on Google to explain deals with closer grades

All the marks for the 6 papers are added together and then grades allocated based on mark scheme which will change a bit each year, you can look up the grade boundaries, they are published each year. You either get 2 grades the same or next to each other, so you can get 3-4 or 4-4 but not 2-4. I’m not sure why it has to be so complicated, last year dd was a mark off the next grade up and so school wanted to get a paper remarked, but working out which one was tricky (you pay a fee per paper which in reimbursed if the grade changes) think we ended up sending back 3 and she got 12 marks higher so did go from 8-8 to 8-9.

Thank you - I guess that means that the 5 and 4 were pretty decent to make up for the 1

Checking in. DS's school did a big results day fir the Y10 mocks and he did well, although not as well as he'd hoped. Hopefully that will have given his head a wobble! He's got maths and English homework to do over the summer and I'm being a boring pushy mummy and taking him on plenty of educational visits. He'll appreciate it when he's in the exam hall, I'm sure...

He's not sure where he wants to go for VIth form, other than not our local VIth form college. His school only goes up to Y11 so no option to stay put. Round here the open days are in the autumn so I'll get him looking at what's on. He wants to do Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Economics, with a view to studying economics after that.

oh I need inspiration on educational trips please @RealHousewivesOfTaunton ..
my yr10 and yr11 are mostly just going to the gym or gaming since back from holiday… with an hour of school work each day .. I know that sounds feeble but figure it’s better than nothing

Not feeble at all - I think DS would move out if I made him do an hour of schoolwork a day! He got up at 3.30 this afternoon, came downstairs for a bowl of cereal and a punnet of grapes and disappeared again 🙄

In terms of educational activities, I've sneaked them in as fun days out/holidays. He was at a French football camp last week, which he loved, and we're going to Iceland for a week later in August. I reckon that counts as French, PE and geography. I'm hoping to get down to the Seven Sisters at the end of the hols (more geography) and I've booked him into a Macbeth workshop at the Globe. He really needs to work on improving his grades in Science but I'm struggling with that one.

DD’s laptop died! Can anyone recommend one for upcoming Y11 & beyond?

My year 11 soon to be year 12 🤞has an Acer Swift which he likes - also good for his games apparently! Bought for a very good price from John Lewis . Current yr10 just has a Chromebook that’s provided by school

Checking in as DS1 is picking up English Lit result (done a year early) tomorrow and thought I’d wish anyone else luck. Also good luck to @waitingquietly ’s yr 11 :).
Here we are not hopeful as he is predicted a D and apparently it also didn’t go that well…But as he’s autistic I thought I’d take him in so he can see a bit of what it’s like for next year (though yr 10’s are 30 min after yr11’s so hopefully won’t be too hectic). More crossing my fingers for a few papers they also did early in the hopes he won’t have to retake them all!

Dd has statistics result coming tomorrow. She didn't do much revision but is quite bright so no idea how it's going to go

Thank you @Walkingbkwrm .. DS2 also has English Language result tomorrow … so I shall be child juggling … hoping DS2 will sleep in ! Good luck also to the others on here with year 11s I know I’m not the only one

Ooh can I join this pls? Was looking for a year 11 thread for 25/26 as I can’t believe it’s coming round so quick! DS is my eldest doing double science/history/geography/PE plus usual

Absolutely you can @JoelDommettsTux All welcome - though we might need to edit the tread title for next year. Anyone know how?

Far beyond my technical abilities!

Hope everyone’s DCs are enjoying the summer, seems to have gone really quickly.
DD got her mock results at the end of last term and they were so good, she did work exceptionally hard.

Shes being doing a lot of her art course work, trying to get ahead and also making flash cards online.

I work in a school, probably mentioned this upthread, I was asked to help with something yesterday in the hall for results and it was interesting listening to the conversations re this years grade boundaries especially with Maths.