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?!

First day back here. DD felt the same way @Northernrunnerbean . She spent most of the day in form and was bored. She has been moved to top set for English, so that's good although she doesn't think she'll get away with not doing the holiday homework now.

I am keen to find out what the math's teacher is like as it's DD's weaker subject and her results reflect how she feels about the teacher.

@Retrecir It is awful that one person can have such a negative impact on so many. I hope it gets sorted.
I hope they all settle back and have a good term.

So so start here. DS1 (has ASD) came home stimming like crazy - worst I’ve seen him for a couple of years. Think it was just tiredness and overwhelm as it’s died down some since getting home but doesn’t bode at all well for making it though a whole week. Not sure why it was worse than all of last year though - if there is anything else he probably won’t tell me for a few days but it may just be teenage hormones not helping :(. He claimed he had an ok day….

He was very pleased to have discovered he doesn’t in fact have to do GCSE Welsh (We are in Wales and thought it was compulsory - the school is running a different GCSE equivalent course for the strugglers). Bit taken aback as they only told us (not asked, told) about it today - not complaining though as there is no way he’d have managed to get anywhere near a C in it (last report was an E after doing regular practice at home all year!).

@MrsMcNallysMaureen a whole day in form does seem excessive, not surprised she was bored. Mine had 1 period and seemed to spend most of it chatting. It seemed mostly pointless. Hopefully she can get stuck in tomorrow.

Hope everyone else’s DCs days were ok.

I wonder if school has put a bit of pressure on them @Walkingbkwrm with the 'it's a very important 2 years...' speeches ? I hope he is OK.
My nephew had to do GCSE Welsh. He hated it. After all those years, all he has to show for it is the ability to sing 'happy birthday' in Welsh.

DS sloped off to school this morning and came home saying he'd had a "terrible" day but sat himself down to work out some trigonometry "for fun" before bed. I'll take that. According to him, he spent the whole day ruling lines in his new books.

Mine starts tomorrow. She's very excited to have a double study period after double history so hoping she won't have anything to do in it and can just chat to her mates. Main concerns are which earrings she can get away with!

Maybe - but they do 3 year GCSEs so not like it was the start of the course. He seemed a bit calmer by bedtime so 🤞tomorrow is better. If not then I’ll be ringing the SENCO to see if she knows what’s up on Friday. She’s usually on the ball to be fair, and DS1 adores her.

She gets study periods @Stowickthevast ? To do homework etc in? Wow. Those are unheard of round here. Does she have an extra long day to fit them in on top of other stuff or is she doing less options than she could? Hope she does in fact get to catch up after the holidays.

Good luck for those with DC starting tomorrow.

DS gets a few study periods this year too - his school does a compulsory half GCSE in Religious Studies (exams at the end of y10) so there is timetable space for it - but DS chose RS as a full GCSE option so he gets that time as study periods. Not quite like 6th form though, he’s in a classroom with a dedicated teacher so probably not much socialising going on!

They all get 4 a fortnight I think
@Walkingbkwrm - they have to do 10 GCSEs at her school so not particularly light. The day is from around 9 (form at 8.30) to 3.10 so pretty standard, 7 classes a day I think.
It's a grammar but they don't push them that hard - or haven't till now!

DS seems in good spirits, there's 3 of them in his GCSE ICT class including his best mate so that's good, in History he knew enough to answer some questions and feels he won't be bottom of the class so he was reassured there. I think he's quite bright, but we moved schools last year as his last school had him in bottom sets and he was doing no work, he was worried about failing everything and was also having issues with bullying. He's dyslexic and needs some organisational support, we're lucky enough to be able to put him in a local indie and he's in classes small enough that he has to do some work rather than entertain his peers (which was what he was concentrating on at the beginning of last year). He's slowly getting his confidence. He is upset it's football outside for PE all term, but it's only once a week. He's glad I made him do his art homework to a decent standard and loves his art teacher so that's a win.

Can I join please?
DD started today (well yesterday but she is a year 10 prefect so was showing year 7s around) she is my second child but a very clever girl and I’m worried she will put too much pressure on herself to get all 9s. My son was very average and quite laid back about it.
She likes her chemistry teacher but is worried about English as it is her best subject and she has found the teacher goes too fast.

That sounds like a promising start @wonderstuff hopefully the smaller classes will work well for him.
Welcome @OpalSquid - hope your DD had a good day to start her off at least - has she had English yet?

@Walkingbkwrm yes, apparently it was ok but the teacher admitted that her lessons are ‘bang bang bang’ so we’ll see. She said she kept up just about.

Sounds very positive @wonderstuff
The 9s pressure is crazy @OpalSquid isn't it? I am so ancient - in my day we were thrilled to pass. Not many got all As and A* didn't exist. I hope she is not too hard on herself.
Good news here - DD likes her maths teacher and says she explained everything really clearly and her French class is really 'chill.' So all good then...

Good to see many of your DCs getting off to a positive start. I think the general consensus is they are straight into it and yes the pressure is high.

DD is 3 days in and all going very well. Very happy with her teachers, she has got a great set of teachers so we are very lucky there. Jury is out on the new Maths teacher, DD said he was very monotone. She's loving the sciences although they are moving at a pace and she's had quite a lot of homework already.

Tomorrow she has history for the first time, she’s never had the teacher before so fingers crossed. I feel like history can be very dry if you don’t have the right teacher (and I did a degree in it.)
It sounds like most of them have started well, my daughter said all the teachers say is ‘it’s time to get serious now…’
I didn’t say, she is taking triple science, and has chosen history, sports science (Cambridge National) and dance (BTEC). She didn’t want to do sports science particularly she wanted RE but there were timetable clashes so she couldn’t. Her MFL is Spanish.

DD also had a good first couple of days. Was pleased with teacher allocation, though hasn't had some of the new ones yet. Think she might do better in biology now she hasn't got the "shit" teacher.

Dd is loving being back. Like some others on here, she has very high personal expectations. She's top set for everything so academically very able to achieve top grades, but being in top sets almost comes with some degree of additional pressure I find - keeping up with the Jones's.

We are full of excitement here today, she loves the teachers she’s had today.
Her dance BTEC seem to have lit a fire in her.
They have said to start revision as soon as, so she wants me to help her with a revision timetable.

The top set pressure is very real here. She was top of top last year so puts a lot of pressure on herself.

First day back for DS today (front loading the use of INSET days!), and he’s come home happy with teachers and seating plans so far, and full of good intentions. Only nine of them in his Religious Studies class!

I see An Inspector Calls is in Wimbledon in May, is that too late to see it?

@MakeTeaNotWar even if they’re well past covering it and have moved on to the next book, it’ll be good revision - DS1 (now y12) found it initially hard to refamiliarise himself with the y10 books for his revision towards the end of y11 because it had been so long since they were covered. It could be perfect timing depending on when your y10 end of year exams are.

I think it would be good, maybe even better if they’ve finished studying, look at it with fresh eyes and see which themes they still see and understand and which they need to come back to.

DS' school has a term-by-term overview of what they're covering in each subject. Yours might be similar? In any case, I think having a recap is always a good thing!