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?!

My DS looks pretty exhausted already. He boarded the first two nights which probably didn't help. It's been pretty full on with kicking off CCF, rugby season, extra-curricular fair etc and today there is the first social so he'll be back quite late. I hope there was some work in between there somewhere! We've already had the first homework refusal- apparently it was not necessary to complete the Sparks 🙄

I'm going to book this at Wimbledon too!

@MakeTeaNotWar and anyone else in / around London, I've booked A Christmas Carol too at the Old Vic theatre.

Went to see Inspector Calls with my eldest last year, was very good, looks like the same production touring next year. I've emailed the school to see if they are planning a trip before I book - Southampton is our nearest. When we went there was understandably lots of school parties there, watching a play with an audience of 90% 15&16 year olds was brilliant, they were so unguarded in there responses, lots of gasps and cheers.

Also good to know that Muppets Christmas Carol is surprisingly incredibly close to the text so definitely an acceptable version to get them to watch.

A local museum did a brilliant Christmas Carol performance last year. It's an old Victorian mansion so the perfect setting but it doesn't look like they're doing it this year.

English Lit also a massive sticking point Chez Brick.

It's Of Mice and Men here. Just bought him his own copy to make notes in and sold it as "History adjacent".

He's got Blood Brothers for Drama. Equally challenging 😰

All these texts I did myself for GCSE 20 years ago! (IC, Blood Bros, Macbeth, Of Mice and Men). Time for a change up?!

Is everyone buying copies of the texts? I asked DD and she said school gave them one on paper but it stays at school. 🤔🤔

Fist week back. Have decided on a weekly ‘homework discussion’ with DS to get him focused. This week if been testing him on Latin vocab and neither of us understand how Latin tenses work. He also has to learn ‘ozymandius’ by heart for English. Like some sort of Victorian schoolchild

He’s still in top set English which is a mystery to all of us. He’s back in top set maths again thankfully. As he was bored and unchallenged in mainstream maths last year.

Our school have specified which edition of the book we should buy (I would have thought they could include it in their ever increasing fees but hey ho) Inspector Calls, Macbeth and Christmas Carol.

Im surprised kids are doing Of Mice and Men, is that for igcse? Gove banned it from the GCSE as he thought everyone should be studying books by English authors. He’s also the guy who thought learning lots of poems by heart was important. I guess the reforms only affected England though..

Any others doing Further Maths? How is this working in their timetable? At dd's school everyone has 5 lessons of maths a week but as she's doing FM, three of those are standard higher level paper and two will be FM with a different maths teacher.

@36and3 I agree with the GCSE texts needing an update. A bit more diversity wouldn't go amiss. I've given Dd1 my old copy of Frankenstein to use, hopefully she'll be able to manage with that.

I don't think they do FM at her school which is odd as it's full of Maths nerds. She's in set 2 though so maybe set 1 do.

My DS is studying An Inspector Calls in both English and Drama. We're not a million miles from ally pally so was wondering whether to take him to see it - but I would have thought he's likely to go with school at some point? Maybe I should check.

He's doing Citizenship GCSE as well - anyone else? It wasn't a thing when I was at school!

I did a citizenship course as part of my pgce back in 2003, it was brand new then and I thought it would be useful for my teaching career, never once worked in a school that taught it at all! Shame because it’s such a good idea I think. Hope your ds enjoys it.

DD doing Macbeth, Christmas Carol and Lord of the Flies. She thinks. Definitely not doing An Inspector Calls and she is disappointed about that.
Had to buy some stationery for one of her subjects and got completely stung when I didn't check the price of the plastic wallets. At least they are premium. Hoping they come with a 25 year guarantee.

We have to buy our own copies so they can be annotated. They give us which ISBN they need and I got them over the summer.

No further Maths offered at DDs school if there was she would do it as she loves the subject.

She's spent a lot of today doing Chemistry homework and going over Y9 stuff to refresh. Got rinsed yesterday buying her first lot of Art supplies

I've bought DS CGP annotated copies of his texts for English. I agree they could do with an update. I did Of Mice and Men and Macbeth at school over 20 years ago. Imagine doing something fun, like The Hobbit!

DS is doing Citizenship I think. We did half an RE back in t'day.

Of mice and men here (we are in Wales so no Gove infuence). DS read it over the summer and actually really liked it - and it sort of links to his history so that’s good. They are starting with poetry this term though which he hates so he’s very disappointed about that!
I buy copies of every text he mentions in the hope that it helps. He finds school work so tough but he is a keen reader- at least I can make sure he knows the texts even if he can’t analyse them!

I'm swithering over booking A Christmas Carol tickets @36and3. I think I'll try for the preview tickets (although last time I tried that for the Old Vic there was no chance), and if not wait and see if the school organise a trip. I was thinking I could always book next Xmas instead as a refresher. I love doing a theatre trip before Xmas but I've already booked Ballet Shoes, don't want to go overboard!

I'd be surprised if there are preview tickets left @SatsumaCat . I got two for 17th dec but very little availability on most dates now. Good luck!

I asked ds school if they were going to see inspector calls, not this year but maybe next year. So that’s clear as mud.. Apparently they couldn’t get tickets. Not sure what to do really, I’d like him to see it, but don’t want to pay for it twice!

@wonderstuff
There’s always the bbc adaption, available online .