Year 11 - 2024-2025 Support Thread

[QueenMabby]

Hi
A continuation for those of us with DCs going into year 11 - GCSEs are looming!

Hi how are you DCs accessing past papers? I’ve printed about three possibly four and few little bits including with mark schemes and finished a whole ink cartridge! Are they just looking at them online and writing answers on paper?

will cost a fortune otherwise!

getting more and more info from school regards revision required, I really can’t see how DS can get through it all.

only saving grace is he does seem to have good recall! So maybe it’s there in the deepest crevices of his brain and he’ll put it out the bag when needed! Can but hope.

Oh dear at sexy dancing @QueenMabby ! What's the show? And well done to her! DD2 is back for two weeks now. She has history coursework to do, and an essay for potential academic scholarship, but she seems to be mostly playing Hamilton on the piano - which is NOT an instrument she even studies. Some might suggest this is is a displacement activity, rather like the very complicated cinnamon buns she made this morning.

We had a university open day at the weekend which we took all three girls to, which perhaps gives DD2 more of an idea of what she's aiming at, though I think a lot of the people we spoke to assumed we had triplets, which is a somewhat horrific thought.

@apee

@ThisPerkySloth I can do limitless printing at work so I tend to print most things at work! Our printer is ok but is temperamental like most so I'm glad I have this facility.
My DSs recall is good for certain stuff, but not so for the sciences and we are finding that we are spending a disproportionate amount of time on that.

@minisnowballs 🤣🤣 at the triplets! I also have 3 DDs but triplets would be a LOT! Yum!! Cinnamon buns!
@QueenMabby what production is it? Guys & Dolls, Chicago? Trying to think of ones where ‘sexy’ is relevant.
@DataColour are you teaching him sciences? I’m so impressed at all you mums that are so hands on! Don’t think my DD would let me even if I did have a clue!

@NotDonna yes sometimes DH and I (mostly DH as he's a chemistry teacher, I'm also a scientist) do end up going over science concepts with DS as he's weakest in that area. He's fine with all the other subjects and don't need our input, which is lucky because we don't know much about anything else apart from maths perhaps and that's starting to get too hard for us!

@DataColour It’s all too hard for me (other than maths but she doesn’t like my ‘weird’ methods). When did GCSEs get tricky???? Sciences are her weakest too - esp chemistry! My eldest may be able to help her there but she’s currently studying for professional exams so…

Last year DS used Save My Exams online. He hasn’t looked at any yet this year. Maths teacher gives them half a paper a week now. His revision books have practice questions in. Printing could be good, but so much ink! I might ask him if it would help. The revision books have practice papers in too. So little time for them to really make headway. Trying to push for chipping away.

Well, we are 2 weeks away from the mocks and I reckon DS has done 30 mins of maths and that is it.
Some of his pals have been pulled in with parents for a lecture as they aren’t trying hard enough. The bar for trying must be pretty low for me not to have had a call.
Got a lot going on at work and with my parents so have just zoned out to it a bit to be honest as my stress levels are way too high. Only 8 months till June and then it’s done ,right!?

About the same here. 2 weeks till mocks and she did her 5 minute French homework and was incredibly proud of herself and called it revision😁She is really promising to try during half term though so we'll see how that goes

@ThisPerkySloth my DD1 (who is doing A-Levels) has a Save My Exams login - all three girls use that one - though it must make the algorithm think there is a very odd person doing six completely different A-Levels and eight GCSEs at once. It is really useful though.

@minisnowballs and @NotDonna - it's Guys and Dolls. She's a hot box girl! 😱

Dd currently in Italy. Went to Pompeii today and is going up Mount Vesuvius tomorrow. V glad she doesn't have mocks this term as she's away all this week and then has four days of orchestra next week. No time for study.

She has finished her English coursework though which is good.

@SB1971 that all sounds tough! Totally understand why you don’t have the headspace for GCSEs!

Data, ds2 had a non-exciting Geography field trip to the coast yesterday to look at rocks and measurements. It was freezing and none of the people he met seemed at all willing to answer questions and none of them knew what he was talking about, plus they never had any time for lunch, so he was unimpressed. Iceland sounds much better.

Literally minimal revision done here so far. I am concerned.

@Oblomov24 That does sound a bit rubbish! I remember DS doing a trip to the coast, but that was in July of Year 10 I'm sure, much better weather for it!

Went to a study skills parent forum last night at the school. Even though DS does do some revision, the school said they should be doing around 3hrs a day! DS does nowhere near this, especially on a weekday. I think it's totally unrealistic. Perhaps nearer GCSEs I could understand, but they were implying that they should be doing this level of work in the run up to the mocks in less than 4 weeks.
They did have some useful tips however, like revisiting information often as it takes around 4 times for the information to embed in their minds. Needs to be super organised and motivated to do this however, which DS is not!

i think that amount is far too much. I don’t think I could do it tbh. DS’s school says no more than 2 hours including homework. I think may had some very diligent girls who burnt themselves out. DS is v tired in week so generally getting homework done and then chilling.

@DataColour that sounds impossible - unless they are counting revision sessions in lessons? DD1 did nothing like that - did absolutely fine. More once study leave started I guess but certainly not anything like that!

@DataColour - I think that's utterly unrealistic. Including homework I would say maybe an hour per week night and 3-4 hours at the weekend but only when actively revising for mocks and then for the real thing - not all the time.

I'm glad you all think 3hrs everyday is just ridiculous. There was a collective gasp from the parents when the deputy head declared this!

Anyone here considering dropping any subjects? Currently doing 10 but wondering whether 8 will produce better grades all round?

Three hours a day term time? That’s not really doable if the teen has any life beyond studying. There aren’t enough hours in the day!
@aliceinanwonderland what GCSEs would your DC stop? My eldest did 9 - maths, 2xEnglish, 3x sciences, history, geography and Spanish. Didn’t do a creative. At A level did Maths, Chem & Econ, and then got offers from good universities to read Econ. She chose a degree apprenticeship instead. So doing 9 GCSEs rather than the usual 10 at her school did her no harm whatsoever. As long as the core subjects are studied it shouldn’t limit your DCs choices at A level. What are they studying atm and what would they drop?

@aliceinanwonderland DD2 only does 8 GCSES - she dropped her language and doesn't do triple science. She's done it to fit in more music, but has been advised that it won't stop her applying to any universities as they only look at eight.

Her old school wouldn't have let her do it though - because they don't want to supervise children who are studying independently.

Other than that though I don't think it's a bad idea for those who are finding the workload onerous

She's doing the usual, plus two academic options and one creative. The creative is time consuming but she enjoys it and will get an 8 in it.
Thinking of dropping history and "winging " physics as currently she's very weak on maths and French. French is just a question of doing more grammar, but I'm concerned about maths.
On some threads it appears that only non academic pupils ( ie not even considering university) will do eight which made me wonder if it's too few for a "decent " university.

Ds2's 16th Birthday. Lidl Brownies.

I wish DS had the option of dropping a couple of subjects. Could do without compulsory RE! And we are regretting choosing PE as the teacher is not as good as he should be.

DS had a negative experience with his music teacher at school today. He played his duet, the one chosen for GCSE, with his teacher. She had apparently said that it was "awful" in front of the whole class! Unbelievable. DS asked for feedback and was told that she was too busy sight reading her part to pay enough attention to his, so err why say it was awful if she can't even concentrate on his playing to give him useful feedback? It all sounds really weird and pretty dreadful if true. He plays the duet fine, his normal teacher is happy with it and has actually stopped going over it with him because as far as he's concerned it was performance ready. So to be told it was awful, is just really weird. I've emailed the school teacher to ask what on earth is going on.
I've had some pretty strict/unsupportive music teachers myself when I was learning to play the piano but sounds like this one takes the biscuit.