Year 11 - 2024-2025 Support Thread

[QueenMabby]

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

@stickygotstuck - if it were my dd (and I appreciate that it's not!) I would be being the "down-time" police and would be the one encouraging breaks, supporting with snacks/walks/film nights etc to give the down time and really push the "breaks are good" so she feels as well-supported as possible in the hope that it would be enough to keep her going and avoid the dreaded burn out.

DS seems to have only one paper for mocks except for English, Maths and Geography. So PE is definitely just the one paper.
I've ordered some PE GCSE AQA revision guide and revision question cards for DS to help him with his revision. DD in year 10 is also taking PE GCSE so it'll be a worthwhile investment!
DS just rang me to tell me that his ensemble piano performance recording went really well. That's 15% of his music GCSE done and his teacher said that's it's almost guaranteed full marks! This is after the teacher declared it awful before half term (I had a chat with her, turns out it was her who was making mistakes in her playing as she hadn't rehearsed it but she was having a bad day and the duet didn't work well and she snapped at DS, not great but she was pretty apologetic). He'll probably do the solo which is even more ready and has been for months, after the stress of the mocks and hopefully that's a third of the gcse done before Christmas. His composition is going really well too so he's on track for a good mark for this subject.

It's DS's birthday this week, he had an early present of a new gaming system and call of duty game which has proved to be a good incentive for revising at the moment.

Hi, dd is in year 11 now.. can I please join this thread?

Dd is dyslexic so everything is a struggle and I’m finding year 11 stressful so far as is DD. She is very hardworking and studies so hard but doesn’t always get the results she wants so it’s very frustrating.

Mocks started this week and we’ve had tears twice today 😫

might have a wine with dinner lol

First day of mocks completed here. Just one paper for each subject (except maths which has two) and the timetable is reasonably spread out over two weeks, DS even has two days without exams. Students need to be in school at the regular time, but are allowed to go home at the start of lunchtime or at the end of the second exam scheduled for the morning, if they are sitting it. If not sitting an exam, lessons are for self-directed revision.

There is a second set of mocks scheduled for just after Feb half-term with the same format which means for subjects with multiple papers (science, English, etc.) they never sit a full set of exams.

I found his result sheet earlier from the exams he sat in May, I’m hoping that he has done enough revision since to improve his marks somewhat.

DS managed to submit his application for sixth-form at his school last week during half-term. He really doesn’t want to move, so is only applying to his school. He should make the entrance requirements, but I am a little concerned about he meeting the subject requirements, which are stricter.

@WhenDoISleep

First day of mocks here too. Same about being allowed to go home.

Eng language, PE , Geography. Biology tomorrow.

He didn't do any revision over 1/2 term, unlike all the other posters here, so I am worried. But let's see the results. 5,6,7? Say a 6,can he push it to a 7, a 7 can he push it to an 8.

If ds2 does better than last time: the 2 he got in RE(at a Catholic school 🙄) and the 4 in Geography, I'll be pleased. He said he did no revision for either because he was concentrating on getting a 7 in Biology, Chemistry and Physics. But still....
He's done little maths, but he's a 7 easily, maybe I can push him to an 8.

@HereComesYourMam my DS’s spanish teacher recommended quiz let.

@Cornygirl my DS gets homework and now revision homework set on Seneca especially for sciences. DS uses Seneca for maths but for some reason some topics of the OCR board is not there or greyed out. So uses a CGP book too.

Are other kids doing mocks also getting homework set on top of revision? They have to attend classes when not in an exam and getting set homework which I think is a bit harsh when revising too.

Week 1 of mocks done. All ok, apparently.
Monday to Wednesday next week, then done.

Our school does this. I think it's bonkers. What a lot of the kids in our school actually need by now is a spiritual retreat!

DD stopped doing Maths homework before the half term of her own accord (she was spending 2 hours a day on Sparks), and this week her teacher finally saw the light and told the rest of them not to do any more. Week 1 of mocks is next week.

@Oblomov24 well done your DS on getting week 1 done without issue!

(BTW, I am sorry, but your comment about DS getting a 2 in RE at a Catholic school made me chucke 😁)

Hope everyone's DCs who are in or hearing up for mocks are doing ok.

Still ok revision started here. We had our school's 6th form info evening this week and we got to go around some of the subjects dd was thinking about for A level.

She now knows she definitely doesn't want to do Spanish A level and not Latin either - just not enough "language" in either of the courses.

So it looks like she's decided on Maths, FM, biology and chemistry.

Week 1 of mocks done here. Chemistry was the hardest he said today but the rest were ‘decent’.
No homework being set here whilst mocks are on and any work that was set for the last few weeks was revision based.

I was just about to start a Y11/GCSE thread and then found this one. Excellent!

DD in Y11. Her mocks aren’t until mid November. She is getting a lot of homework still - some of it revision and past papers, but lots of it (History, Maths, Science) still learning new content.

Her school is giving us monthly predicted grades. Is this standard?

DDs' mocks are not until January.

I feel slightly concerned that they don't seem to be doing any regular revision, although their teachers say everything is fine and they're expected to get good grades

I don't want to be too pushy at this relatively early stage - they still have a lot of non-academic stuff going on at school until Christmas as they are in various productions and concerts. It's a long school day and they get home pretty exhausted. Not sure when to start pushing on the serious revision and practice papers, etc...

No. DS get one set of predictions after these mocks and possibly another after second set. Monthly predictions seems excessive and possibly a bit random???

It does seem excessive. They have Nov and March mocks as well.

DD's week 1 mocks are over. She said most of them actually went okay only she keeps stressing over her Question 4 in English Language Paper 1 - she wrote about the whole text instead of only writing about the part they tell them to. She won't stop stressing over it!! No homework at all being set here

If it's AQA it won't matter. They'll just ignore the "wrong" bit, unless all she wrote about was the "wrong" bit

We don't get predicted grades til after mocks (January). I think. DS's year was the first "proper" year after Covid (2022) so they refused to give any at all that year!

Dd had a singing comp today and is singing in a remembrance service tomorrow. Otherwise she still has a full timetable of music and drama going on and also a science comp next week and also the senior maths challenge kangaroo at some point I think. No time for revision at the moment!

DD’s school sixth form, and another sixth form she is applying to, close applications in early January, so they need predicted grades well before that. Interesting how it so so different in different schools.

Re English Literature AQA, I've just learnt that diffirent schools / different sets within same schools might study different texts, some are considered harder than others.

For example for 19th century set 1 might do Jane Eyre while set 2 might do Jekyll and Hyde. Is that true? Does that help children in different sets achieve better grades?

In DS’ school I think all sets do same texts. Certainly sets 1-4

I noticed this with the A level English offering... some non selective sixth forms offered Agatha Christie as a set text!

@RedeemingCreature - our applications close in January too. If dd was applying elsewhere then I'm sure school would give predicteds. We don't need them as she'll be staying at her school's sixth form.

She's applying for scholarships which has been a stressful task this weekend. She really wants to apply for them but is not at all good at blowing her own trumpet and finds listing out all her achievements and accomplishments rather cringeworthy. still, it's done and she can get the forms in this week. Interviews/auditions will be in January. Fingers crossed!