Year 11 - 2024-2025 Support Thread

[QueenMabby]

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

DD3 starts her mocks on Monday and off timetable for two weeks which will mean a lot of back and forth for me as the trains are dire atm. She has a 1:1 learning support session today to look at revision techniques, which seems a little late! She’s been diagnosed 3 years and they decide to give support the Friday before mocks. I suppose she’s get the weekend to practice 🤣 To be fair she’s been working her socks off so should be ok. 🤞🏼

@Oblomov24 £30 an hour is amazing! Well done him.
@minisnowballs they’re often looking for students who will give it a go, aren’t afraid of making mistakes, are genuine and receptive to learning (rather than know it alls or ‘fake’). So I think she’ll have done reasonably ok. They are what they are and sounds like she was her true self. Good luck! Is this for the school she’s already at?
@Elizo & @DataColour are your DC creating their own timetables? I’m wondering if that makes a difference. So if they’ve done it themselves, they have more ownership and more likely to stick to it or tweak it slightly themselves where needed. If you’re creating them for them then maybe it’s too prescriptive and open to mild teen rebellion? I’ve no clue, just wondering!

@NotDonna can't believe you're having to transport them as well for the mocks - study leave is so inconvenient! Suddenly I feel lucky that DD1 and foster daughter can make their own way to their A-Level ones. Let's hope the support for your DD this week is the beginning of a bit more help in the run up now.

and yes, DD2's interviews were for her own school. There's no money riding on this as she has government funding and they quite reasonably save the money for others, but she thought she'd have a go. Open morning for Sixth Form tomorrow so we'll learn a little more about other A-Level options. Exciting.

Hi mocks start tomorrow 😳

DS not revising today and I’m fine with that, he did some yesterday, he’s been doing all his school set revision and I am told the little and often revision using Seneca (I can see he did something but times spent bit dubious)

when it comes to school work he observes the Sabbath and refuses to work!!!!😂

time has flown by in a blink of an eye so I guess the real exams too will be here before we know it.

good luck to all those doing or about to start their mocks.

👍

Ah best of luck! He’s smart observing the sabbath.

I’ve backed off this weekend - had come to realise my pushing was counterproductive and stressing us both out. He has done some work and seems to have come up with a post it note method which is good, because he struggles to think about revision methods. I’m expecting a v mixed bag of mock results, but whatever they are is a basis for DS to plan what comes next. Good luck all!

Dd has done some Spanish oral revision today but that's about it. We need to get her started on her revision but she's resisting.

She has a concert and also the Senior Maths Challenge Kangaroo this week.

I'm going to try again on the revision next weekend. I know she's set up her timetable on get revising but so far she's only put her extra curricular clubs on it! 🤣

DD is holed up with snacks today, revising for her first mocks tomorrow. She didn’t revise yesterday as it was her 16th birthday!

I’m also expecting a mixed bag, as she seems overly confident about some subjects and freaking out about others. We shall see.

I’m not putting any pressure on. In fact I’m not doing much other than banning her from going out after school for the next few weeks 😆

DD3 also mocks tomorrow. I’d got us all tickets for gladiator 2 today but she wanted to stay home and study 😱 someone has kidnapped my daughter! I’m pleased she didn’t come as she’d have hated all the violence. I’ve no clue what she’s revised or how much but she’s certainly done some. She wasn’t going to go to any of her afterschool sports these next two weeks whilst mocks are on but there’s a big national comp so she has to go to a couple of sessions until 7pm, which isn’t ideal. I guess she’ll study in the school library between the end of exam and start of training. By the time the real GCSEs hit all the comps are over and these are mocks and it’s only 2 sessions and not every night like it usually is. She seems fine about it.
Good luck everyone!
I wonder when mock results come out? Hopefully prior to Xmas break.

V impressed by all these industrious children! DD2 really enjoyed her Sixth Form open day on Sat - nice to think about next stages. The school has just changed from a 4 to 3 A-Level model - though as a music specialist she would only have been allowed 3 anyway, but it does seem to have changed the landscape a little.

She's looking at compulsory music, Eng Lit and then one of psychology, economics, history or classical civ. I think she might find class civ a bit uninspiring as one of only three A-Levels but perhaps I'm biased (though I am a classicist I did A-Level latin).

Exciting anyway!

First week of mocks was a bit mixed, some better than others but she is very glad they are done. Only four more this week and two of those are maths where she is quite strong so feels like the home stretch. We will get results and predicted grades before parents evening in December.

Two weeks of mocks completed here ad back to normal lessons today. DS chose not to go to any extracurricular activities during the last two weeks apart from a one hour swimming session each week.

We have a few weeks to wait for results; his school does a results assembly complete with grades handed out in sealed envelopes as a way of preparing for actual results day in August.

Hopefully things will just tick along for the time being until the next set of mocks in Feb/March. I will be encouraging DS to continue revising steadily, particularly with some of the syllabus covered early in the courses (he started GCSE content in year 9) and one of his history topics that he says was never covered fully 🤨. He also has DT coursework to stay on top of as I don’t want him frantically trying to complete it just prior to the deadline.

Well done to those that have finished their mocks, what a relief! Good luck to those starting today!

DS's mocks start today. He's done a fair bit of revision for some subjects like the sciences, maths and geography. He's got English Language today and RE which he has done next to nothing for, so wonder how they will go. He's not too bad at those subjects generally.

Bit of a stressful morning today when we discovered his only school jumper (I'm sure he had a spare but could'nt find it!) was wet and hadn't been dried after washing. so had to spend ages trying to dry it with a combination of hair dryer and iron! It's a cold day up north and 5hrs of sitting in a hall today, the jumper was essential! But it added a layer of stress to the morning that was preventable. His organisational skills are definitely lacking.

On another note, DS seems to going through a rapid growth spurt these days and I swear he's grown a couple of inches in the last few days! He's been short compared to his peers but he's got massive feet, bigger than his friends, so I think his body is finally catching up. Means that he was constantly hungry all weekend, hope he eats enough during the day to sustain him through his exams!

Must have been one of those mornings. I realised I had left DS’ football boots outside and it had chucked it down. Meant he had to take his astros which are a bit small. Doh. He is also growing like mad, which might explain some tiredness. I think these mocks have shown there just isn’t enough time for revision - hopefully he will see that and start chipping away. He has done some work and hopefully gets some decent grades so he doesn’t feel demoralized. They tend to drip out results as they go through papers in class and then we get a report/ parents eve in December. I’m expecting a bit of stress from teachers who understandably always worry about their own results.

Last mock here today for DS.
We’ll get results over the next few weeks I guess ,with a report that comes out before the holidays and then have parents evening in Jan.
Mixed report really from him, first few seemed to be ok but then his interest waned towards the end for the last few-not sure how he will overcome that for the real ones.
Good luck for all those starting this week!

@Elizo Between 2 teenagers I've had my fill of last minute panics in the morning....DH leaves very early in the morning so I get the brunt of it!

We get our results back on the 19th of Dec in sealed envelopes. The day before they break up for Christmas.
I think the schools start writing their references and predicted grades for the 6th forms, deadlines are in Jan, parents evening sometime in Jan/Feb.

@SB1971 Interesting that you say that about interest/effort waning over the course of the exams. DH's school seem to have the "hardest" subjects first, for triple science just the one exam, but they are all in the first 3 days. Maths too. Towards the end of the week is PE and music, the optional subjects. I wonder whether this is deliberate.

Keeping focus during the exam period is one of the hardest things from memory. DS particularly found the may half term break difficult. He lost momentum and would have much rather just gone straight through.

@DataColour May just be number of papers to mark. Meanwhile, DD got her mock timetable today, and Maths Paper 3 is in the final day, so who knows.
Just discovered they’re not having study leave for the mocks because of new government guidelines. DD is quite upset.

@ChannelLightVessel Yep same thing for us here with the government guidelines meaning no study leave only her mocks just finished. She was really irritated by it because somedays she only had a 1 hour exam and she'd just be in for the whole day in the revision sessions which most teachers did try to keep quiet but apparently some just let it slide and then it was noisy and no productive revision could be done.

I did let her have a day off on a day where she had no exams and she was productive thankfully!

At DD's school I noticed they have done all the compulsory subjects in the mornings and the options in the afternoons so I guess they know the whole year will be doing the morning exams. No study leave for mocks here, lessons in between - though some teachers have allowed them to just do revision.

Keeping up the momentum is hard though I remember my DS had covid the May half term week of his GCSE exams (2022) which scuppered his revision somewhat, I was thankful he didn't miss any.

@theorangecounty DD has two days with no exams. It hadn’t occurred to me to let her stay off. I’d be very happy to, but I don’t want her to get in trouble for unauthorised absence.
To complicate matters, her 16th birthday is during the mocks (on a Saturday, fortunately), and my XH is coming from the US to celebrate.

@ChannelLightVessel & @theorangecounty what government guidelines are these? DDs school has chosen to ignore them. Although it’s a faf driving her back and forth she’ll be much more productive and it’s more realistic.

Some of your methods of feedback/results are interesting with assemblies and giving of envelopes etc. Im not sure invoking that anxiety is really necessary. Wonder what their rationale is? Unless it’s more to do with gearing them up pre-exams and to take mocks seriously?

I’m expecting DD will be told in class and hopefully each subject teacher will go over the papers and main errors. I think we have a written report in December so the grades will be on that. I’m hoping they give percentages and cohort medians that help put her scores into context. I think issuing grades is a bit of a guessing game. At her school getting above median will equate to a good result for her.

Yes @NotDonna I agree. All these sealed envelopes stuff does seem to be unnecessary. DS's schools rationale is that it gets them used to the real gcse's and how results are handed out...which seems a bit silly to me and anxiety provoking like you say. It's good to sit the mocks under exam conditions etc which is helpful I guess. This is a grammar school and all the kids have sat the 11plus in similar conditions and the associated anxiety for results day! So, they have been there before! No more mocks after this though, as I know some schools do have another set in Feb/March time.

Chemistry and Maths for DS today. He's done as much revision as he's prepared and willing to do. He's upbeat about it all, not stressed, but tired from doing revision and will be glad when it's all over.

These are the only mocks for DD too. I think doing them again would be overkill! They’ll be burnt out by the time the real thing hits especially if students are studying hard for them!