Year 11 - 2024-2025 Support Thread

[QueenMabby]

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

My friend was teaching in a highly selective school. They stopped the EPQ because it was draining so much time (especially for very diligent girls) and affecting grades

DD has applied to two local schools so far, and has put down Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Spanish. I imagine she’ll do the same at her current school. The thing that concerns me is that the latter teaches the Maths A level content in Year 12 and Further Maths in Year 13, so I’m not sure how you’d drop down to 3 A levels.

@ChannelLightVessel, assuming your DD is good at Maths and has the grades to be accepted to do 4 A levels including FM, that is quite common - there is more content but with 3 A levels that really do link closely together, they reinforce.

Doing Maths in year 12 and Further Maths in year 13 is not so common, but my son's sixth form does it that way and it means that he already has an A* in hand, and he's applying to study Maths at university, and I think that's quite a big positive for him, and it means they're only studying for 3 exams at a time, but have extra teaching time for the Maths and Further Maths (other subjects, Physics and Philosophy, are over the normal 2 year course).

I would assume students who pass Maths but are advised or they decide that they don't want to carry on to FM are still doing 2 other A levels. And students who carry on to FM but drop a different subject can still come out with 3 A levels.

Also, DS1 has 3 university offers based on 3 grades including his Mat.s. So if he needs to prioritise he can concentrate on FM and Physics.

Your DD and her sixth form can and probably will assess and decide whether she will go on with 4 A levels at the end of year 12, before university applications in year 13. I think going from 4 to 3 at that point puts students in a better position than going from 3 to 2.

Most 6th forms do require higher GCSE grades for entry to study 4 A levels and/or to take Further Maths

Do I have it right that your DS took Maths A level at the end of Year 12 @elkiedee? I can see that makes sense, but at DD’s school they cover the syllabus in Year 12 but don’t take the exam until Year 13.

That's really interesting, thank you.

At our school a fourth A-level is not encouraged unless it's further maths. We do have a fourth "slot" but the EPQ is in there along with other options - a first aid course, dance qualification etc.

Our school also does maths in year 12 and FM in year 13. They don't sit the maths exam til year 13 though. I don't know why.

Some unis (esp Cambridge) will offer on all four A-levels which makes entry even trickier. Dd is intending maths, FM, bio and chem and knows that if she wants to apply to Cambridge any offer she might get is likely to be at least 2x A star and 2x A. I've also heard that Cambridge can be sneaking in asking for one A star to be FM and the other in one of the sciences making it even harder!!

Dd very pleased today to be given school half colours for Music in the end of term assembly. A lovely stripy shiny badge to add to her blazer!

@QueenMabby congrats on her stripy shiny badge! Well done her.

cant recall who posted about the higher v foundation science but it may be worth posting on secondary education or further education as others will have gone through this scenario in previous years.

DDs mocks were a mixed bag ranging from 8 to 5.
The shocker was a 5 in English lang but apparently they’ve not covered ‘transactional writing’ (whatever that is - must look it up) which is 50% of that paper and 30% overall. So hopefully that improves drastically once it’s covered. Her 6th form colleges won’t accept her for the A levels she’s looking at (Sociology, politics, Business) with 5 in Eng Lang. She got a 7 in the Lit but the 6th forms want a good grade in Lang not lit. Anyway, hopefully once they’re taught this ‘transactional writing’ she can up her grade! 🤞🏼

The rest were mostly 6’s. The 8 (biology) is an anomaly and perhaps an easy paper? But given her other two sciences were 5s I expect biology took the lions share of revision because she finds it more difficult than the other two. We’ve had a chat about balance and maybe aiming for 6’s across the sciences rather than one 8 and two 5’s 🤣 She’s not taking sciences to A level so she doesn’t need 8s in any of them.

Has everyone done the first (and only for DD) mocks now?

We still haven't had mocks yet. They start straight after Christmas. Dd has started her revision but it keeps getting "bumped" for social and music events so I'm not sure how much is actually being done.

DD’s mocks are end of Jan, along with the practical for sciences. DD wants to stay at her school and has picked her A levels, we’re in Wales so usual to pick 4 for AS and then they can drop one for A2 if they want to. DD wanted to pick 5 but school said no - I’ve read there’s no advantage to this so would’ve tried to dissuade her anyway.

She picked German, biology, sociology and criminology, which I think is a good spread as she’s not sure what she wants to study at uni - she’s thinking psychology at the moment. I’m mildly gutted she didn’t pick maths but she doesn’t really like it… I’ve checked the psychology entry requirements for top unis and they ask for maths or a science, so I guess she’ll be fine if she really wants to go down that path.

Well done @NotDonna - solid results. DS got similar. English language is a weird subject. DS and friends results flying all over the place. We had parents’ eve and was much more positive than I expected. Teachers said nice things. His predictions are good and he can apply for any A levels on his ‘short’ but long list which currently incluyes MfL STEM and history / Philosophy so he needs all bases covered. He seems to be thinking in a slightly complacent way now. But it is nearly Christmas so I think that is a 2025 problem!!

Agree it’s a 2025 problem! DD broke up yesterday so it’s a well earned break after the mocks albeit she’s got homework and wants to make better notes on certain subjects.

Yeah DS is planning 10 days totally off, 7 days 3ish hours per day. It’s important he does it given the ‘gap’ he has to close. Looking forward to the 10 day chilled zone 😀

dd2 has mocks when she gets back too so it’s a bit of a revision y Christmas - mind you ive got two doing a levels as well so poss as well she’s busy too.

Ds2 had his Christmas lunch today. Finishes Friday. Ds1 arrived home from uni. We all had a 10 minute leadership meeting last week, where they suggested I asked for feedback on certain subjects, which I did and got very detailed responses. A couple of coastings explained, and science he's been moved up a set. So pleased.

Good news - well done DS

@Oblomov24 yes well done to DD2!! Is DS1 home for a good while?

Yes @NotDonna till 6th Jan. your dd1?

DD finally finished for Christmas today, feels like it's been a long term! She is really in some need of down time and a bit of relaxing, I'm very glad she doesn't have mocks in Jan. I'm sure next term will also feel quite long with Easter being so late next year and more mocks in March. Her art portfolio is due in when they go back in January so hopefully she will find some energy to work on finishing that off but probably after Christmas as she is not back until the 7th Jan. Year 11 feels like such a slog!

I still need to plan what we will do with her extra long summer, DS will finish his first year at uni in June as well so potential to do a trip somewhere.

@Oblomov24 well done to your DS! That's great.

DS got his mock results back yesterday and it is a mixed bag. The good news is that he got 7s in all the subjects that he wants to do at A/Ls, these will be predicted as an 8 for 6th form applications as that's what his school does, all results will be put up by 1.
Shock results were for English, which was a 5 for Lit and 4 for Lang. He's been steadily getting high 7s all through year 10 and 11 and just a week before the mocks his English teacher said he was doing the best he'd done so far and an 8 is realistic prediction for Lit, perhaps 7 for lang. So, I've emailed the teacher asking where DS might have gone wrong as DS thinks he did well in the exams. So a bit disappointing, with no chance of having a look where he went wrong as school ends today. RE was a 3, not a shocker as he did no revision for it and has no interest in it. He's already been asked to go for intervention lessons for RE, which he is refusing to do and DH is supporting him in this. RE is compulsory in his school so it's not a choice he made, and we would happily have him drop it if the school lets him, but I doubt it. He's doing 10 GCSEs plus further maths, so I think he could afford to drop it and spend his time and effort elsewhere, like English! DH will be writing to his school, but I don't think we'll have much luck. DD is in the same school with the same problem. A lot of the cohort is religious, hence why they make it compulsory as they get good grades in it, but mine aren't religious at all and hate having to study it for GCSE.

Great he got 7s in all the subjects he wants to do for A levels. Congrats. DS did RE last year. It’s all learning, you prob know that. I got him a revision book and he just went through it all. He went up four grades in a few months. I can understand it’s not a priority right now though. I am focused on DS getting what he needs for A level, not much more tbh! Top grades are nice but they have to keep an effort up during A levels too. Merry Christmas!

@datacolour those sound good results - RE is such a weird one - DD1 got a four in her mock, a 9 in the real thing and hadn't had a dedicated teacher for two years, so we just went through the spec together. It is genuinely mostly rote learning.

English is such a weird unpredictable one, never seems to go the way you expect.

DD2 is doing SOME mock revision - I am trying to get her to interleave music and work as she just tends to get stuck on one or the other for hours and I don't think it's very effective.

Her report was very encouraging but she needs 'more detail' for her history essays and they gave her a list of quite basic maths topics she needs to revisit - I think this is the problem with her having changed schools. She was using pythagorus to design a gingerbread version of tower bridge the other night (we have an annual gingerbread building competition) so at least that covered some of it!

Three day orchestra course now, so she's knackered by the evening, but I am trying to get her to do just a bit each day so she doesn't get overwhelmed. She has history coursework to finish too, a drama 'devising log' (don't even know what this is) and preparation for her GCSE performance for music which doesn't really seem to be getting much of a look in so fingers crossed school knows what it is doing.

As a control freak mum I am finding the experience of having a boarding gcse student quite frustrating!

Does your school send a Christmas video. Ours is always fab, funny and the Head is such a good sport.

DD's school will give mock results in an envelope in Jan, and they phone home to tell us!

@Oblomov24 A Christmas video? That’s way too much fun for DDs school. Shame you can’t share it!

DD had her 6th form application rejected by her 2nd option today (my favourite). She’s on their waiting list. So that’s 2 rejections out of 4 applications and the other two choices are much more competitive so I’m becoming a little worried.