Year 11 - 2024-2025 Support Thread

[QueenMabby]

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

Good to see these comparisons. DS has mocks coming up and I hope he will do something along these lines as he has a way to go to get what he wants/ needs.

@DataColour DS def similar re focus etc. It’s hard I think for a lot of children.He is improving but I think he struggles to think about where to focus. I imagine as it gets closer their minds will focus

MFL speaking could be pre-Easter as 1st April onwards and DS breaks for Easter end of that week. Before would be good to get it over, but so soon. I imagine school will tell us soon

My DD does very little homework at home. Most gets it done in school (she has one set of free periods). The initial idea is she would work on topics she finds a little harder, but it just become homework time. For the weekend I was thinking about 5 hours with breaks. So a good days work, but one day on and one day off (on the weekend). But maybe we need to build towards it. She often goes out on Friday, so perhaps Monday to Thursday an hour, and then 5 hours on one weekend day. That is less than an hour a subject, so it isn’t a lot!

My DD refuses to go to any of the additional support. But if your DS is managing some 1 1/2 hours some school nights, and one weekend with 3 hours it is the same. When she focuses DD can work for solid periods. It is the when that is the issue!

It really is fast approaching isn’t it? We went looking at prom dresses yesterday! A tadge premature perhaps but she’s a size 4 so there’s very little availability!
Regarding revision DD has said her aim is to finish all her notes across all subjects by the end of this half term. We are going skiing so I’m not sure how realistic that is both time and books etc needed. They’ve not covered all the topics in any subject yet so she’ll need to continue the note taking. She’s setting herself tasks rather than number of hours. So once note taking completed she’s moving onto past papers over Easter. Given Easter is so late I am a little concerned that this isn’t soon enough but we’ll see how the note taking goes first.

Crikey there’s only 2 weeks between Easter Monday and the start of exams on 8th May. I’m not too sure if ours have study leave prior to 8th May.

Interesting to see the discussion about how much work is done at home; my son does approx 1 hour a day but he’s also been working towards a big music performance this weekend (he’s doing music performance at college so relevant) and once this is over he can really knuckle down.

He’s predicted good grades - 7-9’s and is motivated, I think now we just need to increase those times on weekends/holidays and have a proper plan. Does anyone use a GCSE revision timetable at all?

Dd used one for her mocks and will do something for the real thing too. She either uses Get Revising or a printed out weekly calendar with sticky notes.

She's got the school musical starting tomorrow night for a four night run so that will take over this week. She's been doing 10-12 hour days pretty much every day at school since the end of mocks and once the musical is done she's going to have so much time back!

Next half term there's a two concerts, a singing comp and then the choir is going to sing Evensong at one of the Oxford colleges so still plenty to keep her occupied.

She was pleased to get confirmation of her Crest Silver Award which she submitted last year. I think she's going to do the Gold award in lower sixth as she enjoys doing them.

We don't really have a timetable, as things take longer or less time than anticipated sometimes, so we'd be constantly rejigging it.
DS has been sick with flu symptoms recently and not been able to do much, though he did manage some further maths and PE revision yesterday. The plan is to keep doing lots of questions as anything else he loses focus. He's also been helping DD with some further maths (when she's in a good mood and lets him!) so I'm counting that as revision too!

DC did their GCSE music performance recordings yesterday. When they got home after school, DC1 said it went fine and was told full marks (but I didn't get to the bottom of who told that because...) ... DC2 threw a massive wobbly and said it went terribly and had probably failed and didn't know what marks etc etc.

I ended up dropping the subject entirely in order to keep the peace, even though I wanted to ask for more details especially what the music teacher really thought and whether re-recording is an option if a performance was less good than expected.

My son doesn't have mocks at the moment. It is also only February 11th. Are people getting their children to do 5 hours per day at the weekend because their children have mocks or in this in preparation for the May exams? It seems quite a long time away to be doing that much revision and to be able to sustain it. Please correct me if you disagree. I just can't see myself asking my son to do this.

@Runemum my child will be doing some revision over the weekend. Probably. Maybe. In 45 minute chunks. But we’re more concerned about her mental health and trying to enjoy living now, than grade 7,8 and 9s. She’s got various options for post gcse depending on how she does on them. And I can’t see me telling my child what and how to revise. We’ve discussed it and she’s made a flexible plan.

DS is doing around 3-4 per day at weekend including homework. He has mocks coming and his current grades are a little lower than he needs for A levels, predictions are sufficient, he is aiming a bit higher. I think there are about 12 weeks now. School is suggesting 4-5 hours per day in half term. Quality must be more important than quantity, so that is another factor. DS seems tired and a bit worn down by it all. Hoping half term lie ins (at least) will recharge him. Also encouraging him to plan fun stuff with mates etc.

I don’t think anyone said they were getting their kids to do 5 hours per day on the weekends, did they? That would be a lot! I think suggesting the kids revise each day of half term is also a lot. They need time off.

But May is actually really close, weekend-wise (12 weeks). It doesn’t leave a lot of time to go over stuff, if you are aiming for a slow steady pace.

A teacher friend of mine said no need to start revising before half term. So we are talking to our DD about starting to revise then, basically to ease the pressure on her mental health by not leaving it all to the last minute.

But what is a good way of working for one will not necessarily be the same for others. Some will need to be encouraged to work less, some more. Some will listen, some will not 😁 At 15/16, I doubt there are many with the maturity and skills to get it just right, but that is why we worry about them, and try to help 😊

You have got me into action. I will ask my son about his half-term revision plan.

Our school had a visit from a psychologist who advised Y11 on the best ways to revise and how much time to spend revising. She advised starting Feb half term and the maximum amount of time she advised per day was 2 hours. She also advised a free day and a couple of days where revision was only an hour.

DS also does 45min sessions. He manages about 4 of them on a weekend day if it's a day with no other plans. I think it varies so much from child to child how much revision they actually need, and how effective the revision is. I've come to realise what worked for me at school doesn't necessarily work for DS or he's not as prepared to put in the hours I did!

Dd is not currently doing any revision. Her mocks only finished a couple of weeks ago. She was certainly doing 4-5 hours per day of weekend revision in the run up to mocks but not now.

She will have school set work over half term but I've advised her to not do anything else and just rest.

Each child's revision schedule will look different.

I'm worried now - I don't really know how much time DC are revising After school they have an hour for clubs/homework/study. By the time they get home and we've had dinner and all the evening routine (chores, music practice etc), it is quite late and so we just all tend to veg in front of the TV.

In the run-up to mocks they did add 30-45 minutes of "study" time when they got home each evening. But even so I found it impossible to work out whether they were really studying because everything is online.

I was going to start pressing (gently) for a more structured revision routine after Feb half term, but I'm not sure what is reasonable

I totally hear you! My DD struggles to focus, and is not hugely motivated to get stuff done, although when she finds the motivation (often just before exams) she works hard.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter what we suggest or encourage, if she isn’t on board she won’t get much done. But I am hoping that even a bit of time doing something is going to be better than doing nothing. And I’m hoping she will do a bit of time doing something! She could not.

I very much have horses, water, and drinking (or not) in my head 😁.

I’m hoping that discussion and reminders might work to persuade her into action!

With DD1 we found gamification to be very much the answer. She has an app called 'study bunny' which allows her to 'buy' items for her online pet with study hours - all her friends, despite being very grown up 17 year olds, are still using it for A-Level. It does keep track of how much you're actually doing.

She also loves a flashcard so we bought her 'rocket cards' - which are a £21 outlay, but are reusable cards that scan straight into an app once she's written them and we can test her on them.

I've no idea whether that will work for DD2 - her parents evening tonight and I wait their instructions with bated breath - but it might help some who are like DD1 to look at those two. She also used Tassomai for science (pricey but meant she had to do it every day). It took some of the overwhelm out though because it used AI to tell her what to do next!

Those are both great suggestions. I am going to investigate if either would interest DD!

So parents evening (online) was unexpected on two levels here. The hugely critical spiel I got from the history teacher about DD2's mock and her coursework and how he was going to make her 'redo her mock with her textbook in front of her and mark it again' was definitely a surprise.

I then asked how she'd actually done in her mock (as she told me it went ok) and it emerged that he was looking at the wrong child's marks. So now I'm really confused - were his coursework comments about the wrong child too, and does he actually know who DD2 is? She has chosen A- level history and he is the head of the subject so it's a worry.

Then maths - where I asked why DD2 had struggled with time management on the mock paper. It emerged they'd only given them an hour and a half for each two-hour paper (because they hadn't taught the rest of the syllabus) then marked them as if they'd given them two hours for each of them. But why would you DO THAT? She tried to do the whole thing and panicked badly.

Sounds like chaos. Really frustrating! I’m a bit confused about coursework - I thought there was no coursework (other than subjects with a practical element). Are these GCSEs?

Private school @Hollyhedge (though DD2 is there on a government place). They do IGCSEs, which have coursework - all new to us.

Which ones have coursework?