Year 11 - 2024-2025 Support Thread

[QueenMabby]

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

@jennylamb1 its a bit bizarre as IGCSEs were meant to be more appropriate for students across the globe and linear (exam at the end) in the days when U.K. GCSE’s had coursework. All of a sudden (it seems to me) a few of them now have a coursework element. English for starters. My other two had no coursework for anything despite being at the same school, and yet DD3 has coursework (and exams) for both English literature & English Language. She also has it (as you’d imagine) for PE and Food & Nutrition GCSEs. The jury is out with me around this as it has taken a weight off in regard to number of exams as she only has one exam for English lit and another for English lang rather than the usual two exams for each. But it’s been a lot of work (esp PE) which has distracted her from general study. AND, I do wonder how much help some students may receive in comparison to others and how much that affects grade boundaries and skews the ‘grade curve’.

Ds2 (who is still ill) hands in PE coursework this week. Has been a huge amount of hard work, for a bit very big % of the marks.

I think it depends school to school- dd2 has coursework in history and English- as well as the practicals in drama and music as I expected anyway.

@minisnowballs - that is shocking. I would send an email to the history teacher asking for clarification for a start. And then an email to the head of maths complaining about the way the mock was run. That's really not on and is really lazy of the maths department. If there were areas not covered then those questions should have been removed from the paper and either just had a shorter exam or added more questions from completed topics to give them a full 2 hour paper. I am very much not THAT parent and I would email over that. I hope your dd feels ok.

We also have iGCSEs in English lit and lang. Dd is currently doing her lang coursework. It is good to get a chunk of the subject out of the way but tough for those doing subjects like drama, art, DT etc where the coursework load is already heavy.

@QueenMabby I've asked the history teacher to redo the parents evening with DD2's marks and coursework draft in front of him. Seemed reasonable and he's agreed to do so. Not sure what to do about the maths. I try VERY hard not to be that parent, it is particularly hard when your child is boarding though.

Is that all the footage, time notes as well as the flipping book they gave to write on improvements? It is a huge piece of work though especially considering they still have two exams. I’m not sure what percentage of the total it is, are you?

@minisnowballs i have rarely complained to DS’ school, but I would definitely be complaining about that. Must be hard from a distance

Great for those doing the coursework - so much easier with that under the belt

DS is doing PE - OCR - practical has all been done in school. They have a 10% non-examinable component (can’t remember name exactly)) but it is time limited and has to be done in class. Exam board do not permit it to be done elsewhere. He has not had coursework. I guess exam boards must differ!! Hopefully not missing anything - bit late!

He has Spanish mock speaking today - we did a practice last night and ended up very giggly as most of his answers ended up being things like, I love the internet, but my mum switches it off at 10pm etc. It was good to laugh together!

I think DDs PE is AQA @Hollyhedge theyve 2 exam papers in May/june; the footage of their three sports including time stamps and descriptors (which she found quite laborious) and then quite literally a book about her own strengths and weaknesses and how to improve. It’s obviously technical. There’s certainly a lot more to gcse PE than I’d given credit. I doubt the boards are hugely different in what they require overall though.

Oh right. Yeah this all been done in school at DS’ school. He has two exams too.

To be fair she swapped out German for PE so it is definitely a better option for her!

I think a timetable is crucial here. I'm actually a teacher myself and the trickiest revision discussions I had were with my eldest daughter. She was studiously getting down to revision each day but I wasn't convinced how effectively she was spending her time. It was a gradual process but eventually, we had some productive conversations about it. As I feared, she had been given little useful guidance from her teachers, lacked any clear plan and was mainly trying to make herself feel better rather than be productive.

My advice would be to concentrate on getting organised, prioritise their subjects and topics and encourage them to be very honest and realistic about what time they have available each week. 1 hour of useful revision every day beats 2 hours of aimless study easily and having them create and manage a timetable independently really gives them ownership of this and helps them to enjoy their downtime more.

Her friends' parents discovered the work I had done with her on this and were keen for me to share and (long story short) they very much encouraged me to pull my information together, edit the templates I used and document the process into a revision planner, which I ended up self-publishing!

Getting organised is key and concentrate on little and often.

PE all done in school for us, OCR, quite glad it's over though.
Something out of the way.

Humble apologies. Don't know why I wax typing at 4am! Very silly. What o meant was with PE coursework, a huge amount of effort for a very small % of the overall mark.

Ds2 is ill in bed, he's got a chest infection and is now on antibiotics. I actually feel guilty I didn't take him to the doctors before. He's actually been unwell since Christmas, then constant cough, which we kept thinking would go away, but didn't. Then has clearly turned into a chest infection.

Oh poor love @Oblomov24 It's so hard to know how ill they are with things like that - feels like everyone has had constant coughs and colds since Christmas anyway. Hope the antibiotics knock it on the head sharpish.

My phone keeps autocorrecting my posts, sorry.

Thanks Mini.

@Oblomov24 - hope your ds feels better soon. Don't worry about not going to the doctors' sooner - I'm sure we've all been guilty of that! When my mum retired from teaching after 30 years, the school were still talking about the time she dosed me up and sent me in - turned out I had whooping cough!!

Just had a letter today saying dd has been awarded an academic scholarship and a performing arts scholarship into our sixth form. No music scholarship though which was a bit of a shock. The music scholarship seemed like a pretty sure thing whilst the performing arts one a bit of a punt. Dd is grade 7-8 in two instruments and grade 5 voice with a lot of extra-curriculars. The successful candidates must have been spectacular! It's going to be an interesting conversation to have tonight. She'll be so upset by the lack of music scholarship but I hope it doesn't drown out her successes for her.

Oh @QueenMabby bless her - can they hold three scholarships though? Perhaps it was just a logistics thing. DD's school allows them to hold two, and only one is monetary (so she has specialist music but honorary academic for sixth form).

Amazing that she's so good at performing arts as well - a real allrounder! Congrats to her.

She'll be holding 2 academic scholarships, one performing arts and a music exhibition! There doesn't seem to be a limit. She's a very happy girl. So thrilled to get the performing arts nod that she wasn't fussed about being passed over on the music.

Half term now - what a relief!

More incredible achievements to add to the very long list you have shared on the thread. Truly amazing to see your posts with everything she is doing!!

We aren’t getting much revision done here apart from his fav subject which he will happily do and spends time with a tutor too. Says he’s done lots in school for mocks which start a week after they go back. Fingers crossed he’s done enough with school to get 4’s and maybe 5’s in the other subjects. 😬. I will keep nagging though. Once mocks are done there isn’t many more weeks before the real thing gets started!

Dd has done most of her set work. Some German oral answers yet to write and a couple of tests to revise for. This afternoon she's round at a friend's helping her with her Spanish. Friend is dyslexic so finds it hard enough in English without adding another language into the mix! How much actual work they're doing is another matter!

DD2 aiming for 4 hours a day, but that includes time with a tutor and school interventions, as well as a dance audition and 3 hours practising for food tech exam. She’s frustrated that she’s having to work this hard to get grade 4-6s, whereas her friends aren’t doing much and got 7+ in mocks in everything.

We've gone away for the hols, but the work has come with us. DD2 still finishing the corrections on two bits of coursework (history and english), learning a duologue and monologue for drama and practising for the performance bit of music that is being recorded pretty much as soon as she gets back.

So almost all the instruments seem to have come too.

Between the coursework and the practice for her grade 8 bassoon exam in three weeks it doesn't feel there's much time for relaxing- but it is nice to have some time together. Food tech sounds worse @newmum1976 - do they have to produce a meal under test conditions or something?

Yep, the food practical is 3 hours, and DD has to make bread, pastry, pasta, debone a chicken and make it all into a 3 course meal 🤪