Tell me about good GCSEs without use of tutors

[AtomHeartMotherOfGod]

Both children are at a private school but neither me nor DH know much about them. I was grammar, he just worked bloody hard and had clever DPs.

Year 10 parents have been asking for tutor recommendations for GCSEs and I'm wondering how naive I'm being about their use for these exams. DCs do pretty well, but if the reality of private school results is that actually they are heavily backed by tutors then I don't want them to be disadvantaged.

Please tell me what your reality has been, and anything that you did for your children (yourself, or via tutors) that really helped them. Many thanks!

I’m not sure anyone sees whether it was a “high nine” or “low nine” once the results are shared do they? A nine is a nine.

To be honest the truly bright rarely got the very highest marks at GCSE physics (I mean the 98s va the 89s for instance).

The nearly perfect scores were reserved for the hardest workers and pupils who actually loved learning mark schemes.

The very brightest didn’t like some of the trite logic accepted by the mark scheme and gave more interesting answers, but often tripped up and made small mistakes in so doing.

When I was a teacher, I spent a lot of parents’ evenings trying to tell ‘mark grabbers’ to try and enjoy the subject more rather than the mark schemes as they would get a 9 anyway.

@Newbutoldfather that resonated with me. It pays to know the very specific mark schemes for the sciences.

A level biology is notorious for tripping up a lot of students, and practising on past papers really does pay dividends.

IMO it means that students need to spend a lot of time on exam technique at the expense of learning the subject.

True @Newbutoldfather , but at some point learning to play the game in the right way, so that you get maximum output, pays in the long run. We all have to do it at work as well.

I was talking more about the step up to A level and being ready for that by really mastering the subject and feeling you do and feeling you were in control of your revision and did not run out of time -aka self confidence- and also making sure you have revisited earlier topics properly, sometimes taught in Year 9 for Sciences.

What is too little spoken about it the tension between great teaching and getting great results. Schools want them to be the same, and parents on average (there are many honourable exceptions to this) care more about results than anything else. You only need to look at this discussion and many others to see this.

This is a particular weakness at private schools, acknowledged by most teachers who teach there. The parents pay the fees and they want ‘added value’, ergo the school provides it. I have got some incredibly weak pupils 7s and even 8s (you do need some ability to get a 9), but I know that 6 months into their A levels they will have forgotten 90% of their Physics. That is actually quite depressing!

At parents evening, the number of times I have been asked ‘how can I get my daughter to a 9 (or 8 or 7) is at least 50x the number of times that I have asked ‘how can I help my daughter to become a great physicist’ or even ‘how can I help to get my daughter to love Physics’.

And there is a tension between results and subject knowledge. An easy short cut is not to do (much…or even any) practical work. A teacher I knew always showed videos or simulations rather than actually getting kit out and using it. Took 5 minutes rather than 25, and he got fantastic results. But I think his pupils lost some important learning in many ways.

@Newbutoldfather - You can have very bright kids who just do not like Physics! It doesn’t make them weak students. Just as you can have very bright Physicists who detest English GCSE. It’s the way of the world.

If all teachers were good and all kids had the same teacher from Year 7 to 11, then I am quite confident a lot of children would do far better, not just as regards results, but also as regards understanding a variety of subjects really well. It takes time to get to know a student and inspire them and make them passionate about a subject.