Parents of GCSE 2025

[Mum2LazyBoy]

Is anyone up for a thread to follow the highs and lows of supporting our dc through the coming gcse season.
As user name suggests I have a DS who really isn’t getting his head down enough. He does tend to spend a lot of time gaming and school don’t seem to be setting much work.
Interested to hear how others are getting on.

I agree with @newmum1976 re plan Bs.
Even if you are quietly researching and sorting without involving them at this point ready to discuss in July.

DS has a conditional offer for a L3 course next year but I think he would just be offered a L2 if he doesn’t meet the requirements. Biggest hurdle is English language but he got a solid 4 in the last mocks. Not sure what happens if he gets all 4s and 5s incl Maths but narrowly misses English. Could he still do the L3 with a resit?

It depends on the college. For timetabling they may well not allow it. Or they may with 1 resit but not both maths & English.

What are the published entry requirements for the course?

Level 3 courses have a surprising amount of writing, especially to get the higher grades.

This seems very harsh on the part of the school, when he is clearly very /extremely able.
Your poor son. This must make the whole thing ten times worse.
There are some brilliant sixth form colleges who would be delighted to have him. I think it would be worth exploring a plan B. You never know, he might actually prefer them and the absence of pressure ( ie a requirement for 6s) might ironically improve his grades!!

Those looking at different routes dc1 has dyslexia, asd, processing issues and missed lots of education due to medical issues. Scrapped through, got on to a level 2 course and after a year managed to get onto the level 3. Following that went to work in nhs and then applied for an apprenticeship. Is currently at uni one day a week, earning money, no uni debt. Leaving education was the best thing that happened to dc. Dc will have a secure (as you can get these days) job in something they enjoy. It's never going to be high paying but it's so lovely to see a happy young person and not have the stress of the education system.
I have Dt completing gcses this time, ones expected 7-9s, the other has got everything from a 4-9 unfortunately the 4 is English so fingers crossed for scraping through. Both have back up plans (which dt1 will probably need).
Dt1 is too layed back but pushing is not going to help. Dt2 has asd and states there's no need to revise because 1 teacher said "don't reinvent the wheel' so that's repeated daily as a reason not to revise.

Thankyou so much! Mfl is probably the one I know least about and not sure how to help.
It's such a stressful time for them all.

This is probably a very good thread for me.

Our last one is doing GCSE - but she not stressed or really bothered but should do really well in three subjects - which she wants to do at A-level not a usual combination - and okay in the rest.

Last year she was struggling with staying in some lessons struggling with anxiety and nosie levels but this has improved. She no longer leaving any lessons.

Last year's two problems subjects are going much better - one with teacher leaving due to dire results - and one a change in attitude towards our child as she massively out peformed their predictions so there's been less telling her the subjects too hard also she at front so can hear and see better and now has glasses.

She doing some revision - not as much as I'd really like but she fewer underlying memory and organisation issues than our other kids. I have to not push too much but keep an eye that something being done.

Mfl - back in 90s my teacher has us write out ideal conversation topics - I thoughly learnt them as she suggested and it raised my dire mock grade to a C iin real thing. What didn't come up in the oral section come up in writing or readingpapers. DD had the same advice - she using word text to speach button and changing the lanaguage from English to help her learn the topic passages.

i’ll post some MFL speaking advice later but pls remember that the exam specs have changed a lot since any of us did our exams!

The mark scheme is very specific and there are some easy wins to maximise your mark. Will post again this evening in case it helps anyone.

Just to reassure - we are following her current MLF teacher's advice - not relying on 90s exam advice - not least because of time and changes but it's a different board and two complety different languages.

I was just musing on the similarity of the advice - and sorry if I caused confusion doing so.

Sorry I didn’t mean you were using your 90s spec! But I sometimes fear that posters forget change in spec. Often see ppl saying “when I did A level it was xyz” which won’t be the same :)

OK some speaking exam thoughts as promised – in case they are any use to anyone. Essay incoming!

I am talking here solely about AQA GCSE btw. Edexcel GCSE is very similar and IGCSEs (CAIE and Pearson Edexcel) are very different. But AQA is the most commonly sat board in England.

Three themes:
Theme 1: Family, hobbies, technology, customs
Theme 2: Holidays, town and area, environment, social issues
Theme 3: School, higher education, jobs, future plans

Structure is a) a role play, b) a photo card and c) general discussion on two themes. The photocard is on the third theme so all themes are examined. The role play is not really on a theme – usually going to the movies with a friend or booking a hotel or the like.

Candidate chooses one theme for their first section of general speaking (section c). The photocard (section b) comes from a randomisation grid and then the second element of c) is the third theme.

It’s pretty usual IME for teachers to discuss with the student what they would like to talk about for the first theme of c). Some even draft out questions and answers! So this is where most people pick theme 1, but I suggest picking theme 2. Tell your teacher you want to talk about holidays and maybe your town. If you pick theme 1, hobbies and my family – fine, but you may get a photocard on theme 2 and the teacher cannot change the questions. I had a student do this a couple of years ago and the photocard was on social issues, I had to ask them “what charities do you and your friends support and why?” Hard to answer in English tbh!

A few other points:

Roleplay section a) – no need to develop your answers, just keep them brief and relevant

Photocard – you have time to prep three answers and there are two you don’t know – develop all these answers as much as you can. By develop I mean use a range of verbs. To score in the top band at least three answers must be developed with at least three verbs each(ideally different ones tho the mark scheme doesn’t specify this), plus obviously the other two questions must feature at least one verb – so (in case a stat helps you), top band answers for the photocard will feature at least 11 verbs! Tenses, opinions and reasons should also feature. Obv this development is easier to do with the prepped answers.

Same with general convo – develop and narrate as much as you can. So “Where do you go on holiday?” don’t just say “I go to France.” Say “I go to France every year with my family and we have a great time. Last year I went to the beach and the weather was really sunny. It was lots of fun because I love the hot weather. Next year we are going to go to Spain because we like paella.” You need to ask the teacher a question in this section btw but if you don't they will prompt you.

Useful to use:

• Opinions = I like x, I hate y, It’s OK; reasons – bc it’s x y z
• Have lots of different adjectives – move on from interesting and fun – and ways of saying “I think”.
• Use qualifiers (very, quite, fairly, often, always).
• Use past, present and future tenses.
• Reference other people to show you know a range of verb declensions – my brother, we (my friends and I), they (my parents).

Most of that applies for the writing exam as well tbh so it’s all useful.

What is not so easy is drafting out lots of model answers. You don’t know what you will need (apart from the first part of section c) or the speaking exam) so IMHO it’s less useful than learning phrases and vocab that you can always use. It’s always going to be possible to insert the phrase “J’adore faire ça, parce que c’est toujours amusant” into your speaking exam at some point haha.

Apols again for the essay but it is useful to know this, and every year it surprises me how poorly prepped some DC are, sadly; seeming not to know what they need to say and how to answer.

Super helpful. Thank you!!

I’ve just checked and it says 5 GCSEs at 4 and above including maths and/or English language. So that suggests to me that a 3 in English wouldn’t be a definite no. His written English is actually very good, so I’m not worried about him writing assignments. He more struggles with the questions on language features and structure etc. He has a tutor and has gone from a 3 in the first set of mocks to a solid 4 in the second set and his tutor feels he’s capable of a 5, so hopefully he’ll get through. English is really badly taught in his school though. A few months ago he had absolutely no idea how to even approach these questions.

I believe some sixth form colleges will allow students to resit maths/English whilst doing A levels, if their other grades are acceptable

It might be worth a phone call to check ...

I have found my people! I also felt really deflated reading the high achieving threads on here. Thank you for starting this thread.

DS has just got his results. He got 5 grade 4s and a 5 in Spanish foundation level. This would all be great but he got 3s in both English papers. His college have asked for 4 grade 4s including maths (which he passed) and/or English.

So we are hoping he can push up to the 4. I asked his English teacher for feedback but she is a very 'wordy' person! It's good though as it gives us something to work on.

He has coasted through school doing the bare minimum but is now stressed about the real thing. He worked hard to revise for these mocks but it hasn't reflected in his grades. Which has knocked his confidence

I think English is a hard GCSE in the sense that one can't "learn" it in the same way as the sciences for example. If all he needs is a 4 to move onto the next level, could not he do a foundation paper in English Language which would be much easier in terms of the texts they need to analyse and not so stringent when it comes to the mark scheme?

There is no F and H tier for English GCSE any more, lit or lang.

And I actually think it is possible to revise in a meaningful way for English lang - the answers required are quite prescriptive and you can learn the terms you need to use. And there are lots of ways to plan and plot out useful elements of the creative writing in advance too.

Ah I had no idea there was no foundation… apologies for a misleading suggestion.

There is another thread for year 11 that has been going fur a long time. All are welcome. And no unlike @gatheryerosebuds said, not all children are expected to get all 9's. My ds got a 2 in RE last year at a catholic school!

Come and join the year 11 thread. We are very welcoming to all, especially those with anxiety, MH, not high achievers.

I did a quick search and didn’t find anything hence starting this thread @Oblomov25 would you like to link?

Year11Thread

Don't worry, it's all confusing and I do wish there was a foundation level English. I agree with you that it is a hard paper to revise for.

I found some examples of sentence starters which I hope will be helpful for him.

DD has applied to 6th form, not her first choice but no other option as colleges too far away and she is uncomfortable on trains. She has had conditional acceptance, which is great but she is so worried now about achieving expected grades. Her memory is not great and currently dealing with a medical condition that we have yet to have diagnosed and so lots of tests and time off. Stressed out mum and worried Dd. Glad to find this thread.

I feel more at home on this thread than the others but thanks for the link 🙂

DS has perked up a little bit. He is still deflated that all the hard work he did for the mocks hasn't really improved his grades, but we have had some of those teen conversations (the ones where you are driving and not looking at eachother or making tea or something - not the contrived conversations 😂) and he has agreed to let us help him and formulate a plan. So that is a big step for us.