Son got 5s in his mocks. Doubting he can do A levels. Any advice?

[Kago2790]

My son got his mock results today. 5s across the board (except 6 in music 4+ in Spanish). He is hoping to do A level Maths, Physics, Music.

He was expecting higher, 6s at least and he is quite upset.

Speaking to him about it, the problems are as follows:

He says he doesn't know how to revise. I think he watches too many YouTube videos that explain questions. Isn't it better to just do past papers, mark them, the ones you get wrong you work out where you went wrong and then repeat those type of questions until you get good at them. Then do more past papers and repeat the process. That is what I will suggested. His response to this is that he learns a question but of course the exact same question doesn't come up in the exam, it comes up in a different form and he struggles to recognise it is the same question he revised just with different wording or form. How do you improve on that?

He is forgetful. He can learn something one day, get it, but it is forgotten quickly. How do you get it to stick? I realise some people are blessed with a good memory which is valuable for learning but since he has a bad memory what can he practically do?

Is it too late for a tutor? We haven't used one but maybe a few sessions could be valuable? We asked his teacher at parents evening in the autumn who said he doesn't need one if he attends the extra classes the school provide which he has been going to.

Finally, if he gets 5s on the real exam I assume 6th form is a no? If so, what do kids typically do. He hasn't got a back up option. Are things like apprenticeships etc applied for before the end of school or is it something he could apply for after results day in August? I suppose he could redo GCSEs next year at a college but he hasn't applied for that of course, is that something they can do in August?

He is a hard worker but it seems it is about quality of revision from now, not quantity.

Any advice welcome.

I would've failed if I was taking them now. There was more subjects but god they were all so easy if you were clever. A levels were hard, always. But GCSEs pre reform, 100% you could pull it out the bag. There was 6 pieces of coursework for English I think. I did none and had awful attendance. Just generally had an awful y11. I ended up getting nearly full marks in the eng papers and managed to get a C. Still, I would've failed them now, the amount of content you need to know it's crazy and there's no way anyone could just blag it and pass. Very clever kids are having to work very hard to get those 8s and 9s. Pre reform you the very clever kids just had to do the work and they'd walk out with As.

When you say pre reform, what year was this?

Maths and English new spec first sat in 2017; most others 2018; last ones iirc (things like DT) in 2019.

New spec brought in number grades and removed most coursework (apart from things like art, tech, drama and music).

2016 was I think the last full year of old style GCSEs, 2017 had maths & 2English only, 2018 first round of mainly fully reformed. I think.

The last few years of old style moved away from modular exams to terminal ones, and the spoken bit of Eng Lang stopped counting too.

(My DD1 did GCSEs in 2015)

I agree. It is as much about graft, consistency, organizational skills and capacity for work as aptitude. It is still possible to make gains though even with 9 weeks to go, if the child is committed. My DS went up 4 grades in one GCSE last year in a few months. Issue now is little time so prob best to focus on 2-3 subjects to shift the grade, if DC wants to.

@clary @TeenToTwenties

Ahh I see. I just thought they had brought in numbers to differentiate between a high A8 and an A*
I didn't realise the content had got harder, although I have to say that certainly for iGCSEs there is a HUGE amount of analysis required in History (ie you can't just regurgitate facts, you have to really THINK, which under exam conditions is not easy!!

@aliceinawonderland My DD1 had 1 exam for EngLang, 1 for Eng Lit, 2 for maths. DD2 would have had 2 for each English and 3 for maths. Dd1 had 40% of her Lang marks before she sat her exams. Her writing CAs for her 2 mfls were prepped and learned in advance then writtten out and done way before final exams. No written exam for Drama. Etc etc.

The exam load is a total marathon now. DD2 wouldn't have coped but luckily(?) missed y11 anyway.

I think GCSEs are harder now than they were when many posters/their children did their exams so it probably is a bit optimistic to imagine that many pupils would be able to improve their grades vastly across the board between now and May. But on the other hand, 2 months of focused hard work by a motivated pupil could certainly lead to some improvement especially if as has already been suggested, that effort is targeted at a couple of subjects.
If the OP's DS really gets his head down between now and the exams I would say it is not impossible that he could see his grades improve enough to be able to start his chosen A levels. If he's really had to slog to get there he'd be starting off on the back foot it's true, and he'd need to be prepared for couple of years of really hard graft, but if he works hard now and is willing to put some time into some bridging work over the Summer it is still potentially do-able.
And knowledge is never wasted. Even if he does decide on a different pathway, which may indeed suit him better, if it's anything STEM related, going into that with a better grasp of maths and physics surely has to be advantageous. So I'd do my best to steer him away from any hint of a "it's too late now" attitude if I were you OP - encourage him to stay positive and give it all he's got over the next couple of months as the effort won't be wasted even if he doesn't do A levels in the end.

Two points.

First his "hope" of 6's really isn't good enough to do A levels in Maths and Physics. Many schools/sixth forms expect minimum of 7, and ideally he should be at level 8 to stand much of a chance. Maths and Physics at A level is really hard and a massive leap up from GCSE level. Getting only a 6 at GCSE suggests he doesn't know the basics well enough to take that leap and may well struggle from day one on the A level courses!

Secondly, re revision, I'd strongly suggest buying CGP revision books from Amazon (or similar) they're basically "quick and to the point" for covering the topics in easy/quick to read formats with quick questions on each topic and then usually some exam style longer questions at the end of each chapter and even some "mock" exams. All with answers. They also do dedicated "question" books where each topic starts with pretty simple/easy questions which build up in terms of time and complexity, again usually with mock exam papers.

I know teachers will be aghast at the suggestion, but the CGP books can be quicker to get the necessary knowledge and practice cemented in the student's head when time is short and the exams are only a few weeks' away. They're structured, so the student isn't spending/wasting time rooting through their exercise books, scrappy worksheets, "wordy" exercise books, etc.

Just that if the student has a fairly good knowledge and understanding of the topics, and is struggling with the "exam style" questions, it can sometimes be a good answer to just do lots of practising on questions, going back to basics, in a controlled manner, to cement the foundations and then build up into longer/harder questions that bring different topics together.

No point in constantly trying to do past exam questions if they core knowledge simply isn't there or the student doesn't know how to use core knowledge to answer them. Just wasting time and causing demotivation. Better to take a step back and work forward again. Without a CGP or similar book of banks of questions, the student can only really do the same questions they've done previously in their text books, exercise books, scrappy worksheets, etc., or the past exam papers which seem beyond their grasp at the moment. A CGP or similar book could be a bridge between.

We got my son CGP books for most of his GCSE's and he basically ignored his school text books, exercise books, paperwork files, etc after the Christmas mocks, and just worked his way through all the CGP books in the 2/3 months ahead of his GCSE's. He got mostly grades 9. The only subjects where he got 8's were Eng Lit and Eng Lang, neither of which we could get CGP books for! He got 9s in Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, History and Geography thanks to CGP after getting 6s and 7s in the Christmas mocks!

Did the same with A levels (Maths and Physics) where we bought him CGP books from the outset and he basically ignored the wordy school text books (except where he had to do homework from them) and got A*s!

So DS1 (2015) had coursework for lots of things inc Eng lit and MFL; DD (2017, mixed year) had no cw for English but did in French, for example; ds2 (2019) had no coursework at all apart from assessment of sport for PE.

Those sitting in 2018 had all number grades unless they took tech or some more less commonly taken languages like Arabic. DS2’s mates who did tech were first to take the new spec and got number grades.

It’s not so much IMHO that the GCSEs were made harder as such – but more rigorous, harder to cheat. As an MFL teacher, I was very aware that some teachers helped draft the CA for their students, checked it and rechecked it, and even in some cases gave them the written version to copy out for the actual exam. That meant that people who did it properly, without that level of support, were at a disadvantage. At least what we have now is a true test of a student’s ability to write 100 words in French.

@clary It is a fact they were made harder and have a lot more content. All subjects now include some content that previously only used to be in A Level. Even DT, Art, Food Tech have gone from predominantly practical skills to now being quite academic with a lot more written work in the coursework. To get top marks in Art you need very high level written analysis, the quality of your practical work matters much less. Look up old past papers vs now. Science used to be pretty much common sense. It's not just that it's harder and a lot more of it either, you are also expected to remember a LOT more. Some exams are much longer and overall there's much much more of them. This is even reflected in the cost to run exams, it's much more expensive as theres so many more exams and of course this wasn't reflected in school budgets post reform. They even got rid of the funding for entry level and vocational subjects so schools with a low of low attainers are doomed and forced to teach content those kids are just not ready to understand. People wonder why behaviour is getting so much worse when so many kids are forced to sit in lessons they just have no chance of passing.
IGCSEs still have coursework for eg IGCSE Eng the teacher can choose the coursework strand if that suits their class and that's worth 40% of the grade. The other 60% is the exam. They also only need to do 2 maths exams in IGCSE, when the normal GCSE now requires 3. IGCSE is only allowed to be used in private schools, yet they all end up with the same qualification.

I think you need at least a 7 to do A Level Maths at my DD's college, but he might be able to combine A Level music with level 3 or BTEC courses in IT, engineering, business or whatever he can find of interest. Or other A Levels might have lower requirements. Tutoring now might help if you think he underperformed but it might be hard to find someone with availability. How were his year 10 exams? Do you have just one college in mind or has he applied to a few?

The local tutor that we have used with my daughter in the past is fully booked. We are open to online tutor which obviously opens the door nationally.

Are there any good online tutors you could recommend? Ideally for Maths, Science and English.

Bl

Give it time, it's still early. My son applied last year and there were several in his chosen field.

Today his teacher told him his Maths grade was entered incorrectly, he got a 6, not a 5.

Absolutely this!

That's more hopeful. But was it a just above a 5 or just missed a 7?
He can pull some subjects up with work, it depends how much he wants to I guess.

I agree with every word of this.

(1) Do not lightly attempt to study for the harder A levels;
(2) The published revision books are superb. When you factor in limited numbers of textbooks, mixed quality of teaching, reliance on substitute teachers & so on, so many even reasonably able & diligent students end the year with notes that are quite scrappy, incomplete, and unfocused.

My son is hoping to study a vocational style course in music performance but most of the places offering it also offer music production, and I imagine some Maths and Science would be helpful there. Or it might be possible to do both. It's a vocational type course.

I think there are also Science BTECs but it's not really an area I've explored.

DS1 is doing Maths and Physics but was already doing very well in his year 11 mocks in Maths & Science - in others he did improve from 4s and 5s to 7s and 8s so that is possible