Year 11 - 2024/2025 - Support Thread - the final stretch

[QueenMabby]

A new thread to take is to exams and beyond! All welcome.

Day off for dd today. No revision, just shopping and chilling. She did do some music practice though! Back to it tomorrow. She has one full day off every week and all four of the Easter weekend days. Otherwise she does 6 hours. Three in the morning and three in the afternoon, leaving the evenings for chill time or music practice or sports/dance clubs. Seems to be working well so far.

wow @QueenMabby that is dedication. DD2 is working through papers here - doing about three hours a day and some music practice, and then we're walking in the afternoons as we're away on hols. She is being efficient with the work, to be fair.

DS is doing 5-6 hours a day and seems to be working hard, but I’m not checking so this is on trust. There comes a point when it is on them. I think since he got his sixth form offers this has focused him. We also heard about a great degree apprenticeship someone at the sixth form he wants to go to did and he got really excited and said how much he would like to do it. I pointed out it required straight As at A level - one step at a time!! He could change his mind a millón times before then, but I think it made him think effort is going to be necessary longer term.

Revision is going Ok here, although DS has been left to his own devices but asked to show evidence of work done, as I'm at work and DH and DD are away on a short holiday. He is doing it, but in my mind quite slowly, takes him ages to do some tasks. I keep having to encourage him by food treats etc

So we just bought the iGSCE maths exercise book and DD needs help with 80% of the exercices. We’re told she’s a 7 at the mo and expected a 8/9. I know the grade boundaries for a 7 are low but this seems like such a stretch. I’m tearing my hair out

We have had similar issues here. Ds seems to struggle with recall and keeping in information. He seems to have forgotten ALL to do with the homeostasis topic for Biology so now having to relearn that and it is a massive topic. Plus I marked a PE paper he did yesterday and it was not good. I need lots of wine to survive the next few weeks!

Sorry to hear. Yes, wine is helpful.

I’m really starting to question the standards the kids are working to. or maybe it’s just mine. I’ve had to remind my DD to turn up with a ruler when she comes to me for maths. She doesn’t even have the reflex to extend parallel lines when required.

We also seem to be at the “learning” phase. I’m getting so stressed, but might just have to accept mediocre grades on results day.
Doesn’t help when everyone else seems to be at least a 7

I’m ancient and looked at the results of my cohort from a school magazine I found.

The vast majority only got 4-5 O levels at C grade.

Maybe there were always lazy/unmotivated kids, but now there is more expectation that they will all do well.

It was also acceptable and even considered “academic” ( ie Oxbridge entry) to be “A grade” at say 4 subjects and B-C in others.

Back in the 80s I got 4As and 4Bs for O level and ended up at Cambridge.
I did get A1, A1, B for A levels but still.
Widening participation, improved standards and fewer options available for those with low grades have all pushed grade requirements up.
Standard offer for say Exeter was BBC or BCC.

It’s not like I necessarily want her to get As everywhere but I would have loved for her to have some level of maths agility. I’m not a maths expert by any means but I still remember my lessons from 30 years ago.

Yeah, its all so competitive now. I was considered pretty academic and went to Imperial with only one A and the rest were Bs. Not nearly enough now looking at the entry criteria!

DS is predicted 8s from his CAT results but nowhere near that in reality for most of his subjects, will be lucky if he gets them for the subjects he wants to do at A/Ls and just hoping for good enough for the other ones now.

Those were the days. I went to Cambridge with 2 As, 4Bs, 2Cs and a D. There were some extenuating circunstancies, but even so. Anyway none of this helps our DC as those days are long gone.

i had a delve into what DS is doing and it doesn’t equate to time spent. 4 hours looks like 1-2 to me max. Is he on the internet, starting out the window 🤷🏻‍♀️ These ups and downs are so tiring. I’m all for the wine @DataColour

@Hollyhedge @DataColour @TeenToTwenties

Haha those were indeed the days! I do think however that we had a good/better grounding on the “basics” and that definitely helped with essay writing etc.

I suppose this is where my frustration lies… I’d love DD to be passionate even about a few subjects and want to do well in them, but she has no urgency about anything.

She might change. A lot of children develop later. It is hard.

DC did a bit of detectable work the past couple of days, but even generously I wouldn't say more than 2 hours per day. It's so frustrating because almost all the revision materials provided by school are online, so I can't tell when they're staring at iPads whether they're actually working or not - although I can guess based on the speed of screen locking if I try to look at the screen

I can't pretend I was a hard-working angel in my school days, but at least if I had to sit down with my books and notes, the worst I could do was stare at the wall (rather than waste all day on gaming on a device) and eventually sheer boredom would make me read my books.

Like Waffle I'm shocked at the standards of dc these days. Some of the stuff I see ds2 do we wouldn't have got away with.
I'm old! Also, I had to work my arse off to get a B. B was good enough in those days. All this needing a 7 for A'levels now. BBB was good enough to get into top unis, I needed that to get into the prestigious Birmingham for Russian (which I didn't get into btw😉).

I might sound old but I’m about to ban Sparks maths. If my DD can’t do something on Sparks, she watches the video associated with the question, applies the method with no effort to memorise it, her teacher is then pleased with her results. And that’s how we got where we are today - unable to complete basic exercises where she can’t reach for a video.

We are exam papers only at this stage, no online revision aids unless they need to do them for class. Sparx and Seneca were just used to get through homework "somehow" with nothing actually learnt. Paper is king.
He's not exactly getting through an exam paper in exam timings though - they take about 3 days! But it's better than nothing.
When DS1 was doing his GCSEs it was around now I suggested English podcasts, which worked a treat at the gym, walking to town, etc. I might try suggesting that to DS2 - though suggesting anything these days is met with resistance.

I strongly believe that covid and the shift to online resources is to blame, particularly for pupils who are not naturally self motivated.

Even in the mid teen 2000s, homework was written and marked and repetition from writing ensured that some knowledge actually went in.

DD spent HOURS over Christmas on Seneca but learned nothing. It’s SO frustrating.

I’ve said to mine that he needs to write notes to get it to sink in. All these online quiz’s don’t really get the info in his head. Still, an online quiz requires less effort so guess what he likes to do revision wise!

Wow - I expected to be flamed for criticising online resources. Looks like I came to the right conclusions.

we’ve just cancelled a weekend away with my husband (first in 15 years) and am now planning a mix of past papers and deep dives where she’s lacking knowledge.

:-(

Yes paper only these days except for anything to do with homework. I've bought all the revision guides, text books etc etc and along with their school books there shouldn't be a need to faff around online. Although, science experiments etc are better online than on paper.

I hate online "quizzing".

Schools often buy into it, at not insignificant expense, because it ticks the homework and workload boxes.

It tells me diddly squat about what my students actually really know or can do.

I currently "get away" with setting proper homework but it's only a matter of time before I get caught and forced into educake.

I’d go a little against the grain here and say there is a space for online. It’s what and how. Quizlet for example is the best thing for learning MfL vocab in my opinion. Free Science Lessons are excellent & I think already improved DS’ grade by 1. Seneca and Sparx my jury is out.