Year 11 - 2024/2025 - In the thick of it!

[QueenMabby]

New thread. Sorry. Forgot to start it - I hope everyone finds this!

Oh poor thing. A friend's daughter was in the borderline position last year and went foundation, one of the questions was apparently what is 3 squared?

My DD has been working SO hard for maths, hoping for an 8 and occasionally getting a 9 in practice papers and she struggled.

Here's hoping for easier papers 2 & 3.

Luckily she has other plans - she's got a place to study music - but she does need a 5 (although it's not terminal if she doesn't get it, just a faff as she may need to resit).

But she wants to do well, and she feels she's letting her teacher down who has worked so hard with her this year (he has been amazing).

@GCSEnerves DC might have done foundation but school require a 5 in Higher to do one of the A level subjects they want to do. Was moved to a Higher set in Year 10, before they had actually thought about A levels by coincidence, and stayed there. teacher felt DC would manage a solid 5 in Higher and possibly a 6. Students were moved down from DC’s set if teacher thought a 5 at higher was not realistic. Shame really as they would likely have managed a 5 in Foundation. Anyhoo. We will have to see! Glad to hear your son found his paper ok and wish him the best with the rest.

I do think the change in format with no notice is shocking, @CocoPlum I agree wholeheartedly with you.

@CocoPlum The foundation paper will have a number of questions which seem totally trivial to the grade 7-9 students. However foundation is aimed at 1-5 so needs to be at least partially accessible to the grade 1s. Additionally you need a fair number of marks to pass, say 50/80 per paper rather than maybe 20/80 per paper on the higher tier. Broadly speaking the easiest questions on higher are the same difficulty as the hardest group on foundation.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow so glad she's got something more 'her' planned for Sixth Form - those figures you gave for admission sound terrifying! Think I know the school - no wonder their A-Level results are so high.

Hope she's feeling better today.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow - I think the important thing now is that you just reassure her that the grade boundaries will likely be softer and that she really need not worry about it anymore. You really do not want it to affect her confidence in the other subjects.
I am expecting tears after History today. Despite all the work put in, way beyond the other subjects, she is not going to do as well in Bio and History. And she finds that tough to deal with. So I am just emphasising that I am really proud that she worked so hard and gave it her best shot. And that is why we need the weekend off. What is done is done.

for @golemmings. Do remember to look after yourself as well as DD.

My DC in exactly the same place as your DD. I feel for your daughter.

So hard for them getting a rough paper at the outset, my DC’s confidence has definitely been knocked. Hoping for better in the next two……

Morning all! waiting here with trepidation to see how history goes this morning for DD.
Yesterday she apparently “ate” maths edexcel (ie she was happy; to be eaten by a paper is not good!) but said many others in the class really struggled.

DS said Edexel higher went well,they all had tracing paper on their desks. He did say like others that he was surprised by the absence of the 1 or 2 marks questions which build your confidence up as you go along .
The panic bought compass remains unused..
I have been away overnight with work but he met up with his pals in Costa near school for last min revising for History this morning-think was just an excuse to get a frap but am indulging all the treats at the moment.
He also has a PE booster after school this evening which is super committed of the teachers on a Friday -fair play

Maths is such a ‘confidence’ subject in the first place, that anything unexpected must really throw people out. DD was going to do the paper back to front, but I don’t know if she actually did.

Good luck to all today.
Another one dreading history today, Ds paper is Migrants in Britain. He loves history but there is so much content and he can’t remember dates.
Next week is a killer, English lit, physics, chemistry, 2x French and English language. Will be glad when that’s over!
He claims he can’t revise for English language but some of you have mentioned revision, what are your DC doing please?

Just had the following report from dd on history (medicine). Not sure on exam board. Maybe edexcel?

Pretty good history test- wrote on every page and remembered to cross the box. Couple of weird questions but not bad weird just strange weird

Onwards to Latin this afternoon!

Here are some of the question from Edexcel Foundation yesterday.
Write 3/4 as a decimal
Change 60mm to centimetres
Write down a multiple of 8 between 25 and 35
Solve 4y = 12 y = ?
5/8 - 1/4
2/5 of 40
1.35 x 48
Highest Common Factor of 54 and 120
5.7 x 10 to the power 2 + 9.8 x 10 to the power 3. Write your answer in standard form.

Yes for sure you can revise English lang. Not a list of facts tho. Some ideas:
Past papers and really look at mark scheme
Analysis of what’s needed and make sure you know (eg which question wants you to talk about metaphors and similes)
Learn or revise all those similes, metaphor, pathetic fallacy, rule of 3
Draft some story starters or descriptions
Practise the timings - lots of students spend too long on the early qus

hth

My daughter was the same in biology and history was convinced she would fail and got 5 in both. She went missing before history paper two and school rang me and I was convincing she just decided to leave and not do it (her form teacher found her upset and sat her down for a chat so she was late for the pre exam briefing). She was /is an otherwise 7/8/9 student and they get themselves so wound up over it all. 2 years later it’s gcses what GCSEs

Thank you for those. Hopefully my DD got them correct.

However please can you all remember that foundation is aimed down to grade 1. There will be lots of questions which more able DC doing higher think are easy. But the number of marks needed to get a 4 on Foundation is considerably more than needed for a 4 on higher.

On 'write 3/4 as a decimal'. Sounds trivial.
However.
DD cannot remember lots of random facts so she wouldn't 'just know' that is 0.75. She also has a blind spot on remembering she knows how to divide. If she forgot that yesterday (hopefully not, it was one of the things we tested on the way there in the car) she could well have got it wrong.
OTOH she can expand and factorise quadratics quite well.

I’m guessing these are at the start of the paper as they look very easy. Such a shame they got rid of the intermediate paper as the gap between foundation and higher is huge.

Final question not easy, lots of scope for error.

Verdict on history 'ok I think' ... I don't really understand the source paper at all - seems to be one question on loads of sources, but she's answered it and that's her tough week of six exams DONE!

Seven in total to go. More than halfway and her sister hasn't even started her A-Levels yet.

Yes, that one looks challenging. My 8 year old would be able to answer all the others quite easily, so I guess it got harder.

I too can't get over how easy some the foundation paper maths questions are. And that the higher paper was so incredibly hard, that any borderline student whose chose to do the (what turned out to be ) incredibly hard higher instead of the foundation, would be sad and questioning their decision. How is that right?

Yes the early foundation questions are easy for the solid 5 candidates but the paper does get harder and there’s less room for making silly mistakes. I definitely think an intermediate paper should be introduced for the kids in the 4-7 range.

I agree on this.

DD said the hardest question on AQA F was one she found easy on the higher.

I think it's just that gamble that yes you have to get a very high score to get the 5 on Foundation, but if there are some nice easy questions for that bracket of students to start with then they feel more confident tackling the trickier ones at the end of the paper.

With the higher paper, and no nice starter 1 markers, it's very easy for them to lose confidence, panic and forget everything and ultimately do a lot worse.

I even asked if she could be entered for both... just in case. But she works at an 8 in class and was hitting 6s in exams so they felt she should take Higher.

An intermediate paper for the 5-7 kids would feel much safer.