Year 11 - 2024/2025: Half way, half baked, half term!

[QueenMabby]

Continuation of the year 11 support thread. Go!

they wanted to put my DD in for the higher paper and i argued them not to. I think doing the foundation and getting an easy 5 is better for her morale going forward than doing the Higher and struggling for a 3, which is what was happening in her mocks.

They need to stop looking at what they are 'on target for' and look at what they're actually achieving in the mocks.

I also think there needs to be more continuous class based assessment for students who struggle with written exams.

My son's school are running revision sessions over the half term holiday. I am incredibly grateful to the teachers for coming in to help the young people during the holidays. My son attends as many extra sessions as possible, and they are very useful to him as he struggles to revise at home.

Unfortunately, all of the sessions are on at the same time, on the same day. This means that the young people can only attend one subject. My son will have to choose between science, maths, history and geography. I am wondering if I should email the school to make sure the heads of department know what has happened. Since the teachers are going to the trouble of coming in during the holidays, surely they want the maximum number of pupils to attend. They do not want to be competing with other subjects.

Older dd took A levels in her best subjects (she got 8s)
I thought this is what everyone did?

The college here seem to be trying to bring in pathways - complentary subject areas.

Chemistry is in medical paths way with biology -but maths is in with physics and maths and computer science in a different one- so DD2 technically in three different pathsways with her best subjects. It was unclear for ages if this would be an issue -depending on who we spoke to then they decided the pathway suggested subjects were helpful guidance only.

DD2 considered dropping from higher phycis paper to foundation level last year as she was struggling in class assesments but head of science she spoke to said it was easier to get a C with the wjec board on higher paper than it was on foundation - so she stuck it out only to drop futher in class room assesments to D possibly E boundary - she worked hard at home to get that back to an A last summer. Really hoping she did okay today - though if she drops down last years grade should help pull up.

Ds is only doing combined and needs at least a 7-7. Like Datacolour ds He said physics today was his best paper yet and thinks he might even possibly get higher than a 7. We'll see.

Friday they are all going to a massive local outside swimming party where other boys from other local schools.

I am wondering if I should email the school to make sure the heads of department know what has happened. Since the teachers are going to the trouble of coming in during the holidays, surely they want the maximum number of pupils to attend

You can do so and I can't see it would upset anyone but they may already know. DD2 had revision clashes sometime it's just been when the teachers can do it and she'd had to choose.

She had one session over Easter where it ended up being one to one as she was only one to turn up - DD2 found it incredibly useful - but according to teacher it's not unknown for them to move sessions to more popular times and still no-one turns up.

DC school runs sessions at the same time as they are a large year group and the available subject teachers couldn't really handle it if 200 turned up. I would have expected them to coordinate but you could email to check.

DC just picks the most useful (almost always maths).

DD found the iGCSE physics hard but wasn’t unhappy as everyone did. She said some of the questions were quite tricky to work out what they were asking (I think she means they asking you to apply the theory) plus a 15 marker on electricity.

is this edexcel?

Agree, I am all for flexibility.

DD is likely to get 9/8s in some, 6s in some, possibly fail or just about scrape a 4 in a few and we have had to ditch some others completely as it was just too much for her to cope with.

No idea where she would sit on higher, middle, lower scheme as it's entirely subject dependent.

One can only hope the new curriculum review actually puts pupils first

I just can't imagine this happening, pupils are fairly low down the list in my opinion.

The combined science versus triple science is a head scratcher! DD opted for triple because she disliked chemistry so much, which sounds counterproductive, but she figured it was better to take each science separately and do badly in one out of three than take science combined and risk flunking one out of two. But it has meant so much more work and my jury's still out on whether it's been worth it.

Combined Science Foundation level Physics update from DS was that it was pretty good, a bit of maths but not as much as he expected. Fingers crossed it all follows for paper 2. He had a good run with paper 1 for all science topics

all of the sessions are on at the same time, on the same day.

Oh that did baffle me. We'd get all these emails urging students to come to revisions sessions and want to say 'errrrr, you do realise english, history and maths are all on Wednesday evening, right?'.

"Older dd took A levels in her best subjects (she got 8s)
I thought this is what everyone did?"

I understand the logic, and I know many people to this. But to my mind it's absolutely bonkers (mind you, controversial point, but I come from a different system and I find only doing 3 A levels bonkers).

What if you don't like those subjects? DH ended up doing Biology when he wanted to be a History Teacher. His school pushed him into Biology A level because he got a better GCSE result. He's had a huge regret ever since.

Well...she loved the subjects too:)
I don't know...if you love geography for example but only got a 4 then I'd argue that's not a good enough grade for A level

I can really see the benefit of this for some pupils who could really benefit from a slower pace and doing the course over an extra year, taking the gcses in y12 rather than y11. However for other pupils, they can't wait to get to the end of y11 and being allowed to stop the subjects the hate, even if that means a bunch of 4s and 5s

This was suggested to my younger DS who picked options a couple of months ago - he tends to do worse in chemistry so the teacher said single science would avoid it dragging his grade down. He hasn’t gone for it though and is just going to take combined and hope for the best as he doesn’t like science enough to lose an option to it

By slower pace I didn't mean 3 years.
I meant if you do single science not double you can go at half pace. If you don't do Eng Lit you free up time to spend on Eng Lang (incl maybe functional skills). Maybe you use some extra time on Maths etc.

Yes it was, sorry should have been clear. There are so many different papers!

DD found Physics (AQA) Higher absolutely fine when I spoke to her straight after and she is good at Maths. However, a few hours later and lots of friends are complaining it was “impossible” and so as usual, she is now doubting herself and imagining she must have done badly as well, because her friends found it hard. This is an exact repetition of what happened with Chemistry!
She is also good at English language but again some of them are worried as they think it is more unpredictable.
These girls are all so well prepared that when a paper is slightly more unexpected or there are no easy first questions, it seems to throw some of them off course. They probably all mostly did really well.

Dd says physics was "bad" but said media was "great"

DD2 come home said it physics was fine and is back to being fine about exams.

DC says AQA Physics Single Higher went fine and was similar to previous past papers. They didn't think it was particularly Maths heavy.

DD's come home not particularly happy with either Physics or Media Studies. Said the questions in Media were weird and she was struggling with what to say for some of them. I think she's just burnt out at this point - it's been a very demanding couple of weeks with at least one exam every day and three 'double' days. Just English to limp through tomorrow, then she can rest a bit.