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

[QueenMabby]

Continuation of the year 11 support thread. Go!

Thank you for commenting. It appears we have similar situations… my DS got a grade 3 in English Lang, too. His school also have not been the best of support to him so he has also been seeing a tutor for English and Maths.

Yes, you are absolutely correct, we need a more definite strategy at this point. My DS has additional resources, laptop ( he has difficulties with his writing), a stop clock and extra time. I am concerned as to how he utilises the additional resources, tho. After a couple of exams, he has told my that his ADHD was such that he stopped the clock, and lay his head down on the desk with his eyes closed, as there was just so much activity going on in his brain, he couldn’t focus at all.

It is SO interesting to hear his you have developed strategies for your son… thank you SO much for letting me know them… I’m especially intrigued with the “ calculating time” and knowing when to take a break. Does your DS have the additional resources, too? Is your DS able to ask for help in clarifying questions? - I did not know about this, that would be brilliant for my DS, too! Splitting questions and identifying key words is an excellent strategy to employ and I am looking forward to sitting down with DS and talking him through these. I’m also going to watch the YouTube channel you helpfully informed me of… I wasn’t aware of that!

Its also interesting what you say re your DS Eng Lit papers.. do you mean that he utilised your agreed strategy and he found it helpful? That must have been so satisfying- and such a relief!

Thank you so very much for ideas as to what strategies to implement to assist in going forward- that is so very kind of you. I hope you and DS are having a lovely Bank Holiday 😸

Oh, it is! Utterly 🦇…! And, to be forced to make choices at 13/14?, it IS no wonder why some are sick of education at 15/16! 😠 But, for your friend to have to console her DD with “ only” getting A’s, B’s and one pesky A ⭐?!! Seriously?! The utter shame!! 😳 🙄🙀😈😹

Madness!! Oh, and if anyone can explain to me like I’m 5…, WHY do children STILL have to decide between geography or history????? I literally have the history knowledge of my toy 🐩! In fact, he probably has more, taking doggie years into account, he can probably remember last time his evil Mommy refused him an extra treat! 😈

Yup! Your DD is on the same page as my DS!! We live in a town where the lions share of students from his school who don’t stay on, go to one of two colleges, one of which is in the nearest city, where I work. The second in a town in the other direction, probably equally attended as the first larger one, The third is further north and the one least likely to be attended by his school people .. which will hopefully be a blessing for him as he has been bullied relentlessly since Year 7. So, starting a new college afresh will hopefully be a dream come true, for us all 🙏🤞!

Oh, I absolutely agree about what you said re English achievement grades and a way to make recognition of achievement. I didn’t do CSE’s, but they were a valid pass and recognition of achievement! Not discarding, dismissing and disparaging the hard work a LOT of students do at secondary school if they don’t achieve the magic 4!!!

Rant Over!! 😈😸

Hey, I hope your DS is doing ok with his music revision… a bit of a change from his other subjects, I guess. Yes, DS is absolutely needing to prioritise Eng Paper 2, too. I’m trying to get fully knowledgable what it entails .. think @MrsHamletsaid a little bit ago, what the contents are, and it’s the same marking scheme as Paper 2.. I am playing catch up and was just about to reply. You probably know, already- it appears my DS is the only DC reticent to provide salient info!

The ‘only a 6 or 7’ thing is really hard to avoid. Both from teachers and as a parent. Naturally, because there are two higher grades it becomes hard to remember it’s the same as the highly sought after B/As from my school days. He’s at a selective independent so there is an expectation of straight 8/9s from the school. We got called into a meeting at school after DS’s mocks to discuss some concerns about his grade profile. Turns out it was because he might ‘only get a 6 or 7’ for Business Studies 🤷🏼‍♀️ We didn’t really conform
to the school’s expectations because we just said ‘and… so what…’ when I think they expected us to say ‘don’t worry, we’ll crack the whip and he’ll fall into line so your results aren’t ruined’.

Surely making choices should make it better so you're not subjected to doing subjects you hate. You can do some science hours if you choose combined. You can drop all humanities and arts if you really prefer Maths/ science etc. but obviously you can keep doing them too. DC school offer sociology, business studies, media, music tech etc which is much more fun than being forced to do french, art, drama and design tech. MFL is not compulsory (though I made it compulsory for my DC 😜). My bugbear is with only being able to choose 3 A levels. And the system of 100% end of Y11 examinations for most subjects.

DC's school also offer history AND geography so it's not a government mandate to only do one (equally you can do neither). It's not a huge school either (180 per year). So maybe it's the school that's the issue not the system. DC school is an academy in a very working class area.

Yes, that is the paper I meant. Thank you for informing me! I’m not overly sure what transactional writing is, am I correct in thinking it is like the Writing part of the Functional Skills that @TeenToTwentieshelpfully explained to me? Kind of like letter writing to make a complaint to a company, or an email to make appointments, that type of thing? I really want to find out as much as I can, as I was not wholly comfortable with how much I did/ didn’t know what Paper 1 consisted of.

Also, did I read/assume correctly that you mark GCSE papers? That is so interesting, if that is the case! ( not so much the 5am starts! 🙀) .

Regarding the numbers thing, I do think 6s and 7s are not As and Bs. It's very hard to do an A level from a 6 and get higher than a C (possible but difficult unless you got a 6 for a reason which can be overcome). Whereas doing A levels with a B was possible in the olden days. My parents both did degrees with a D at A level!! (My mum had a D in the subject she wanted to study 😱 at Bristol!). That would never ever happen these days. So yes, grades have devalued and I don't think a 6 is the same as a B in our day (hence the whole C being a 4/5).

Lang 2 for AQA is something like a speech, text for a website, a newspaper, a magazine, a blog.

There's a prompt to get them started. This is the one from last November.

Hey, yes, thank you! Shock news! Children can survive off grid!! ( the sheer confusion then horror in DS18’s eyes as he left to go travelling, when discussing keeping in touch, and he realised I couldn’t FaceTime my parents when I went travelling after Uni 😹)!

You speak so, SO much sense regarding Maths and English and differing ways for achievement to be identified. Yes, that could make absolute sense- so, that if a student was confident and able early on in a subject such as these, that a qualification could be made, at that stage and perhaps higher level made later on. In keeping, a student who was not as confident, or able, could still attain the qualification but in line with when attaining such was possible for them.

That’s very interesting, what you say regarding US schools…. More chances for students, showing their capabilities, so assisting students at all levels, those who may require longer to attain their qualifications but not “ holding back” students who are able to proceed / progress further, earlier ( AP, as you mention?).

Sadly, I think you are probably completely accurate.. our governments would probably never sanction anything remotely fit for purpose to reflect the older education leaving age of 17/18, no doubt citing cost, indeed. And, of course, no one would ever make mention of the “ sorting the wheat from the chaff”, or whatever it is called, that never seems to abate! 🤷‍♀️

Some schools seem to have a lot more choice in both options and subjects. My DD had to do 3 x sciences, 1 x mfl and 1 of either history or geography and so the only subjects she got to pick were art plus further maths as an after school option. This is in the top set of a comp not a grammar or private. The lower sets do combined science. On the flip side they can opt to do 4 x A levels in the sixth form.

I find the 7/8/9 thing very depressing.

DD has got 100% for the coursework in what is to her, her most important subject, but teachers have had a chat to congratulate her and to say they think she's realistically looking at a 7 rather than a 9 as her dyslexia will pull her grade down. She's devastated and while it was very kind and nice of them, she is in a bit of a 'what's the point' frame of mind now. The written paper is the least relevant part of it all in many ways.

Both teachers and I have said that a 7 is still an A grade, but she feels that a 9 is now an A and 7 feels as if she's not really going to be seen as being any good.

She's one of these kids who has known exactly what she wants to do her entire life and cannot wait to just be able to specialise, so for her, dropping subjects at 13 was a bonus. Was just frustrating there is so much emphasis on sciences (which fall into her 'not interesting' category) and less possibility of doing the subjects she was interested in. She likes history and classical civ, but was warned off essay subjects because the exams would be so much harder for her in terms of amount of reading/writing.

So we've ended up choosing things she isn't that keen on in the hope that she'll pass an exam. In hindsight, I should have said go and do the subjects you like and don't worry if you pass or not, just enjoy the learning part of it all.

Fortunately she should, if next couple of weeks go okay, have what she needs for next steps, but I have very big question marks over what we do to kids in this country. I was the ideal GCSE/A level child so I never really thought about it till I had to face it with a very unideal candidate.

Having done a BTEC as an option instead of a GCSE, I have been very impressed with that format which is far more like real life and requires a lot of effort for top grades.

It seems very hard to compare.

My super-selective grammar wanted 5 B grades for 6th form and you needed a C or above for A level.

My highest university offer was BCC for a course than now wants AAB.

There seems more choice and a bit more flexibility in GCSE options than when I was at school. My eldest is at a small school which limited things a bit as the options were in blocks (some of which were a bit odd and forced their choices a bit), he has done both history and geography though, as well as a language. My younger one is at a different, much bigger school where they can pick any 4 with the only limitation being they have to have one humanity or language - he has just done his options and isn’t doing history or geography.

My pondering from the last few weeks is why there isn’t just one standard set of exam papers that everyone takes rather than boards with variations - if it’s a national qualification shouldn’t they all sit the same exams?

@Eccle80 coming from another country I can’t get over there being multiple exam boards for the same subject. That and we only did 5 or 6 subjects at age 16 (5 x 3 hour exams in a two week block - job done).

Oh, thank you so much for posting that and explaining paper 2 in more detail. That is really helpful. Does the 24 marks for content and organisation encompass structure/beginning and end/paragraph/ sentences? And, the 16 mark “technical accuracy “ being grammar, spelling, etc? I shouldn’t even be asking this, as I have English A level myself.. I’m trying to remember!
😊

Here you go

@Bananafofana that number of exams sounds a lot less painful than the 20 odd most end up doing now here!

I think it's good for there to be a multiplicity of different boards offering GCSEs in the same subjects. Ofqual exists as a regulatory body to ensure that they are all testing to broadly the same standard. However just imagine the alternative - a single central body decides which bits of history go into the GCSE History syllabus and all other periods and themes just stop being studied. No single syllabus at GCSE level could cover more than a small fraction of the potential topics.
The population as a whole gets more ignorant as a result. With 5 different exam boards choosing 5 different sets of topics and themes to be studied, the base of general knowledge at a population level is broader.

Different syllabuses (?syllabi?) might also have different balances of coursework or style which teachers can choose between as best suiting their pupils and the exam boards get to compete with each other not by making their exams easier (they don't, but ofqual makes sure they don't) but by making them more interesting, engaging and beneficial to teach and to learn, ensuring that they have a pressure to evolve and fit to become better whereas a monopoly single-provider would have no motive to change or evolve.

Thank you so very much 🙏🙏🙏. DS and I have a past papers day agreed for tomorrow and this is perfect, 🤩.

Very much appreciated. 😸

5 x 3 hour exams in two week period?! Yep! I’d be up for that! 🤩.

Hmmmm, yes, it certainly sounds like that was the response they expected! How good that you didn’t!

The grades are so confusing. DS18 sat his GCSE’s in 2022, he is NT, didn’t really have any issues with his revision, as is a very self sufficient student, just cracked on with things, took his exams and that was that, he got 9’s, 8’s and 7’s and a 6 and was a bit disappointed as some of his peers were getting straight 9’s etc… I just assumed 6 and 7’s were C equivalents and, as he’d got grades wanted to do his A levels, I didn’t think much more about, until ND DS started his GCSE journey, which is a completely different journey from DS18’s. I don’t quite know how the complication in understanding/ deciphering grades can be overcome? Anyway, I do very much like your response to DS school 🤗!

Did the school not send out the chart showing how the numbered grades corresponded to the old lettered ones? Our school always put it on every school report. Its also talked about elsewhere.

@Sisublondie my DS did his GCSEs last year. He's dyslexic and was also pretty uninterested in school. We did have a tutor for English Language and he had done well in his mock, particularly scoring well in paper 2.
After the first paper he thought it was OK but felt paper 2 was his best one. Anyway he came out of paper 2 absolutely gutted, sobbed (very unlike him) and was adamant he'd failed English Lang. He couldn't see what he wanted in Q4, felt he'd messed that up, didn't leave enough time for the 40 marker in Q5 and was already thrown so didn't think he'd written well. He had extra time and used every second. It was a horrible day... I wrote about it on last years gcse thread.

Anyway, he passed it with a 4! Not perhaps what he thought he might get but a 4 was all he needed and he was estastic. So, you never know, your son might not have done as badly as he thinks and it might be ok. As I say, mine was absolutely distraught over it but he had actually done enough across both of them.

I hope this might give you and others with similar experiences a bit of reassurance! You never know until they open that envelope! Thinking of you all, Y11 is not one I'd want to repeat!

No, his parents evenings just consisted of discussions about his “ flight paths “ which used numbers, his reports just had the numbers on reflecting targets/ grades and it wasn’t an issue at the time as he was achieving his targets so there was no need as ask, nor google it, as clearly it would be easy to find out had I needed to. It was only when younger DS started on his journey, where the grade which determined a pass became of relevance, that it is of slight importance, but only in that he achieves grade 4’s to get into college.