Y11 2025/26… come and join

[wonderstuff]

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He's the oldest cousin unfortunately and his friends also seem to be the oldest siblings in their families. The school got him a year 11 mentor when he was in year 10, but DS said he should have been the mentor out of the 2 🤦‍♀️

@splenda I agree it's worth asking for his mock exam papers so he can work through reviewing them with his tutor.

@eurotravel its so difficult isn’t it, I don’t want to watch him fail, but I’m not sure I can do much more. I could get super strict, take his devices etc. but I think he’ll push back hard and the risk is I break my relationship and he fails.. No bloody handbook for raising teens is there?

Yes. If I nag they push back and refuse. If I try bribe it lasts a day at best. Tried every argument & reasoning & threat. It’s infuriating as they could get 7-9 grades if actually revised properly. Has to get 6s & 7s for college they want and A levels. Will get way lower in subjects least interested in. Due to attitude not aptitude. I feel like time ticking past me

Mine are revising parts of 1 or 2 subjects a night, but no set duration or revision timetable at the moment. Think they are trying to do bits and pieces.

2nd round of mocks late Feb/early March.

they’ve been told today at school there is 15 weeks till exams and school will do a ten week revision countdown with suggested revision topics per subject.

parents evening next week.

I am now starting to think of the acquisition of 2 prom dresses which might be as painful an experience as the revision! 😂. Wish me luck.

have a feeling some parts of this year are going to fly by and others are going to drag on.
glad we have this thread to keep us sane.

@Ifonlyoneday good luck with prom dresses! I got DD1 one from an online store that was quite reasonable, she paired it with some converse trainers that were white lace. The stress of finding it though! DS hasn’t talked about it much yet, I think transport is going to be the thing, they all want something special and hiring cars is soo expensive. DD hasn’t talked a friend whose dad had an old US army jeep, bless them it looked great but it was chucking it down on the night!

@eurotravel its a comfort to know I’m not alone. DS only needs 5 at 4 or above, but even that is not a given and his maths really needs work, when you explain it he gets concepts quickly, but was literally doing no work whatsoever in school in year 7&8, we moved him schools in year 9, but it’s a lot to catch up on, with covid hitting in years 5&6 too.

I spoke tonight about limited time now to knuckle down ( I hadn’t worked out 15 weeks!!) and got told school are telling them the same now. I don’t recall my own Yr11 being so intense. And to a teen Jan to May is an eternity. It does all feel too much. But can’t tell them that.
This year group didn’t do SATs. As much as I loathe SATs at least my other (lazy) child did them. Forced to revise for SATs and got exceeding. He’s now got no excuse as we know if he works he can perform ..

Not going well here. Problem is DS1 has no sense of time. Worked out it was 120 days to his first exam which freaked me out - his response “oh that’s ages actually” calculated that was just over 17 weeks “yeah, months, chill mother” I was not chill!

Thank you so much. I will ask for copies. Previously he has always got grade 5-6's so it is a big shock. Did you speak to school about the harsh marks? Do they change it if its affecting sixth form entry criteria?

I did, but didn’t get anywhere, safe to say English teaching was not a strength at the school and her teacher was awful, completely disinterested. I think very reliant on engaged parents buying in tutoring to keep there results up. One of the many reasons I moved my youngest! I would definitely reach out to the teacher and ask for advice on what they need to focus on. Most English teachers I know would be happy to have a discussion.

I don’t know about 6th form entry, round here none of the schools have 6th forms and the colleges have minimum entry requirements.

Thank you. DS says he will speak to his teacher and will let me know. I will see them at parents evening anyway. But we don't get much in the form of feedback out of that teacher. 🙄
Just trying to keep him motivated. Do you know if the school lets you drop a subject if they are struggling at this stage?
Thank you.

I have worked in schools who have allowed a subject drop, but only if there is really good reason and facilities to support revision/tutoring. School results take a hit if the students drop below 8 subjects and schools i have worked at insist on English (both) obviously maths and science, unless it’s a complete disaster generally EBAC subjects also have to continue as they also affect school performance results. This may be less of a concern this year as they won’t be a benchmark after this year and obviously schools can’t report on progress results this year as this cohort didn’t do SATs.

Definitely worth a conversation.

Ok. Thanks. Yes, I googled it and they don't let you drop a subject especially English. Let's hope it's just one of those glitches and his previous grades have been satisfactory so it should continue. Thanks for your help.

I'm feeling slightly happier now after DSs parents evening.

They said they could tell he was revising from his mock results and also his work in lessons and that the extra science sessions weren't because he was struggling but because he was already exceeding his predicted 5s by getting a 6 in all three sciences in mocks and they want to see if he can push for 7s.

And they are aware of his 4 in English mocks and are monitoring if he needs some extra sessions in that as well so that's reassuring.

Do you feel most parents engage tutors? We don’t but judging by the parents WhatsApp group, we appear to be in the minority

No money for a tutor here so couldn't even if we wanted to. I don't think it's a big thing in our school as most parents wouldn't be able to afford it. I think some schools/areas it seems to be the norm though.

In fact at the year 11 parents meeting at the beginning of the year the Head was very strongly making the point our kids would be fighting against private school kids and kids with tutors etc for grades (something to do with grade boundaries that I didn't really understand). Which seemed a bit of a silly thing to say because if you can't afford it you can't afford it.

parents evening this week for us. Dd had mocks back in November so thankfully there won’t be any surprises but she’s already asked to “be busy” during the maths feedback.

Yes I’d say the vast majority have tutors at dd’s school (including us).

I’m often seeing requests for tutor recommendations on school what’s app so I’m guessing it’s a thing ( one grammar / one private non selective ) . Even when struggling neither of my kids have wanted a tutor despite me offering to source / fund . To be fair both schools go above and beyond to provide support to children struggling

We don't use tutors. I know of some parents who do, but this tends to be when dc are very borderline (ie may or may not get a 4/5 in maths or English) or when they have a huge lack of confidence in a core subject and parents feel they would benefit from 1:1.

DD is mid-mocks. She is very tired and I’m glad it will all be over by Friday. They had some before Christmas but most in a block last week and next. She’s worked hard so we’ll just have to see. I wish school focused more on exam technique, especially in things like history.

We are using tutors now but only to help in the key subjects where DC needs a 7 and mock was not a 6. As much about exam technique as understanding. Very bright but ND and won’t get grades without understanding how to. But a tutor is around £45-50 an hour so I’d say not an option for most. It’s hard call whether to spend now or use money to save for As and onwards. But a failure at GCSE could stop Alevel options…

We had a tutor for my eldest (now in y13) for English, she had 7 English teachers in KS3, plus obviously covid and got a 3 in year 10 mocks and shockingly school were disinterested, her English teacher was just awful, arrogant, rude, refused to accept she might need some extra support. Anyway we got the tutor and she got a 6 in the end and 6th form have since assessed her as needing extra time.

We haven’t for ds, but he’s in a small independent school so has the small classes and supervised prep and so frankly shouldn’t need a tutor. We did have one for about 18 months when he was in year 5, because at that time he was in state and really struggling to write anything at all, it made a huge difference to him.

Just had his report, and it’s not too bad he seems to be trying in everything bar science. Parents evening on Thursday. We’ve had quite the weekend, his really tested boundaries and is now grounded until half term and has restricted tech access and no access to money. I guess at least he was dumb enough to get caught, but I wish he was bright enough to not be smoking in the first place.

I think most in our school have tutors for at least one subject, but we are in a very affluent area, where the state schools are good and so parents who would otherwise go private don’t but supplement the teaching with tutors. That’s certainly what we do but only in the subjects we as parents can’t help with. I would also add the affluence leads to parents paying for tutors to get 8/9s not only to guarantee 4/5s. Personally I hate the fact that because each child is competing against those who go private/ use tutors there is a chance the grade boundaries go up and up and up, but also will do what I can including tutoring in order to equip DS as well as I can for the assessment. It is very much the case that the tutoring we have used has pretty much all been in exam technique and confidence on how to answer questions not knowledge.