Y11 2025/26… come and join

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DD has done nothing and won't be doing any till Easter hols. Waiting on Science results but was on track for everything else.

My dc has had a much needed weekend completely off, following 2 weeks of mocks and 14ish hours per week revision since xmas. They’ll start building up again from tomorrow, but gradually. Just the set homework and school based revision sessions this week, then starting to build in more. It’s a marathon not a sprint, as far as I’m concerned.

Yes our mocks were early dec so have had lots of downtime over Christmas and Jan and starting again a little bit since Feb

Mine has finally started to get into gear. Hard to tell exactly how much is being done but defo more than before

My DD had saturday AM off with dress shopping and did homework for the rest of the day (an essay for the one option not in mock and her coursework to finalise for drama).
Today she did some revision, then 2 mock papers and studied the questions she got wrong. This was for her paper 3 math mock tomorrow.
It all felt a little more relaxed than usual, she's not worried about Maths and it's the last mock.

To be honest, I’m leaving Dd to it so I couldn’t tell you how many hours she’s working. She’s always been good at knuckling down; I’ve never had to nag to do homework etc. Second round of mocks start next week and I know she’s working for them. School are still setting homework / mini quizzes / practise questions etc which is obviously all contributing to revision anyway. She attends, by choice, 2-3 lunch time clinics and has a tutor every fortnight. Then will attend a four day, intensive revision course over Easter.

DS also had December mocks, he had the pep talk from us about 10 days ago and seems to have done ok since in getting on with it!

Do you pick specific subjects for the Easter course if it's a private one? I am still waiting as I think our school runs an Easter support course but I don't have the details yet.

Our school sent out a timetables with available study classes 4 hrs for English and 2 hours for most other classes they ate doing a day for art. States you have to log in on Google and book which ever study sessions your going to attend. Limited spaces.

I’m really leaving DD to it too, she sounds very similar to @36and3DD. She’s incredibly motivated and hardworking and has her eye on the goal and that has been all the way through really and I know we are very fortunate.

She is going to a lot of Art sessions at lunch as the content is enormous so she’s constantly ploughing through that. She went to History last week, they have a session a week. She had Mocks in November, now teachers are saying they are going to be doing mocks again in the next few weeks, no fixed timetable and in class as opposed to the more formal Autumn ones.

She looks a bit tired, she eats and sleeps well but you just can’t get away from the pressure and I think the expectation is weighing heavy on her.

She’s had offers from 2 of the 3 sixth forms she applied to, the last offer is due just before the Easter holidays.

Are we supposed to apply to more sixth forms? DD's school has a guaranteed place as long as they get a set amount of points, and I've not applied anywhere else?

I've got another thread, which is best not discussed here, but one of her friends and classmates died at the weekend. Today they have not done any work, and although I've only been giving 10 minute tests in Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology, then moving to past papers in April (as she has her second drama performance/engineering/Spanish listening due imminently), I was thinking it would be best to not push her, as she is bound to be shocked and upset.

How likely is she to get the grades she needs for her school sixth form? Always best to have a back up plan really incase the worst happens. Having an already established back up plan is a lot easier to cope with on a disappointing results day than scrabbling around to find somewhere to go and something to do in September.

Ideally you do apply to more than one, just in case things go a bit haywire.

Yes you pick the subjects you want. We have two days of maths and then two days of chemistry. It’s intense. 9-5 each day.

Oh your poor DD, that must be a shock. And the poor parents :-(

Regarding Sixth Form, DD has applied to 2 but to be honest all of the Sixth Forms around here have the same entrance criteria, so I think it's a little pointless. They have offered DD a conditional place with 6 x 4s, so her place is more or less guaranteed (fingers crossed!). This would be for Btechs though. For her choices of A levels she needs 6 x 6s including biology and english (and French, but she's already taken that 2 years ago) and 7 in maths.

We’ve not applied anywhere else - though we did look at other options - just couldn’t find an alternative he liked ( or that I was happy with ) Also last year DS1 didn’t look at anywhere else - his actual average mark was significantly below his predicted so it could have got a bit hairy . Several of his friends had to find a slot elsewhere

I'm so worried about the possiblity of DD getting marks significantly below her predicted grades... especially as all the mocks we've done never had the full curriculum covered. Did your DS get the courses he wanted?

@Caddycat - that was the problem I identified too - mocks cover smaller parts of curriculum. He had a prediction of 7.6 , got 6.7 - mocks was also 6.7 weirdly . He did get his choices but he has everything from 8-4 as he prioritised his a level choices in the end . He was a worker though and still ran out of time.

DS2 is at a different school ( private not state grammar) and his chosen subjects aren’t allowed in his chosen combination by what would have been second choice . No other provider offers that combination with lower grades . So no second choice is more necessity than choice for us . He needs 6 in Maths and his A level choices - if he gets his finger out and keeps it out that’s doable 🤞

I worry about this as well. DD’s mock history exam was one paper, two hours. The real thing is three papers! I was quite miffed to be honest, it wasn’t much of a mock at all. Also, they were allowed to take some book or anthology into one of the English mocks, which apparently they can’t have with them in the real thing. So what was the point of that?! Infuriating!

If they did full sets of papers for mocks they would lose too much classroom time.

If they have sense they will have spread things out, eg paper 1s end y10, paper 2s nov/jan.

DD did end of year 10 exams in the hall for the feel of it. The November mocks covered paper 1 for all subjects except maths was the full 3 papers. The Feb/march mocks were all of paper 2 except the 2 options with coursework.
Im not sure how she will cope with the stress and volume of stuff to know being twice as much. @waitingquietly i wonder if prioritising A level choices becomes a thing for the vast majority of children. I know they should all be familiar with the curriculum by now but im sure my dd forgot things like names and dates in medieval history of medicine the minute the mocks were over!

@Caddycat - DS found History the worst for content - a 9 prediction turned into only just a 6

I would imagine all but the brightest make choices - I know DS2 is too - even having dropped History in January .

I tend to think of DS1 as my learner child - I’ve got a better idea the following year with DS2 . By pure chance DS1 is hugely more sturdy than DS2 thank goodness .

The thing I will say is listen to your gut

@waitingquietly DD dropped further maths just last month. She's going to have 11 GCSEs anyway without it and was spending an awful lot of time practising it to the detriment of other subjects. It was a matter of pride i think and it took some convincing but her teacher was supportive. I think going down on predictions in history isnt surprising. The knowledge together with the insight needed in some of the questions can make it very tricky.

@Caddycat - that sounds like a good move , DS1 did further maths .. another that ended up a 6 .. he has 11 and an HPQ .. DS2 will hopefully have 8 .. I don’t see much benefit in the extra 3.5 if I’m really honest - DS1 was exhausted by the final week

@Caddycatdd also dropped further maths at Feb half. I’m delighted!