I don't know what to do or say to English teacher about GCSE mock results to get help

[LolaBaby75]

My DD is close to the GCSE exams now - about three weeks to go. They have always been a grade 7 student in classwork and homework but in both sets if mocks it has fallen apart. They have got Eng lang 2, Eng lit 4 before Christmas; and now in the most recent mocks Eng lang 4, Eng lit 2. They NEED a 6 to do the A-level subjects they want so they are devastated. I took a look at the class feedback on the mocks and it was all impossible to understand. The rest of the class are getting advice on how to turn their 7 into 9 with university level nuggets - they are clearly a clever class. This doesn't help my daughter though who has basically given up any work to do with English since the first mocks. Nonetheless she seems to know all the quotes but doesn't know what to write. I'm at a loss. The teacher hasn't contacted me after this last lot of results. They were completely shocked after the first but just seemed to think they would work and be alright. What do I write to the teacher? Ask for individual feedback?

I would send her teacher an email and cc in the head of English saying your points. Make sure you explain that it is concerning your daughter and ask how you can work together to ensure the result she deserves. Try to not be accusing in your email but phrase it in a way that everyone wants the best result. Ask if there are any after school revision sessions, any YouTube videos, revision booklets etc.

It could be that she misread the questions under the stress of formal exams, if so the teachers will know that it wasn’t representative of her actual ability. If this is the case, she can learn some calming techniques to apply at the beginning of the exam. Then she needs to use some exam techniques such as underlining the key words in the questions.

Teachers generally always do want the best results for their students, it does reflect on them as well the proportion of higher grades. This will be especially true if she is in a higher set for English.

Those results are so at odds with her predicted grades that it seems unlikely that it hasn't been picked up. At DC's school they would have been put in an intervention group - does anything like that happen at your school?
It sounds as though DD is working to a higher level, just falling apart in exams, so that might be the point to address. Can you afford a tutor to work with them on exam technique?

I would also suggest contacting the school to find out what can be put in place.

Is this an exams wide issue ie did she massively underachieve in all her subjects or just English?

does she do other essay type subjects - history, RE and what did she get in those?

eng lang is hard to prepare for but for eng lit if she knows the plays and books she is doing it is possible to memorise essay plans for the most common four or five questions. My DS did this.

the school presumably picked up on this after the first set of mocks - was she offered any after school sessions /lunchtime sessions to help?

no not offered anything. Pressure was taken off after first mocks because it was felt that was the problem. They were getting grade 6 and 7s in their work before then so the teacher was shocked by the result and out it dwn to exam nerves. They are grade 8/9 in most subjects. In religion they ended up with a 7. It was a similar thing whereby they knew the content but couldnt write essays. A tutor showed them how to use what they already knew to generate essay plans and after 2 sessions was producing grade 9 essays by themselves. We have an eng tutor but they keep going over quotes for eng lit and say you cant learn essays.

Have you got a copy of her mocks?

Get the tutor to go through them with her, and see if they can work out what went wrong. Ask school to copy them for your daughter if she hasn't got them already.

Definitely contact school. Those marks are way off.

Going from a 7 to a 9 in religious studies (which is basically an exam where you write non stop essays) sounds like honing exam/essay technique.

If your child is getting 6 and 7 in class, and can't reproduce this in an exam it suggests exam nerves, or that the work they are getting 6s and 7s on is completely different to answering exam questions and therefore not indicative of future results.
Have a look at Mr Salles and Mr Bruff on YouTube. They are great for information about answering exam questions.

If she has dropped so low compared to previous tests but still achieving high grades in other subjects, then she’s either been a victim of ‘grade inflation’, where teachers have told her she should be getting a higher grade than one she could realistically achieve or alternatively, she’s possibly not done any revision, not focussed in lessons and generally not applied herself. When did you first employ a tutor for her?

Your tutor is talking rubbish, of course you can revise essays.

She needs to practise wringing as much analysis out of her quotations as possible. That's where the marks are - it's not about spotting techniques, it's about explaining the effect of the writer's choices on the reader.

If she gets really stuck on how to formulate her answers, and she has a scientific brain tell her she needs to form a hypothesis, which will be her introduction, and then the rest of the essay is where she tests that hypothesis in each paragraph, using quotations as the evidence.

Download some past papers from the exam board website & get her to practice answering the essay questions. I would also schedule a meeting with her teacher whereby you can all look at her mock essays together to understand what went wrong. She's either panicking & writing very little or just completely missing the point of the question.

My DD is 3 weeks away from her first exam, so completely understand your pain.

You absolutely can learn essays. Get a different tutor.

She needs a better tutor I would say. She’s obviously capable of getting a 6 if she is doing that well in other subjects

Sounds like she just needs someone to teach her how to write to get the marks. DS did AQA Eng lang and for the story/describe a picture question he had written two very descriptive essays, one on waiting for news at a hospital and the other of a mythical beast. He then shoe horned the one that fit best into whatever vague title they were given.

I bought Mr Salles (teacher on Youtube) book on persuasive writing which had loads of examples and he based his answer on one he'd read in there.

Mr Salles is great for lang I think and Mr Bruff great for lit - but they both do both. If she knows all the quotes then it's just how to use them and how to structure answers. Definitely get a different tutor, this one isn't helping her in the way she needs.

Is she finishing the papers? If not, then there are a lot of marks to be gained, simply by learning how to structure her time effectively.

My son was on 2/3 in both (8 in all other subjects) I sat down and helped him plan. Mr Everything English on you tube was super helpful as was ChatGPT. If they write an essay from a past paper and paste it into ChatGPT asking it to mark (exam board year & question) not only will it mark but it will suggest how to get higher grades. Obviously don’t rely on ChatGPT but we found it so helpful. He is now consistently producing grade 7/8, it only took a couple of weeks.

DS is very dyslexic and needed a lot of support in English. We couldn't afford tutors so I got the revision guides, looked at past papers(and used a bit of ChatGPT) and learned enough that I could talk through different topics with him. Essentially we got to a point where we could talk through the makings of a whole essay. So, if we had a spare ten minutes in the car we could talk about the symbolism of the colour red (or whatever). For persuasive writing he definitely practiced a couple of specimen essays for that. He had a small selection of great quotes and he learned how to shoehorn them into whatever argument he needed to make. For us, talking about it before writing about it really helped.

My DD had similar issues - in her case it was because in class you can discuss what exactly they mean in a question and can figure out with others what is wanted in the answer. But in an exam context there is no-one to bounce ideas off and so if the question is misunderstood there is nowhere to go.

I would ask the teachers how much of the 6/7 grades were completed without any other input. My DDs english teacher said she was on target for a 9 until I pointed out she couldn't even understand the question!

Can you get a tutor...? It sounds like she's not really getting anything from that teacher, and the fact things haven't improved between the previous set and current set, plus that she's gone to the effort of learning the quotes but can't actually answer the questions - makes me think she needs another set of eyes on her.
I'd also get a meeting (asap) in with the teacher and ask her to sit with dd and talk through the papers. They need to understand what is going wrong (can't believe they didn't the first time tbh!) I'd try and get (online or amazon) a load of the cgp, cliff notes, aqa etc exam prep/past paper/gcse revision guides too.

Get a different tutor. They clearly aren't getting to the root of the issue. You absolutely can learn essays - tips for structuring them, tips for how the build an argument and how to provide different perspectives, tips for timings, how to use quotes to support your argument etc. I'd expect them to go through your dds essays and set her a new one each session as homework. Practice and reviewing to improve.

English teacher here :) I would absolutely email her teacher outlining your concerns. You can definitely learn how to formulate essay answers - because those type of answers can come across as formulaic and 'learned', they don't get you the top 8/9 grades but you can absolutely do that for 6/7! It will more than likely give her confidence as well! Grade 6/7 is mostly about really closely analysing those quotations with appropriate terminology. If she knows her quotes, she is part way there. I would add though that exam stress can be a real issue so it is worth asking if any access arrangements can be made e.g. smaller room of students etc. It is late in the day for this but worth an ask of the head of year. I hope it all goes well!

Hi there, that sounds super stressful, you have my sympathies.

Of course one can practice essay writing/ essay structure. In fact, it’s an invaluable skill to learn, particularly should they be taking any essay heavy A level subjects.

Your tutor sounds shit - can you find another for a few sessions ahead of 11/5? You’ll need to be certain that they know the exam board spec forensically plus know how to actually teach (far too many charlatans with little/no teaching experience masquerading as ‘tutors’, imo)

I only tutor in person, but I’d be happy to have a peek at her mock papers and give you a bit of feedback on where she could be losing marks, if helpful? Message me some screen shots of her essays and I can make suggestions.

Dear god get a different tutor immediately!!! What nonsense. The main thing she should be doing is preparing essay plans for the obvious questions. If she/you/the tutor can’t work out what those are, you can literally ask Chat GP / Copilot for example GCSE essay questions for whatever the set texts are, and then work out essay plans with her, then ask the AI for sample essays and compare.

And my 9 year old is already being taught essay techniques.

Your tutor sounds really poor. My DD was exactly the same. Knew her stuff but couldn’t get it down on paper. Got a brilliant tutor who taught her how to write essays and she jumped 3 grades from mock to final exam. You need to push the tutor more. Sadly I don’t think you’d get another one at this late stage. But it’s not the end of the world if she doesn’t get the grades first time. She can retake. Ty not to get to stressed OP. GCSE years are the pits.

Former Head of English who still tutors: your tutor is out of their depth and telling you rubbish while your school is clearly letting your DC fall through a significant crack. If your tutor is still harping on about memorising quotations, it’s not worth another session IMO. Students don’t actually get specific points for being word for word with these references - all the points are for context and analysis so it’s fine to paraphrase or even just reference the scene, as long as the student can do that clearly.

Which exam board is your DC sitting? That will help teachers and tutors here give you the most specific info.

Certainly write to school again and copy in head of dept, form tutor, and head of year. A student who is putting their a-level place at risk should be on the radar for all of them. Tell them that despite doing well on class work and studying with a subject-specific tutor, their exam results are not hitting the prediction and her A-level place is at risk. Ask for honest feedback: is the child engaging in lessons and, assuming effort is as expected, what further work specific to the last set of exams do they recommend. Hopefully they will give you something more helpful! But in the meantime, if you share which exam board, we can give you some specifics, as things like whole study sites or YouTube channels are going to be too overwhelming in this time frame.

I agree with a lot of what has been said but wanted to check with @LolaBaby75 – you are using "they" about your DC (fair enough) so the pronouns are confusing. Is it the tutor who is going over quotes and saying you can't learn essays? Or your DC?

If the former then I agree the tutor is not doing a very good job. No, you don't learn essays as such – but you can and in fact need to learn the themes and how they are referenced in the various texts.

There's always a lot of fuss on MN and elsewhere about "learning 25 quotes" or whatever number; but as @CatatonicLadybug says, it's not about a memorised word-for-word quote, but about referencing the theme through just a couple of words or even "the scene where Macbeth sees an imaginary dagger" - to talk about the supernatural, the theme of death or violence, Macbeth's personality and how it changes (etc).

There's not much time, but I would advise going through the texts and picking out themes and then learning four or five points for each one, with a text reference to support it. Which texts? It's easy enough to find the themes that are most likely to come up. Does she know any of this already?

Which board is it @LolaBaby75 and which texts?

This doesn't help my daughter though who has basically given up any work to do with English since the first mocks.

This is the bit that jumped out at me. Has she actually done no work since the mocks before Christmas or is that exaggeration?

Basis essay planning.

Read the question.
Pick out the key words. E.g. How does Lady Macbeth challenge Jacobean gender norms?

Develop 3 or 4 points that are short and answer the question.

1. She speaks in a very non-maternal manner about her own hypothetical children.
2. She dominates her husband.
3. She appeals to the supernatural.
4. She rejects her own femaleness.

Each point is a paragraph.
Each paragraph should have a couple of quotes.
The student should identify language features in the quotes.
Explain the quote and the language feature, and analyse HOW the quote and language feature prove the paragraph point AND the question.

If she REALLY doesn't know how to write an essay, she can use a structure to help. Do 2 PQLE's per paragraph.

1. Paragraph point. P
2. Add a quote. Q
3. identify a language feature. L
4. Explain / analyse E (minimum 4 sentences).