Y11 2025-26 Exams have started - chat, support & drink of choice if needed here.

[UncomfortableSilence]

New thread for all of us with lovely Y11s to support them and us through the coming weeks.

Yes. Stats show only 1.7% do 11 GCSEs

DfE guidance is not to grant blanket study leave now. Private schools are exempt of this guidance and still typically grant study leave somewhere between Easter and start of exams.
state schools can grant study leave and need to mark with a certain absence code. Schools have realised that in lots of instance not all children will or can revise at home so less and less are granting study leave like some of us would have had when doing our GCSEs. The higher performing comps and grammar schools are more likely to still grant it. Your average comp less so.

i was at a cricket game with a friend yesterday talking to a friend about study leave vs not and debate and our DC and a teacher overheard and told me the above, so hopefully it’s correct.

1.7% do 11. The rest 18 %ish do less than 7 based on the stats published

We live in a poor rural area and our local schools offer a lot of btecs alongside GCSEs so I imagine the majority in our school are doing 6ish GCSEs and a few btecs too- things like animal care, food tech, sport, engineering, etc. yes there will also be kids who struggle with attendance and SEN who do a reduced number. I kind of assumed that this would be the same across the country but then remember how deprived our area is.

My DS is doing 7 GCSEs. Most do 9, if you do separate sciences (top set) you can do 10 I think.
He has ASD and is not doing RE and only has 2 options rather than 3 after the core five (maths, English x2, science x 2). He still has PE twice a week (top set only once) and one hour a week of cooking. Then 4 or 5 hours in the sen area to do social skills, extra maths, and homework.
To do the 8th GCSE he would have had only 1 PE and no cooking and I decided those were more important as low stress activities.

Re chemistry vs Eng Lit, revision right now is in the ratio of exams left with triple for maths and double for A Level options. As chemistry is neither it is not getting much.

I’ve got a bit lost with all the different posters and when I try and scroll back the screen glitches… so apologies for not tagging .

DS2 will have 8 GCSE ( hopefully) .. he is also one who is dreading Chemistry and prioritising other things and also one that seems a bit wiped and hadn’t done much revision since Thursday . I’m not sure it’s looking good for more than 6 passes if I’m honest . He has worked out he thinks he needs 30% for a 4 in combined science . I’ve asked him to try for that and crossed my fingers . DS1 has helped him quite a bit with sciences and maths - or at least tried and offered .

DS1 is one of the 1.7% … with more than 11 GCSEs or equivalent .

DS1 is state , DS2 moved to private in year 9

We are perhaps the prime example of the part of the private sector that people don’t realise exists . The part where kids move across when the wheels come off - Very minor local private school .

I don’t know how they count. Our son is doing 11 qualifications but one is a L2 non-gcse (music technology) and one is extended maths (top set do this). So does that count as 11, 10 or 9 GCSEs.

This is at a comprehensive school in London. Although he’s academically strong I think it’s a lot of pressure. I’d probably rather he wasn’t doing extended maths except he’s planning to take maths a level and it will presumably be helpful for that.

@LattePatty that’s how I feel about DS1 in retrospect though I would have liked to see him drop Spanish . The extra maths will help it did for DS1

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/infographic-gcse-results-2024/infographics-for-gcse-results-2024-accessible

The regional differences via this link are stark and sad. Assuming the young people of NE England are born with just as much potential as the young people of London what is going on. Is it the quality of teaching, is it parental support for education, early childhood experiences, something else, all of these.

@waitingquietly we are very similar, my eldest DD did well in state, by DS we moved to a small independent school in year 9 because the state school he was in just wasn’t working for him. He is doing 9 GCSEs but looking to get 4+ in 5/6 of them. It’s not looking good for combined science, I was testing him with flash cards yesterday and he was struggling. He’s not doing too badly on physics because he’s got some maths abilities, but chemistry tomorrow is going to be a disaster I think.

He’s another one who’s going for arts based subjects post 16. We’re lucky that we have 6th form colleges locally and they have entry criteria as low as they can, he needs 5 at 4+ to get onto an Alevel course, they also allow an extra year should he get 4 and miss maths, he could retake and do a study skills based course with some art and then transfer onto to A level courses.

He’s got the ability, but hes not worked as hard as we’d have liked him too.

Thank you @Ifonlyoneday , it’s really useful to see those numbers. My DC is one of those attempting all 9s in 11 GCSEs. Based on those 2024 numbers, if they pull it off they’ll be one of 145 out of over 667000+ students. That’s 0.02%.

That’s an insane goal, which is what I’ve felt all along, but it’s good to have the numbers to back it up. They’ll still aim
for it, it’s their personality, but I think this will help put it in perspective.

Economics is essay based. All of the independent 6th forms we toured required a 7 in English to take Economics at A-Level.

If he misses a decent grade in English, could Further Maths A-Level be an option?

If it’s a GCSE it counts in the figures I shared. If it’s anything else, btec/ctec/vtec/asdan etc it doesn’t count in that number which is why some students may show in those stats as 6 GCSEs but they did 6 GCSEs and 3btecs so have 9 level 2 qualifications. The stats show the number of GCSEs a child does has decreased since the reforms under gove as they are a)harder and b)there are now more taking vocational qualifications such as btecs which are more accessible and not based purely on terminal exams and offer some subjects not available in GCSEs e.g animal care, health and social.

igcses which can be taken by private schools only are also not in those stats.

imho it’s a good think that schools can offer gcse or vocational qualifications that are level 2.

I think the regional differences are all of these. Expectation and aspirations are a huge part. In London there’s a combination of a well funded drive to improve standards across the board, London schools have not always been the most successful, a project called London Challenge really drove up standards, sharing good practices across the capital was a key part of it, London schools are also a little better funded. I think that led to less parents looking outside London for schools, less middle class exodus, then finally having such a large immigrant population is believed to improve outcomes as people are moving to the UK to improve their kids outcomes through a UK education.

ive not taught in London, but I’ve taught in high and low achieving schools in Hampshire and it’s much, much harder in schools with low attainment, if a big chunk of the class has no ambition to pass a gcse, behaviour management is really difficult. I taught a tricky year 9 class who have started gcse curriculum last week and at least 70% of my time was behaviour management and less than 30% teaching content. In the high achieving school I could be on my own with an entire year group in the hall and they’d respectfully listen to me.

@Ifonlyoneday

Note these do not have igcse data in them at all, only private schools can do igcses now and I can’t find the stats for them. Igcses have coursework in them which was banned under Michael goves reforms for state schools at gcse. Igcses normally have better outcomes due to coursework and due to private schools

DD is going English, Maths and Sciences iGCSE and there is no coursework.

The reason the school gives for doing them is that the jump to A-Level is smaller, particularly for science and maths.

My dd is doing economics a level and planning to study it at university. She got a 6 in English and was not a fan of essay subjects at school ( she is dyslexic) but is predicted an A at A-level in economics. Her 6th form needed a 6+ in maths for it I think but only an English pass. At university many require an A or B in maths for the BSc, she’s actually going to go for BA economics.

She hadn’t planned on doing the alevel, but they had to do 4 subject taster lessons and that was her 4th, she enjoyed that and didn’t enjoy Spanish, which was her favourite gcse, so switched. I think having an interest in maths and politics has made it a good fit.

Our state school did iGCSE English before Gove banned it, no coursework but it was modular and there was some choice in the modules I seem to remember, which made it more accessible. I think that was the reason Gove disliked it. Such a shame it was a good course.

DS is doing iGCSE maths and there’s no non-calculator paper, which again would have upset Mr Gove, but doesn’t make it easier I don’t think. It’s an odd paper, definitely geared to a wealthy international audience… if Tarquins yacht depreciates by 15% a year and cost ¥100000 calculate its value after 5 years..

Can I ask how your DD has fared with all the essay writing for economics at A-Level?

DD doesn’t thrive with essay based subjects. She’s very much a numbers girl. She has done well at economics GCSE but it has been a struggle at times. She’s got her heart set on doing it for A-Level (along with Maths, Further Maths and Chemistry) but I do worry that at A Level, it may well be beyond her natural skill set.

Igcses used to be harder than GCSEs before gove reforms but that is not the case post reforms.

I don’t understand why private and state can’t do the same GCSEs anyway (it’s all rather odd). All rather odd as the I gcse was developed for international schools and you are right that they used to be much harder than GCSEs. Either which way it remains a big difference between gcse, igcses and a levels.

She’s doing maths, psychology and economics, she’s predicted AAB with the B in maths which is definitely the subject she’s struggled with most, despite getting an 8 at GCSE.

Her mock assessments in economics have been all over the place, ranging from A-D, it has been stressful but all A-levels are really hard, unless you’re one of those rare super talented people, and she’s not!

She has really enjoyed it and I think that’s key, you can be taught essay writing, and hers has definitely improved, but if you’re finding the content dull you’re cooked. There’s also a maths element, they have to be able to draw graphs that make no sense to me, but dd has found this bit not too difficult.

DS is saying the opposite. He's aiming for a 9 and found it harder than the past papers he'd been doing and lots of people were saying it was easy. But he saw the paper online afterwards and only lost a few marks so it seems there was more depth that people were missing.

Yes, my daughter says Maths iGCSEs contains A-level content 🤷‍♀️

She's also doing English iGCSEs and 50% of the English Language mark is coursework.

DD’s iGCSE English isn’t modular, but the best thing about it is no Dickens or Shakespeare. All modern literature, hallelujah!

Which board is that for English? DD would have loved coursework but Cambridge iGCSE doesn’t have it.

Her maths and science iGCSE’s are Edexcel and no coursework there either.

@wonderstuff thank you. That’s helpful and knowing that she’s enjoyed it is encouraging as that’s the main thing isn’t it.