Why so many Mocks?

[Revisiontime]

Currently in year 10. Mocks in June, October, January and March?

Is this common?

Nowadays they seem to rename all school exams for GCSE/A Levels as Mocks. At my children's school they have exams at the end of every term, but they are called mocks now for those years. When I was at school Mocks were the exams in January before their GCSEs/A Levels.

Yeah, everything is called a mock thesedays. Think it's intended to make the kids work harder. At the very least doing some revision for each exam helps reinforce the learning so they can remember it during GCSEs.

its just testing to make sure they are continually revising. My ds did three sets of “mocks” for GCSEs last year and he did find it helpful.

Ok. Thank you. The ones they are having now are proper Mocks I guess as they are in exam conditions and come home after each exam.

It’s to keep them revising. Hopefully they get better each time which boost confidence.

I think is helpful and if they are revising for each mocks, maybe they need less time for the actual GCSE revision

It is a good idea as not much revision gets done otherwise. It can be tricky to motivate a 14/15 year old to revise; and some don’t really have the skills to do it.

DC is at a performing arts school so just doing Maths, English,Science, Optional and the strand which involves lots of writing.

Hopefully less subjects mean a bit more time to focus on them.

Most schools I know, and the one I work in, have mocks in June, Nov/Dec and March. It gets the students used to the exam papers and conditions (hence reducing anxiety for some), keeps them revising, lets them and teachers know their progress and learning needs.

When DD was at school they got the pupils to sit exams in the school hall from year 9 to get them used to GCSE exam conditions early so that it was less stressful by the time they sat their GCSEs.

My DC school have bronze, silver and gold mocks for GCSEs and A levels. Partly I see the benefit but it also means content suffers a bit (in my opinion) as so much time spent on exams. It's also not great for children who suffer with anxiety so my DD kinda of lost it after GCSE gold mocks (February) - was exhausted and kept getting physically ill so unable to work for the actual exams in the way she had for all those 'mocks'.

That is the downside I guess; overdoing it so by the the time they get to the real thing the may be exhausted.

Hope your daughter got the results she needed for next stage.

When my niece was in years 10 and 11 is only ever saw her during the school holidays.
She was always "revising" during these school breaks.
I asked her "when do you learn new stuff if you are always revising stuff you've already done".
She seemed very confused but that's what it looked like to me. The same stuff over and over.
I often feel if schools have to keep going over the curriculum/exam techniques again and again then there is something wrong with the whole system.

I have to agree. It is an exam factory; the whole system is just based on results; memorising and regurgitating the information, then forgetting after the exam 😅

Thanks, she did really well and enough for the next stage. But it's taken her most of Y12 to get over Y11. She's finally more relaxed and happy again. I'm hoping they don't lay it on so thick for A levels. The issue was partly attending a low attainment school where they really needed to lay it on thick to get passes but DD took it all to heart. Her twin brother needed the pressure so it does work for some kids. I think as parachute at just need to figure out what's good for your child and try to remove pressure if it's too much. (Kept saying for her 'bronze mocks' this summer that it's only summer exams and teachers will give higher predicted grades for UCAS.

Yes. They teach them to pass exams these days. Sucks allllll the fun out of learning.

Hard agree. I can’t wait for my child to finish year 11 and they haven’t even finished year 10 😂

I do understand this is the system we are in, so have to comply and learn to play the game.

Not actually true, the younger year groups they have end of year tests and end of topic tests. When they start calling them mocks in year 10 they are normally using a collection of past papers from actual GCSE's.

I do think they over test a bit to much but can see the benefit in testing early as well, in order to see what parts of the circulum they may be weak on.

We only do year 10, November and March mocks. I think any more is a bit overkill.

I do miss the days of more course work, but they decided students where getting to much help from teachers with course work so went back to mainly exams. I think that's the fault of publishing exam results as schools are competing against each other to get the best results. When really the focuse should just be and giving the best education to the students you have regardless of there academic abilities.

my DS2 is just finishing Y10. He had end of year exams (not mocks), his 1 and only mocks will be after October half term.

4 does seem a little over the top, but there's no doubt that doing practice papers makes you better at doing the paper. I would do maximum three.

Of course work - it was an absolute con

Well the exams now are not mocks - they are end of Year 10 exams.

If it's like my DC's school the set in October or January will be the actual mocks (covering the whole range of subjects in exam conditions) and the other Year 11 exams will be core subjects or limited set of subjects or papers only. If they are literally sitting 20 exams in exam conditions for each set, I agree this is truly bonkers.

Is that private school? Tend to be less 'mock' heavy in my experience.

My DD is coming to the end of Year 9 and has just sat “mocks”

These are certainly mocks sitting in exam conditions; coming home right after each exam