Y10 mocks

[LolaLolaP]

DD just got her mock results back.
Are these results likely to be an indication of actual GCSE results?

She's just done her mocks and got:
Maths 5, English (both) 5, science (combined) 4, Geography 4, Spanish 6, Psychology 6.

If I'm honest she probably didn't do effective revision but we are looking at maybe a tutor for Maths and English for year 11 and maybe medley and trying to encourage regular revision throughout the year. How often do students grades improve from year 10 mocks?

It depends on what those results mean.

At my school we would use the mock result to predict a GCSE grade for Y11, we wouldn't give a grade to the mock itself. This prediction is obviously going to be affected by how the pupil works in Y11, but should give you a ballpark estimate.

Some schools give a grade to the mock - i.e. 'currently working at a grade 5' in which case you would expect to see an improvement of a grade or two over the next year.

Either way, there is always room to improve - a prediction is not a promise.
There's also potential to go down grades if effort is not applied!

Agree with @noblegiraffe as so often.

We cannot really say what the mocks mean. It is likely be that the school has set a GCSE-style exam using the elements covered so far (so two books in Eng lit, half the topics in Spanish) and then marked it with GCSE grade boundaries.

It's tricky tho as there is much work still to do. My subject is MFL and at this stage it is not easy to set a mock that gives a truly reliable indication. I would certainly expect an MFL grade that was assessed in year 10 as I describe to improve – simply bc during the next 10 months more grammar will be secure, more vocab will be learned, more structures will be known and used in written and spoken exams. But of course this will only happen with continued effort. And it might not be as simple in more topic-based subjects – your ability to analyse Eng lit will not necessarily improve when you study further texts (though it should).

Those are solid strong grades and if she improves a grade or two she could be looking at 77666555 or even more. A tutor should help tho is not essential; what will (definitely) help is targeted and careful revision in a way that works for her. Search GCSE revision on this board for lots of ideas.

We set two thirds of a paper - so it's impossible to grade accurately and fairly useless to predict from.

The important thing is not the mark but the feedback.

I'm not too sure. She just told me that the teachers marked their mocks and said what the grade was. I'm guessing maybe whatever mark she got was converted to what it would be if it was the actual GCSE (they were past papers that they did)
Thanks will look up revision. I think she definitely needs more help with revision and regular revision.

You say they did past papers – but they cannot have done a full past paper as @MrsHamlet notes. They won't have finished English texts, they won't have completed all topics in science, as I said there will be a good deal of work not covered in Spanish. At best it can only be a fraction of the past paper. Can she get the papers or have sight of them (and take a picture) so she can see where she needs to improve? Just blank grades is not super helpful.

I've asked her to bring them home if she is allowed so we can see where/what she needs help/assistance with/more practice questions on.
English I think wasn't a past paper.
Maths & Geography were definite past papers because she said it said the month and year on it. I'll double check what she said for the others.

In the sciences it could easily have been a full paper 1, I’d be quite worried by any school who wasn’t at a point to set one tbh. So all 3 sciences might be reasonably accurate in terms of current grade ( half last years grade boundaries type of thing) but grades can improve massively between now and next summer with steady consistent work, though as noble says, they can also drop.

Some subjects can do (close to) a full past paper.

maths and sciences usually.
other subjects less so.

if those grades are what she got now then it is usual to improve through year 11.

if it’s what they think she’ll get at gcse based on the mocks that improvement is built in.

in maths it’s normal to send home question analysis which is basically a list of topics she got right (green) needs to work on (amber) got totally wrong (red).

the usual advice is revise the amber topics then move onto the red.

a maths tutor will most likely want to see a copy of her paper - school are usually happy to either scan it or let her take photos

Fair enough re the sciences – I guess a school could have covered all the topics in one paper. History too I suppose. Same with Eng lit I guess, might have done Macbeth and ACC so could do AQA paper 1. Tho the poetry can throw a curveball.

Certainly you can't do that in MFL – the paper for each skill will expect understanding of all topics so we used to miss some elements out – not ideal but otherwise you have no choice of written tasks or two on the same topic.

The combined science grade didn't make sense. You got 2 GCSE when you take combined science so you would get for example 4-5 or 6-7. You wouldn't get a 4.

Just wanted to reassure you — Year 10 mocks are honestly not a great predictor. I went into Year 11 predicted a U in Maths, a 3 in English Lit, and 4s in Physics and Biology, and ended up with an 8 in Maths, 8 in English Lit, 8 in Biology and a 9 in Physics. The gap between Year 10 and the actual exams is huge if the revision habits change, and summer is honestly the best window to build that momentum before Year 11 gets busy.

For what it's worth, I do tutor GCSE Maths remotely (I'm an A-level student, so I'm not far removed from having done GCSEs myself and know exactly where the mark-losing traps are) — happy to share more if that'd be useful, no pressure either way!

Will she not get a report with predicted grades? Our school don’t release mock results to us, we get them in dribs and drabs through my son, what matters is the report with the target and predicted grades.

My son got a real mixed bag of results, but his predicted grades have remained much the same as the start of the year, it’s given us a steer as to how much work he needs to be doing when he’s back, and highlighted a topic he needs a tutor in.

I would say yes grades can definitely go up. reasons for grades going up could be
1)revising more or more effectively
2)better exam technique
3) knowledge of prior topics improves/ based on new topics
4) focus/dedication/commitment improves from student as exams became real
5)maturity

6)getting a tutor

you have lots of options to help with revision, YouTube, websites, and more old school books and revision cards from cgp,Collins etc. (p.s if you want to buy any stuff second hand now is a good time as the former year 11s are now selling them off on contend and eBay)

@robinoz if you were actually predicted (predicted, not gained in a mock you didn't bother doing any work for) a U in maths at the start of year 11 and ended up getting an 8, someone at your school was really off the ball (putting it kindly).

Genuinely IME as a teacher and parent, if a YP is predicted grades like U/3/4 then they will not as a rule end up with 8s and 9s.

I think personal experiences are helpful and can cast light, but to extrapolate from what happened to you to “Year 10 mocks are honestly not a great predictor” is not really fair to the OP and their DC.

Year 10 mocks (and the input from the teacher as to the student's likely grade) are a pretty good predictor. The vast majority DC for whom I have predicted grades have gained that grade or close to that grade. Yes, grades can go up with targeted revision and hopefully that will happen for @LolaLolaP's DD.

My dd improved massively from year 10 mocks to final
exams. We had an English tutor (she is dyslexic) and she went steadily up in grades from a 3 in English language to a 9 (so it can happen!) and a 4 in lit to an 8. Sciences went from all 6 to 998. She worked very hard though, so attitude and focus is necessary if you are bright but not someone for whom academics come naturally. Her teachers did
say they had never seen anyone improve so much.

For sciences, get the CGP guides and workbooks and work through them, along with past papers - we did some of this together, but I realise science is not everyone's bag!

That’s amazing @Mafaldaweasley and well done to your DD; she must have worked really hard.

My DD just did her year 10 mocks and they were told they will go up by 2-3 grades by year 11. The school wasn’t giving out 9s as they said they shouldn’t be getting 9s at this stage. If that’s what your DDs school was doing then she did very well!

We do whole paper mocks for GCSE Language in May/June of year 10 and on average, I anticipate students to go up by 1.5 grades between these mocks and actual exams. Sometimes 2 grades. That is if they carry on learning and revising at the expected rate for them. If not, it can go down quite easily. I've occasionally had students get a 7 in a mock, decide that's definitely going to be their grade (despite me talking to them and their parents and advising them robustly that they still have to work) and they walk away with a 5 after months of coasting and refusing to push themselves.

GCSE Lit is harder as we haven't finished the texts but we try and give an extrapolated score and we also set a target based on what we think they will achieve.

As PP have said, the feedback is what's important. I give whole class feedback, do some targeted re-teaching or consolidation and also provide individual feedback. We then do more mocks/mini-mocks in class and track progress, as well as the big mocks in November of year 11. It really is an ongoing process.

Was feedback provided in their end of year reports?

You might want to search a UK directory of independent tutors - so that you don't pay inflated prices because you are paying the websites commission/service fees - its all mostly the same professional tutors anyway, not a subscription model so browsing and messaging are free for everyone, and actually validates DBS checks and qualifications rather than being 'self declared' like some platforms.

Teacher here - mock results are generally realistic - the schools and teachers are measured against how accurate predicted grades are so they don't want to be wrong so a lot of work goes into their validity. But that is without intervention. A quality tutor can raise 2-3 grades in a year if you know what you are looking for. DM me if you need any advice from both a teacher and a tutor perspective as I am both!

@robinoz is that really true? Or just a poor attempt to drum up business, because if you were predicted a U for maths then it would have extraordinary if you weren’t in a FT set, where the max possible grade is a 5

We're getting DS' back tomorrow - we're keeping expectations realistic. He couldn't write anything in English Language or Lit, which has been a consistent issue. We've got a tutor for English recently and he has challenges with writing because of his ADHD. He did managed to write something in History, but will probably be a pass mark at best. Maths he also wobbled in the exams, so maybe he'll get a pass, I don't know. Should get 4s, maybe 5s in other subjects... he's good in class but still doesn't know how to revise consistently and we're still not sure how best to help him.

For most kids I'd expect it to be a mark or 2 down from the real thing... DS its harder to tell because he doesn't just steadily improve, his outcomes just tend to go up and down randomly, except for science which holds fairly steady.

@Echobelly I hope things go ok, does he have any provisions for exams? My youngest is ADHD and currently year 7, I just can’t imagine him going through this…he’s a bright boy but doesn’t test well (my eldest is y10, to explain why I’m here!)

Yes, he has access arrangements and it does help - he used his extra time to write a bit more in history for example.

Getting nervous... keeping expectations realistic but will be very worrying if the results are lower than that.

A lot of time they are not allowed to bring those papers home but your DD can ask if she can take photos with her phone of each page. They should have gone through them in class too and added notes, mine had a different pen colour for this so they could see their original answer and how to improve it and get more marks.

The paper is a great tool to see what she is getting right and where she needs to improve. Revision guides are incredibly helpful, luckily my child's school used them in class alongside their work especially helpful in English Literature with the poems and their analysis.

She has 6 weeks over summer to work on her grades. As a parent you can look at past papers, especially English Language and English Literature where the mark scheme lists out examples of what they are looking for. I found this incredibly helpful, plus understanding what gets marks so look at that mark scheme and the Assessment Objectives. She will already have been taught about these but she needs to hit all of them for higher marks.

Youtube is great for teachers sharing their knowledge, just make sure they are the same exam boards your DD is sitting. All subjects are covered. Grades can be increased, knowledge gained, exam techniques mastered. She has time and just needs to put some effort in.

Our school has been OK with sending papers back. It would be good to see the maths ones as DS isn't very good at describing what he finds difficult, so I will be emailing school to ask for them.