Do Mocks test real exams?

[Shiningbrightandhigh]

I have started doing practice maths papers with DC who is in year 11. They were quite surprised who long it was.

That got me worried that they have had mocks and have been working with a tutor and have not seen a real GCSE exam until I showed it. What are they doing?

Ask them? Ask the school? Ask the tutor?

It's how you get an answer.

Just want to hear other people experiences.

It is clear the school and tutor have not shown DC a real exam

Year 11 actual mocks are usually a past paper. If schools do one set of mocks it’s usually in January if they do two (eg nov and Feb) it’s usually the later one.

year 10 end of year exams need to be cut down papers because they have not studied all the content yet. Can’t ask questions on Macbeth if you have not yet studied it.

How mocks are done is down to individual schools - there is no uniform approach.
I'm surprised that a Y11 hasn't seen a whole paper though - they do realise there are normally several papers per subject too?

Yes obviously as @Octavia64 says, it depends.

My subject is MFL and no, at this stage of year 11 the mock would not cover all topics, as some would not have been studied yet.

So the year 10 mock is often a cutdown version covering only topics studied. For French GCSE we might not give a choice of essays in writing, or might just include one essay. Tbf I would try to make the year 10 exam close to the same length but it’s not easy.

For English lit obvs you can only examine texts studied. For maths I guess you would omit topics not covered yet which would make it shorter.

@Shiningbrightandhigh make sure you have the right board and tier. I know it sounds obvious but it’s easy to get wrong.

Makes sense. Thank you

I hope so. I will speak with DC about it to make sure. Not sure what information is school giving them.

I am realising I need to get more involved as DC has not realised the magnitude of it.

Tbh a decent teacher should be making it clear or have made it clear what the exams involve before this stage of year 11.

When I taught in school, I was clear from the start of KS4 what the papers were and how they made up the final mark (pre-2018 the controlled assessment counted for 60% for example). Not all students can take it in tho, it is a lot to absorb.

No worries @Shiningbrightandhigh tho, there's plenty of time. But I agree it might be worth taking a subject at a time and checking your DC's understanding of what will be involved next summer.

Do they take an MFL or any subjects with coursework – food tech or DT or art? because there will be an earlier deadline for CW and MFL has a speaking exam usually conducted in April.

DD (Year 10) is doing her mocks this week and next. They do old papers and she is aware of how long some will be (e.g. 2.5 hours)

Her school then get pupils to take two GCSEs at the end of Y10.

There's then a further round of mocks early in Y11, followed by the remainder of the actual GCSEs

The school have drummed it into them. We have had parents evenings about it from Y9 which always start with "Make no mistake, you have now started your GCSEs and will be taking GCSE examinations in Year 10 and 11"

I think the school and teachers should leave absolutely no doubt. IIRC DDs school have been doing practice GCSE papers since Y9. It may just be top set Maths that does this though.

Interesting. So even though they do a 3-year KS4, they cannot at this stage of year 10 have finished the content of any subject. To take Eng lit (perhaps the clearest) – I would imagine in one-and-a-bit years (esp if they have three years in total) they will have covered at most two texts, surely? So do they do a full past paper – surely not as they cannot possibly answer on ACC if they haven't studied it? Or do they maybe replicate the time by setting (say) two questions on Macbeth (rather like my dept setting a written paper that has the correct number of essays but focuses only on the first five topics covered)?

ETA which GCSEs do they take in year 10? I always think that's a bit risky if they are subjects that a student may wish to take at A level – won’t the linear knowledge dissipate during a year 11 full of other GCSEs? Esp if we are talking maths/MFL/science. Not such an issue maybe with history or Eng lit as they are more topic and text based.

I’ve repeatedly told my students how long the papers are, what lit texts are in them, and they have it printed on the front of their book.

they’re shocked every time they realise one is over 2h long.

Mine sat mocks under exam conditions in June of y10, Nov & Feb of yr11, every school is different but they were used to how it all works by the start of actual GCSEs.

So I assume their mocks must have been in October, so only a short way into Year 11 and won't be covering all the content on the paper. How long were the papers and were they done under exam conditions? There's a difference between not seeing an actual past paper and not having mocks that are similar to the standard/experience of actual exams. Does the school have a second set of mocks in Year 11?

There are also loads of exams. My dd did a normal amount of subjects and she did twenty six papers overall.

Last Mocks in June year 10. Next Mocks are in January

It doesn’t sound like their school has told them

So those were probably just end of Year exams. Not "mocks" in the sense that you are thinking. Their January ones will be "proper" mocks

Lots of kids don't listen no matter how many times things are gone over. It often takes until part way through Y11 for the penny to really drop if they're not self-motivated

Agree. Not sure how many 15/16 years old are matured/self motivated enough for GCSE. I am sure some are but many need lots of parental support.

My daughter's school all do English Literature GCSC in Year 10 as standard alongside Maths (Statistics) If you are in top set. The thinking is that by getting Eng Lit out of the way a year early, then it gets a very text heavy revision subject out of the way, leaving more time for the likes of triple science / french / history revision in Year 11.

They start to cover GCSE Eng Lit at the beginning of year 9 so have now already fully covered three full texts - A Christmas Carol, Macbeth and An Inspector Calls - plus 30 poems by this point - November - So one year and two months of study so far. They do have two compulsory late revision days each week - an additional hour a day twice a week in Yr 10 and 11 - and in Year 11 they also have free private tuition on Saturday mornings leading up to final exams. To be fair, the HT in this school is a bit of a visionary and the school have just been graded Exceptional in the new style OFSTED report. This isn't a posh private school and is not a stealth brag by the way. This school is in one of the most deprived areas of North East England, but I can see others will be following their lead (as has been strongly suggested in the OFSTED report)

This school also does a lot of vocational qualifications in Yr 10 and 11 for less academic students (Construcion and Beauty Therapy etc)

They called them Mocks; only went each day for exam and then home.

I think is completely mental 😅

Wow @RainbowZebraWarrior they have got through a lot of the English GCSE in just over a year. All of it in fact. Fair enough then, full mock exam possible for sure.

@Shiningbrightandhigh tbf 26 exams is a more than most will sit. For many DC it will be around 20 – four for English, three for maths, six for science = 13; then hist and geog have two or three (board dependent); CS/PE/business/RE (usually) have two; DT/drama/music have one. True, MFL has four, but if you took nine GCSEs with triple science, and your options were AQA history, DT and business, you would sit 18 written papers. Still a big undertaking by summer of year 11 but many DC take it in their stride – it’s surprising how much they mature this year.

Well, the school can call them what they want. By your own observation they weren't using something similar to actual GCSE papers; they will get those in their "proper" January mocks.