Year 9 support Thread

General forum for Secondary Education

Moderators: Section Moderators, Forum Moderators

11 Plus Platform - Online Practice Makes Perfect - Try Now
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Year 9 support Thread

Post by mystery »

KS10 wrote:I have a DD in Year 11 and I work in a school. I could have got hold of the French Listening for example but what would have been the point? To give her a false impression of her ability? Plus she would have gone mental had I shown it to her. She gets annoyed with her English teacher who keeps telling the class what their practice essays under test conditions are about. I actually think it's a disadvantage to know in advance what is coming up if you're not going to know in the real thing.
Yes, I agree. They need practice in how the real exam will be. Needs to start lower down the school or ones that are prone to panic in exam situations will be worse off as they haven't had the practice of having the surprise questions thrown at them under exam conditions - or making question choices.
piggys
Posts: 1636
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2011 9:29 am

Re: Year 9 support Thread

Post by piggys »

berks_mum wrote:

English: I was worried English being third language would be her weak point. Teacher pleased with her work, consistently 7A or over. Don't know if she meant 7A of the new GCSE levels? She was talking about 'film review' piece of work and something about Steinberg's novel. No idea whatsoever it is. Any English teachers here ?
I think you mean Steinbeck. . She may well be studying this in year 9 but there is no American Literature on the GCSE syllabus anymore.

WRT looking at past papers to assist in GCSE study: I can only speak for my subject (which is English), and my advice is that past papers will not be much use for English language. The style, skill-set and nature of the unseen texts is such that old style papers really won't offer you anything. Literature is less different except that all the exams are closed text now.
ToadMum
Posts: 11944
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2012 12:41 pm
Location: Essex

Re: Year 9 support Thread

Post by ToadMum »

Spoonface Steinberg? A play, not a novel, though, and I have no idea whether it is used in schools.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Year 9 support Thread

Post by mystery »

sounds fun! My money is on Steinbeck Of Mice and Men though!
berks_mum
Posts: 939
Joined: Sat Dec 28, 2013 4:52 pm

Re: Year 9 support Thread

Post by berks_mum »

Sorry, I meant to ask DD about the novel but I completely forgot. she is not at home now. If this helps, I vaguely remember DD mentioning about some female character being strangled by some male character (mental illness/disability) and also the characters not having a hope to have their own land. IIRC she also said it was made into a movie.
ToadMum
Posts: 11944
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2012 12:41 pm
Location: Essex

Re: Year 9 support Thread

Post by ToadMum »

berks_mum wrote:Sorry, I meant to ask DD about the novel but I completely forgot. she is not at home now. If this helps, I vaguely remember DD mentioning about some female character being strangled by some male character (mental illness/disability) and also the characters not having a hope to have their own land. IIRC she also said it was made into a movie.
Definitely not Spoonface Steinberg, then. Not a storyline into which you could easily work a monologue by a seven year old autistic Jewish girl dying of cancer...
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.Groucho Marx
BlueSmarties
Posts: 93
Joined: Thu Nov 06, 2014 2:23 pm

Re: Year 9 support Thread

Post by BlueSmarties »

My DD is taking 3 languages, she's enjoying them mostly (some issues with the teaching).

Also I'm fairly certain it's Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men", we're still talking about it even more in the 10.

I've also PM'd you with a bit more info.
Tinkers
Posts: 7240
Joined: Mon May 16, 2011 2:05 pm
Location: Reading

Re: Year 9 support Thread

Post by Tinkers »

What I would say to both Bluesmarties and BM is that this year the year 11 French group seem to be really struggling to finish the syllabus in time for the gcse. My DD had a real rant about this just last night, even though she isn’t even doing French. She has a couple of friends who are. Keep an eye on just how far along they are and be prepared to maybe start working through at home. I think the girls have asked for extra lessons to be arranged to help cover what’s left.

What’s worse is that the French exams are some of the first gcse exams on the timetable, whereas german is, for DD at least, the last.
BlueSmarties
Posts: 93
Joined: Thu Nov 06, 2014 2:23 pm

Re: Year 9 support Thread

Post by BlueSmarties »

Tinkers wrote:What I would say to both Bluesmarties and BM is that this year the year 11 French group seem to be really struggling to finish the syllabus in time for the gcse. My DD had a real rant about this just last night, even though she isn’t even doing French. She has a couple of friends who are. Keep an eye on just how far along they are and be prepared to maybe start working through at home. I think the girls have asked for extra lessons to be arranged to help cover what’s left.

What’s worse is that the French exams are some of the first gcse exams on the timetable, whereas german is, for DD at least, the last.
Tinkers, we've already exchanged views with the school about our French teacher - I wonder if it's the same one? There are 2 French classes in our year, I've not heard of any difficulties from the other class (either parents or through DD's friends). Thanks for the nudge, I will be keeping an eye on this...
mystery
Posts: 8927
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:56 pm

Re: Year 9 support Thread

Post by mystery »

Sounds like a helpful tip for those concerned - and maybe applicable to others too as there seem to be people on the GCSE 2018 thread concerned about syllabuses not yet having been covered in some subjects in some places.

When do people think that the content of a gcse course should have been covered by and practice with real old questions etc commence? There's lots of different ways of striking the balance between content coverage and applying knowledge during a 2/3 year course.
Post Reply