Schools & Exams

[ck1]

What should year 11 kids do for the next 6 months? There are no pending exams and the rest of their school life would be focussed on revision as opposed to learning. How could they make better use of the time instead of sitting through endless lessons on zoom, and should doing something other than school lessons be encouraged?

[woofgang]

golly a whole six months for revision? As I recall we did revison for the last month and were doing new learning for the other 5!

[ck1]

This may be specific to my kids' school. They started the GCSE work in year 9 so year 11, after Christmas, is mostly revision.

[bobbinwales]

The grades will likely be based on teacher assessed grades so work could still be set for them but it may all feel like everyones like going through the motions.
It would be good if they could be given something to do like work experiance or voluntry work but thats not practical

[schoolster]

As Bob has said, grades will likely be given by teachers again, so students still need to apply themselves the best they can.

You've also got to remember, that a few months out of the classroom will be detrimental to Year 12 studies. We've noticed this from what happened last year. The GCSE students effectively had 6 months of no studying and Sixth Form teachers said it was very noticeable even with the very able. This is even though we put in huge measures with transition work to try to bridge the gap between GCSE and A levels.

But I know, it must be very difficult to get these students motivated.

We've also got Year 13 to worry about as well, and some won't have put their university applications in yet. I feel a few nightmares looming.

[roopower]

I feel sorry for the youngsters as their plans are changing and they are geared up, virtually from starting school, that exams are the be all and end all of a successful life and they have to be taken then, then and then. OK, that's the way it has been run for years now but I'm fed up with some people saying the pupils lives will be ruined because things aren't going to the eternal plan. Their lives and education may be set back for a while but when they are able they can get back on track and if they have to take longer to get where they want to be, so be it. Maybe they can get some experience of life and work. It's not like it used to be in the 'good old days' when we decided what we wanted to do, trained and did it. Nowadays you can carry on, or start education at any age or change direction. My daughter has started to train as a teacher in her thirties.