Well... I'm going into year 10, which is when it all starts getting serious about work and GCSEs

The subjects I've chosen are music, art, drama and geography. So wish me luck
Got to do the actual IT and RE shortcourses this year, a bit worrying


I've really got to knuckle down to schoolwork, do more art coursework, more music practice etc so I'm limiting my computer/free time mucking around a lot, and will try to only use the computer for school (I might nip in occasionally though )

So, cheerie bye, toodle-loo, pip pip. I'll miss it here

Any tips for the scary black hole of GCSEs I'm destined to head into?

Somehow I think you'll be back sooner than you might think. You're already got the forum addiction, and I'm sure you'll have more flutey questions.

Anyways, who's going to give us all the kitten updates if you run away.

Good luck, bobziekins! But don't forget that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

GCSEs are about getting the balance right between the two, so make sure you make some time for the things you want to do as well as those you must!

Aww! Seriously, don't make the mistake of JUST doing work! It's fab that you're really motivated to do well, but having free time and doing something (like this) just to chill out is more important than you might think - at the end of the day, taking 30 mins out to relax is going to be more beneficial than working yourself into the ground; you'll be knackered! (I know because it happened to me - I worked like a maniac, and got the results, but it probably wasn't healthy)

Don't cut yourself off from the things you enjoy doing or you'll be stressed out by Christmas.

My best tip - Do your coursework! Do it in plenty of time, do it the best you can the first time round and don't put it off to do later. (Does this sound like a bee in my bonnet? Do I have a son whose results next week will almost certainly be affected by a complete inability to recognise that the deadline isn't supposed to be the point at which you start doing the work? )

Apart from the few months in year 11 when there's a lot of coursework, it isn't too bad. Just do a bit of coursework when it's set and you won't be in a rush.

the worst bit of GCSE is revising. The last half-term before study leave can seem like a waste of time because you only revise but with the teachers.

That sounds like a decent combination. Music is awesome, 'nuff said. I could never have done Art, I was rubbish. But from what I've seen of my friends who did take it, the only drawback is that it is incredibly time consuming. On the bright side, the end result is very pretty! I didn't take Drama either, but one of my best friends did and it improved her self confidence so much (I seem to remember you 'Arrrrrrghhhh'-ing about your drama group). I think it also makes all the difference when it's with a bunch of students who are your own age, even if you don't know or get on with them particularly well. Last, but not least, Geography. I thought it was a hilarious subject; the only remotely challenging part being the written coursework that we had to do at the end of Year 10. There's a lot of colouring in, so get a good set of coloured pencils.

In case you were wondering, I took Separate Sciences, Music, Geography, and Engineering, with French, German, and Spanish as extra ones.



As Crotchetymum has pointed out, coursework is the bit that gets you all in a muddle.

If you have IT coursework, make sure you do it bit by bit and make the deadline with plenty of time. I made the mistake of not really doing any homework for IT and ended up spending hours and hours trying to get it all up to scratch. Let's just say that I missed all the Year 10 deadlines. I promised myself I would stay up to date and put in 100% in Year 11, but guess what happened again! I made up for it by being the first person in my class to hand in the Year 11 coursework, but that doesn't mean to say it was very good...

Good luck! And I'm sure you'll be back before you know it. I tried to stay away too... It failed miserably.

I was in the same boat as you, but last year (im not going into year 11)
Year 10 isn't that bad, and for some reason teachers seem to make a huge deal about coursework, saying that it will take you 7 years to write the title, etc. Its not as hard as people seem to imply, and if you just keep thinking that its not so bad, you will cope. I'll get shot down for saying this, but some people do work well leaving things 'til the last minute, but i wouldn't advise doing coursework the weekend before its due in if it doesn't work. For some reason I can work reasonably well doing something at the last minute, but can't bring myself to do it the night its set, unless im either bored, or really enjoy the subject.
Also, when it comes to mock exams which you will probably have toward the end of year 10, don't get too stressed about them - They're not real - and they are another thing that teachers make a big deal about, the only thing I can advise for those, is to spend maybe a week revising in your spare time, to get to grips with how to revise best, sitting infront of a textbook reading usually doesn't help. I've found for history, and other lengthy subjects ie, RE, the best thing is where we've written tables and bullet points etc, is to open a word document, and reduce the information down to its bare miniumum, that way you have to actually process what you are reading, and then you have it in much shorter chunks, which makes it easier still to memorise. For sciences, especially biology, I made loads of spider charts/brain storms, again reducing it to the bare minimum, of facts for a similar effect to above.
Thats about all the advice I can offer at the moment, except if you are doing OCR GCSE Gateway Science, then don't forget to revise around christmas too, as there is an exam then.

Thanks for the replies everyone! Although I'll try not to come on here, I'm treating Sunday as my "day off" and will probably retreat to the forum for an hour.

And don't worry, it won't be all work and no play, I'll be playing the flute and the piano a lot! I'm trying to have 'constructive' free time, so I do revision/homework, then play the flute/piano/do artwork/read (helps english hehe ) to relax.

Speaking of IT coursework, I've still got 4 hours worth of work to finish
I might do that today actually...

How old are you in year 10? 15?

Don't take this the wrong way, but please lighten up a little! I learned the hard way that really, GCSEs aren't the be all and end all - it's the ones after that count. And if you wear yourself to the ground for these 2 years, you'll not do so well for the last 2. (I did Standard Grades, at 13/14, but the principal is the same)

Anyway, I admire your determination, and yes - do as well as you can, but it's not worth getting awfully stressed about. As long as you get the grades you need to do AS and get Maths and English under your belt, no-one is ever going to really care what overall grades you got. I know it's probably a matter of trying to prove it to yourself - and that's fine, but please be careful.

I agree with the sentiments above, after you've been to college/uni, employers usually don't give a stuff about GCSEs, they are usually just handy as a stepping stone on to the A-Levels/Uni or college course that you want to do.

I somehow discovered alcohol and partying when I was doing my GCSEs and still managed 4 Bs, 3 Cs and 2 Ds. Apart from me having to do an extra year at college before going on to study electrical/electronic engineering (one of the Ds was in maths because my teacher was off ill for a year), it didn't hold me back at all

I have got 7 C and B GCSEs. Not very good, however I now have A levels so the GCSEs are consigned to the bin.

Some people leave school with just 5 GCSEs and make fortunes for themselves fairly quickly!

Also I found at GCSE level there was tonnes of spare time to have fun.I often had less than 1 hours work to do a day outside of school hours.

Yup, 15. I'll be 15 in December

I won't get too stressed, don't worry. If I do go a bit over the top, my parents will probably confiscate my planner and monitor my homework hours they aren't exactly the normal parental type, and I'm nagging at mum to tell me off if I don't get to bed on time.

The thing is though... we have these targets at school, which aren't that accurate, but all the teachers go on and on about. There are two- one we're expected to get at least, and one we can get if we work super duper hard. My first targets are all As and A*s and my seconds are all A*s. At parents evening the teachers seemed to be confident I'd get that in THEIR subject. I'm not sure I would be able to get all A*s, but it would be great to get it in English, maths, art, music, drama, geography and the sciences (French, IT and RE I'm not too sure about haha).
So yeah, I'm probably getting my hopes too high, but it would be great if I could get all As and A*s, and I'm aiming high....

I always set my targets low to avoid disappointment

I set my targets unachievably high. So now, I still feel like a failure despite having a collection of qualificatons that apparently people would kill for. Ho hum.

Low targets mean that my life has been peppered with nice little bonuses when I've done well Saying that, the only thing I've ever managed to fail in my entire life was my 1st driving test, so I can't be doing too bad.

My driving test is possibly my proudest achievement to date - 16 lessons, one test, 2 minors.

I hope this doesn't sound rude, Violin Hero, but that is most unlikely to be the case for someone in a top set doing 12 GCSEs, which is a fairly common scenario these days.

GCSEs are incredibly time consuming without imparting a great deal of knowledge. They're hoops you have to jump through to get to A-levels, but at the moment there's still a big leap from GCSE standard to AS. Every year I see 6th form students who think they are good at Physics because they have A*A* in Double Science GCSE, but who sink to a C or a D at AS and get into the whole resit business, which is a complete nightmare.

My tip, bobziekins, is to concentrate your efforts on the subjects which (a) you want to do for A-level (b) are necessary (Maths and English). Other than that, I'd do the bare minimum to satisfy the teacher. Except for the coursework - put a lot into that, because it's "money for old rope"; you know exactly what to do to get the marks, so it's much easier to score highly on it than it is on the exams, and if you do it early the teacher has enough time to get your mark towards 100% (they are allowed to give loads of guidance on coursework, and will do so if you get your draft in early enough).

The only thing is, I don't know what I want to do for A level. I have absolutely no idea really, except that it won't be RE, IT or French (and probably not maths, but you never know with me). I enjoy every subject except those

But thanks for the tips on the coursework. I think it's good that the mark isn't based entirely on one day of your life (apart from maths) I think I'm going to have to become an annoying asky questionsy nerd next year in the realms of coursework, to make sure I get it exactly right

I found I did way less work for GCSEs than A levels, unless revising for mocks/the actual exams themselves, I probably did an hour a day, just homework and coursework. That was for 9 GCSEs

The amount of time you have to study for A levels is a lot more! But then you have to make up for the fact that you get less contact time. I was forced into taking much more responsibility for my education when I started my A levels! My 'do the minimum' routine was OK for GCSEs but not A levels...

I'm not sure I would worry that much about GCSEs, provided you get the grades that allow you to take your chosen A levels that is enough. ONce you get A levels they won't matter all that much, and applications for Uni focus on A levels anyway. The main thing is to work consistenly and if you revise well for the mocks, you have a load of revision in the bag when it comes to revising for the finals.

I don't even buy into GCSEs predicting anything either... I did intermediate maths for GCSE and got a B (which is middling at best) but then I got an A for A level maths and am now doing a PhD in maths... I know loads of people who did fantastically at GCSE and appeared amazingly clever but were average at best at college as they drifted off and couldn't organize themselves.

Picking A levels is tricky unless you know what you want to do (which I didn't!) so I just stuck to maths, chemistry, biology (as I liked science) and psychology (I dropped that in favour of busines studies though). I didn't see the point in stopping half way so I did them all to A level.
I found maths got a lot harder but I was very lucky to be accepted with intermediate gcse so I was *way* behind and virtually had to teach myslef higher GCSE maths at the start of college... Chemistry I struggled with but it didn't seem to matter how much work I did I didn't seem to understand any more...

*edit*
The mark for maths may be a lot due to on the day but it's one of the few subject that you know what the questions will be (just the numbers change), you can know how you will do before you walk in. Unlike history/english where you may be asked to write an essay which could have any title...

I sort of understand where people are coming from when they say don't worry too much about GCSEs, but then Bobziekins reminds me of myself - everything has to be done to the highest standard possible. I did 12 GCSES (all A*) and I have to say that I think I went totally overboard with the workload. I'm pleased that I did the work though, obviously - so I think it's a question of balancing the long-term gain against the fact that for the next couple of years of your life you are going to have to put work in and might not be able to have as much free time. Please note that I didn't say not having any free time though!! Of course, the amount of work you put in is relfected in your grades, so you basically get back what you put in.

I'm also going into year 10 next year (I picked music, art, german and history), and I think we're supposed to get between an hour and an hour and a half of homework from each subject a week! (About 12 GCSEs I think) Saying this though, last year we were supposed to get something like 8 hours a week and I only got about 30 minutes a night! I'm going to keep coming on the forum in my spare time, music is something I'm considering for a career so it's almost part of my GSCE coming on here for advice!

Don't be put off by people now doing AS, A-levels and degrees that GCSEs are tiddlers. Not to you they aren't, not now (but like everyone else you'll look back and think they were). They're the biggest spread of subjects you'll ever take. So good luck.

Planning is key. If you aren't organized by nature, try hard to be. Make or buy a wallchart and mark all the deadlines (interim as well as final) on them. Work back from there. The advice above about getting coursework as good as you can in the first draft is terrific. It can take longer to revise/finalize than do the draft, so don't underestimate time. You've got a lot of practical subjects there - terrific subjects, you'll gain so much - please (!) try and finalize pages of the portfolios as you go along - but forgive yourself if you're up all night the night before the deadline. It'll be all those last bits and pieces that should only take a minute or two you told yourself... ...

Be kind to yourself. Make sure you know what you need to do to get marks both for exams and coursework -but remember the phrase 'good enough'.

That's a v. good point!

Although I'd like to be able to say I'm considering it as a career, I've got to be realistic and see that I'm probs not good enough, so I'm going to keep it as a hobby . I mean, you're the same age as me and you're already grade 8 on one instrument and grade 7 on the other and there are a lot of people better than me at school, so I haven't really got a chance.

So I'll spend an hour a week or so 'studying' on here for my GCSE

Sadly, I know that feeling too. Bah!

But for GCSEs (in fact, all studies), make sure you have time off- having a "day off" works quite well. Some weeks though, you may have to do some work on Sunday (but obviously not a full day). Flexibility is the key.

Good advice here imo, I'll be taking that all on board (I especially like the part how you understand that at the moment for me, GCSEs are a big deal )

Yup, they're all good practical subjects. I find it so funny when my friends are revising for a German test, or moaning about a History essay while I sit there drawing. I don't find it so funny when their tests are over, and I'm still not happy with the drawing, after 5 hours of working on it.

And the bit about the phrase 'good enough' is VERY good advice for me. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and often used to write out essays over and over, because my handwriting wasn't neat enough in the first one don't worry, I'm going to try to bin those habits.

Rather frustratingly, I started losing my motivation just as it started to matter. Admittedly, A-levels are of more importance I suppose, but it is important to try and sustain a positive attitude!

I don't think there's anything left for me to say now... Good luck!

Just one more thing: when people say "you'll be fine" it's easy to view this as them being dismissive of the fact that actually you're really struggling with something or have tons of work to do - but actually these people are often the ones that are right. At the moment your GCSEs look like this impossible mountain for you to climb, but just think of how many thousands of people take them every year - and they all come out the other end intact Your teachers at school will help you to focus and get work done and there's never any shame in saying that something is difficult or that you're having trouble coping with the workload - that's something I had to learn. Neither of my parents went to school in England, so when I started doing GCSEs it was a brand new thing for all of us and seemed really scary but it was actually ok, and I had the best summer ever last year after the final year 11 exams are over!