How to Interpret your teenager’s Mock results
For Parents with teenagers in Year 10, 11, 12 or 13.
We are now well and truly into year 11 mock season.
And some students have started to receive their results.
So I wanted to write this newsletter to provide parents with some extra context,
So they can further appreciate what their teenager’s mocks really mean.
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It is a bit of a truism that school typically make mocks harder.
And on the whole,
This tends to be accurate.
But there is a lot more nuance to it,
Especially for the different year groups.
So whether you have a child in Year 13,
Or your teenager is in Year 7,
It will hopefully be useful to understand this nuance a bit more.
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Disclaimer: The following is generalised advice based on the accumulation of my professional experiences running ILS (
https://www.independentlearningstrategies.co.uk/
) . It is of course the case that some schools will not follow the typical patterns outlined below and therefore the advice should be taken with some caution.
Subjective Vs Objective Subjects
Mocks play a different role depending on what subject you are studying.
For ‘objective’ subjects like maths and science,
The mocks are usually are fairly decent indication of what grade your teenager will get if they sat their real exam now.
This is where the common sayings of:
“Schools make the mock exams particularly difficult,”
Or
“They included some content we haven’t even studied yet,”
Comes from.
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For Subjective subjects like English and History it is quite a different story.
Students are being assessed on their writing ability and therefore will very seldomly be tested on content that they have not studied yet.
The grade that a student gets in these mocks are usually a fairly accurate reflection of what grade they will get in their actual exams unless they make a change to the trajectory that they are on.
Students can absolutely improve over time,
And many do fairly naturally.
But you are unlikely to see the same level of improvement as you will in subjects like maths and science.
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I want to clearly outline the difference here as I think it can be easily missed.
Objective subjects reflect where you are at but it would be fair to assume that if a student stays on their same trajectory (or improves) their grade will also improve.
Subjective subjects typically reflect the skill a student has in the subject. This is more difficult to improve unless a student does more/different work to change their trajectory.
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The difference between mocks in each year group
The year 10 end of year exams are usually the first ‘proper’ exams a student will sit.
I would say across the board students tend to make the most progress in the space of a year between the year 10 exams and the GCSEs.
Furthermore, students rarely know how to revise effectively in Year 10 (or Year 11 for that matter!).
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In year 11 the mock exams are treated more seriously,
As they should be.
But being completely honest,
They are not as ‘important’ as some people make them out to be.
‘Predictions’ make little difference at GCSE level.
They are however crucial as a clear stepping stone to the GCSEs.
Which is why I always encourage my students to take them seriously,
Whilst keeping their eye on the prize – Which is the GCSEs.
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In comparison to the Mocks at GCSE level,
The Year 12 mocks are very important as they strongly inform the predictions a student will get,
Which then will significantly impact their offers after year 13.
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If the Year 13 mocks are prior to predictions being finalised they are very important.
After the predictions have been finalised,
The mocks service the same role as the Year 11 GCSE mocks – To assess where a student is at.
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I hope you all have a great week ahead,
Best wishes,
Joel