It's funny, DD has gotten a D before and been happy about it. Cos its a PASS after all
She does know what she wants to do after VCE and that does make it easier for me (!) when it comes to the guidance part of it...
There will be a few different open days coming up, you might like to go together and see what takes her fancy?
It might be good for clarity and inspiration, but you are right - at only 16 its pretty hard to know what you want to do. She might think about doing several DIFFERENT things, but that's ok, it just means to keep her subject selection pretty broad for yr 11.
I'd try to keep her there, average marks aren't bad marks and it's a big scary world.
We have the deal that I will support my DD through Uni (staying at home etc), low board etc, if she wants to leave school the rent goes up and she doesn't get school holidays. Oooh that sounds like blackmail doesn't it
But it's not - just the way it will be in the real world....
Is a D a pass down there? It isn't here, poor QLD kids.
Hardly any kids know what they want to do when they have to choose their senior subjects.
School has to be a little bit fun so even if she wants to do engineering or the like, encourage her to choose at least one 'bludge' subject. By that I just mean something she really enjoys and will find a bit easier than advanced maths and physics. I teach maths and science but really hate it when students are told they 'have' to do all maths and science to get a good uni entrance score. It just isn't true, and makes yr 11 and 12 difficult and stressful.
Her marks now are basically no indication of how high an ENTER she will get - AT ALL.
The only guage you have is her work ethic and her class attendance - because ultimately it is her attitude not her previous marks, that will determine her committment to the studies she is about to undertake.
WRT to her marks in her VCE Biol - the way the ENTER score is calculated takes int account a specific number of unit marks - ie - to gain a VCE you need only to have16 (in my day) units (1 + 2 and 3 + 4) So if she has this extra subject in year 10, and still completes 6 subjects next year and 5 in year 12, she will have the pick from the BEST scores of all her units.
That's not very clear lol. Essentially, if she passes all her other subjects (attains an S) then the results from Biol may not be needed to make up the aggregate that is the ENTER score.
Sit down with her and assess which subjects she wants to do, pull oput the VCE course guide from VTAC and work out what uni course she is interested in , its pre-req's and ENTERS - remember - the higher the ENTER doesnt necessarily = better courses, arts subjects often have more emphasis on interview and portfolio to get into uni.
I think I should have worded my question a bit differently. I'm not overly concerned about her school performance nor about her lack of direction. She has many great qualities and while she could do much better at school than she currently is, I have some strategies for encouraging her and I think things will work themselves out in the end. She's the sort of kid who will find her way and TBH after getting here as someone who didn't attend school, had taken drugs and was being taken off for weekly drug and alcohol tests, whose boyfriend was a drug dealer and who was very close herself to being put in juvenile detention ... I think she's doing pretty well and keeping her safe and out of trouble matters much to me than her being a stellar student.
What I'm trying to say is that I'm used to grades A-E being given throughout high school. That makes it pretty easy to tell how you're child is tracking. These days they're only given a Satisfactory or Not Satisfactory until they do a VCE subject and then it's A-E.
So Satisfactory or Not Satisfactory doesn't allow me to gauge very well whether she's in the top bit of Satisfactory (As and Bs equivalent) or the average/below average (Ds and Es). My interpretation from having looked at her report and taking into account the only A-E score she got (ie. the D) is that she's doing averagely. That's really all I'm after - help interpreting her results so that we have a realistic view of how she's going. I mean, look, I know that she's not going to get into medicine/law etc. that's commonsense but, not having been through the Australian school system, I had no idea whether average VCE results would get her into uni. Nor am I hellbent on getting her into uni, if that makes sense, I just don't want her to be thinking for the next two years that she's going to uni if she's way off the grade. It's really about giving her a realistic view of how she's going so SHE can understand what's going to be required of her. I think looking up the average VCE score (53.9) has helped me get a handle on it - that would basically mean that she would struggle to get into a lot of Melbourne-based unis and TBH that might be the greatest motivator I could ever use. If she knows that she might have to look at going to a regional uni, I think we might see a significant extra effort being put in. She won't be keen to leave the bright lights of Melbourne!
How does everyone else work out how their non-VCE child is doing? How d'you tell from the report? Or d'you base it more on what the teachers say?
So far her report - which continually says she doesn't keep up with her homework .
Talking to the teachers is still a good idea if you can swing it. Thats how I learnt that DD German teacher actually WAS a total biartch...and her maths teacher was quite a kind and helpful man...
I reckon talking to the teachers is the way to go even if it takes a while to organise, as you'd hope they'd have a good idea.
From my understanding, A levels are significantly tougher than VCE exams.
Gee, I was annoyed when we stopped putting plus and minus on the report cards. How can the parents possibly know how well they are really doing if it is just S or U on the report?
Sounds like you will have to speak to the teachers if you want details on her progress. Make sure you call either before or just after school or during lunch breaks so you are most likely to catch them, otherwise ask when that specific teacher has their spare lessons and call then. In my experience, as long as you aren't calling to abuse them about something then most teachers are happy to talk to you.
Do you know if there is a year level coordinator? Sometimes parents can just contact them and they can get all the teachers to give them the info you are after and get it to you.
Reply With Quote
I teach maths and science but really hate it when students are told they 'have' to do all maths and science to get a good uni entrance score. It just isn't true, and makes yr 11 and 12 difficult and stressful.
Bookmarks