We have had the results for the last LAMDA exams:
Jacqueline – Grade 7 Acting – High Merit and Grade 7 Verse and Prose. These were the highest set of marks she has received. She was only 3 marks off a Distinction in one of the disciplines. This gives her quite a few more UCAS points.
Stephanie – Grade 7 – Musical Theatre- She did this exam with her boyfriend and both of them got a Merit. She also got a Distinction in her Grade 7 Mime.

Well done everyone!

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Jacqueline has  now completed the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) IGCSE exams with CIE.  These had 2 practical papers and a theory paper, so there was a lot to do. Results come out in January 2012, so we are keeping our fingers crossed for Jacqueline.

Jacqueline takes the rest of her subjects – Maths, Physics and Geography in Summer 2012. She may also take Environmental Management. We are not sure about that right now because one college course includes an Environmental Management  course as part of the Curriculum and one doesn’t , so it depends on where she decides to go at 16  and which course she takes, as to whether we take that one as an IGCSE in  Summer 2012.

She is now looking at her options for College, as we have to make her application in January 2012 for her to start in September 2012. She will have 6 or 7 IGCSEs to carry her forward. Stephanie got into College to do A-Levels with 7 x IGCSEs, so Jacqueline will have plenty to be able to do what she wants to do.

How the time has flown by. Stephanie is in her second year of A-Levels and Jacqueline is in the final few months of home education. It seems hardly 5 minutes since we started home education in April 2007.

We continue to be busy with LAMDA exams, with the next ones coming up shortly.

As well as all their other activities, both Stephanie and Jacqueline are now starting Boxacise classes.

Busy Times.

Amanda Goldston

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We were very pleased with the results of the exams in the summer.

Jacqueline got an A in English Language IGCSE and a B in English Literature IGCSE. This is taking them just as she has turned 15. We were particularly pleased with the English Literature because we have not done that subject before.

Stephanie did well in her AS exams. She got Maths (A), Psychology (A), Chemistry (B),  Biology (D) and Anthropology (C).

She was not particularly bothered about Anthropology as the course has not turned out to be as interesting as she had hoped and expected. With the Biology, she had a very poor teacher and spent a lot of the year making posters and playing games!

At the moment she us continuing with 3 A2 subjects in college and taking the fourth one at home, although we are working on getting that changed. After a conversation with the College, she is now taking all 4 subjects in College.

Greg got an A* in his GCSE Chemistry, which he did at night school. That has been a bug bear since he was at school at his school did not offer the facilities for pupils to take both Physics and Chemistry at O-Level, so he choose Physics at the time.

In the LAMDA exams, Jacqueline got another Grade 6 pass and now has 150 UCAS points. Stephanie got 2 x Merits in her Grade 7 LAMDA. In combination with her AS results, she now has 520 UCAS points.

Stephanie is now going into her second year of A-Levels, Jacqueline has another year at home and we will be taking a few more IGCSEs over the next 12 months and then she is off to College.

Well done everyone. We are all really pleased with the results.

We are now back into all the other activities – Brownies, Rainbows, Duke of Edinburgh Award, Rangers, Riding, Speech and Drama and Stephanie has started freestyle disco dancing, as well as going to the gym. Busy times ahead!

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Jacqueline now has one paper left on her English Literature exam, which is next week. We have then completed English Language, English Literature and Maths, with results due in August.

We will be working in the ICT and the History before her friends break up from school at the end of July. The ICT exams are in October. We will be starting Physics and Geography in September to take next Summer.

We have started looking at College courses for Jacqueline for September 2012. She is quite clear on the direction she wants to go in, which is really excellent.

Stephanie has got one exam left to complete her 5 AS subjects and her first year of College. She will be dropping one subject and carrying on with four subjects to A2 Level.

Both girls passed their last LAMDA exams in March and the time has come round so quickly, that we now have the next lot in a couple of weeks. They are both accumulating UCAS points.

Jacqueline has done her practice expedition for her Duke of Edinburgh Award. The real thing is in a couple of weeks and she will have then successfully completed her Bronze Award.

Summer is looking like it will be quite busy. Jacqueline already has an international guide camp booked, as well as two weeks at drama schools.

There are a couple of outdoor theatre productions by Heartbreak Productions that we will be going to in the next few weeks, with a large picnic in tow!

As ever, Goldston taxi service is going to be busy!

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Jacqueline has just completed her National Navigation Award, which is part of her Duke of Edingburgh Award. This is a recognised qualification and is also going to help her when we do her Geography IGCSE next year.

She had great fun on the weekend, although she complained about the cold. She phoned on the Saturday night to ask how she could get warm. It appears she was already wearing ALL of her clothes, including 4 hoodies, 3 pairs of socks, 3 pairs of trousers, her gloves woolley hat and coat! So we were a little stuck as to what to advise her. I think we will probably need to get a thicker sleeping bag before she goes on the practice weekend for her her Award.

The young people got very little sympathy from the leader, but, then again, he had brought his warm caravan for the weekend!

This is also something that she can use for her Young Leader and next Ranger qualifications.

Amanda

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We got the results for Stephanie’s Grade 6 Bronze Medal Musical Theatre LAMDA Exam that she did in December. She got 68% and got a Merit. That completes all of the Grade 6 Awards, so Stephanie has done all 7 disciplines for that Level.

Well done Stephanie!

The next exams will soon be upon us, as will Stephanie’s practical exams for Chemistry and Biology at AS Level in March and Jacqueline’s first IGCSE exams will not be far behind, at the beginning of May.

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We got the results from the last LAMDA exams.

Jacqueline got a High Pass in her Reading, Grade 6 (Bronze medal) and a Merit in her Acting, Grade 6, Bronze medal, so she now has her first lot of UCAS points. (55 points)

Stephanie got a High Pass in her Acting, Grade 7, Silver Medal and we are still awaiting the results of her Musical Theatre, Grade 7, Silver Medal. Stephanie now has 225 points and will have a few more when we have the other result. She will have also completed all 7 disciplines of the Grade 6, Bronze medal awards.

The next exams are in March, so we have a little while to go.

Well done girls! We are really proud of you both.

We are now into full swing of exams, Stephanie has the first part of her AS Level exams in January 2011, which contribute 30% towards her final marks, with Biology and Chemistry practicals in March, which contribute a further 20% and then the final exams in May/June.

We are now preparing Jacqueline for her first IGCSE exams in May/ June, which are English Language, English Literature and Maths.

We shall be going through lots of past papers. Fortunately there are plenty of mark schemes and examiners’ reports to go along with them, so we can see where she can pick up or lose marks in the exams. We did a lot of these papers previously with Stephanie, so we have a good idea what we are looking for.

Once we have finished these 3 subjects, we then start making preparatrions for the other subjects, which are ICT, Physics, Geography and Environmental Management. We will be taking these over the folowing sittings in November 2011 and May/June 2012.

Along with two Drama groups, Rangers, Duke of Edinburgh Award, Volunteering at Rainbows and Brownies and Horse Riding, Jacqueline has got a busy few weeks ahead of her.

As of 4th January 2011, we are back into the full swing of the “new term.”

Amanda Goldston

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We have been busy with English Language, English Literature and Drama over the last few weeks.

Both girls have taken their next LAMDA exams for Speech and Drama. Jacqueline has done her Grade 6 (Bronze medal level) for Acting and Verse and Prose and Stephanie has done her Grade 7 (Silver) Acting and is doing her Grade 6 (Bronze) Musical Theatre in a couple of weeks.

Stephanie will have then completed all 7 disciplines for Grade 6 and have a few more UCAS points.

Jacqueline obtained an additional award from LAMDA for completing the 3 main Communication sections.

There is a lot of cross-over with the CIE IGCSE English Language and English Literature exams that we are preparing Jacqueline to take next Summer.

She can take pieces from the Literature syllabus and use them in her Speech and Drama. She can also skills that she is developing in Speech and Drama and use them to help with both the Literature and the Language papers.

Last Summer, Stephanie did the Public Speaking exam for LAMDA and part of that is writing, and then delivering, an impromptu 3-4 minute speech, with only 15 minutes to prepare.  She must have written dozens of practice speeches to prepare.

This fits neatly into preparation for the CIE English Language Writing exam, where students need to write a 400 word essay on one of the three areas of Argumentative/Discursive, Narrative or Description. We found that 400 words of written English took approximately 3-4 minutes to deliver as a spoken piece, so it tied together perfectly.

We are great believers that one piece of effort should be able to serve multiple purposes!

Jacqueline is now busy with two drama groups. One group is putting on a production in a couple of weeks and the other works on techniques for both stage acting and film acting. The weekly Drama group is counting towards the Skills section on her Bronze Duke of Edinburgh award.

Last week we sent to see a production of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” which is one of the options for the English Literature. We will shortly be watching the BBC version of “Wuthering Heights,” which is another option on the Literature.

It is all progressing along very nicely.

Amanda Goldston

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Jacqueline received her Baden Powell Award at the Girl Guiding Centenary Party.

This is the highest award a girl can receive as a Girl Guide and it took a lot of work.

She has now moved up to Rangers and is working towards her Young Leader Certificate. Part of that involves Volunteering and Jacqueline now helps out at a local Brownie Unit and a local Rainbow unit.

That also counts towards the Volunteering section of her Duke of Edinburgh Award.

I am a great fan of expending effort once and being able to use that in multiple situations!

Well done Jacqueline!

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Stephanie has got into the swing of her A-Level studies at College and we have had the opportunity for some interesting comparisons.

We have always had high expectations for our girls and as such they have high expectations of themselves. Our view is that, if you are going to do something, do it to the best of your ability and achieve the best you can.

This view is not shared by the College. Within the first couple of weeks the Chemistry teacher had told all the students they were going to fail. All the others are Cs or below for everyone.

When Stephanie tried to put her own grade expectations into the computer system, it would not let her do it, so the Biology teacher entered it as a C – this was supposed to be Stephanie’s expectations of herself!

Stephanie already has a plan of where she is going and knows what she needs to achieve in order to get there. Her expectations of herself are considerably higher than Cs and Fails! She is a very self-motivated young lady and is putting in a considerable amount of effort at home.

It seems that this idea of teaching, so that students just scrape a pass is quite common. When I went to the CIE IGCSE English Literature day a few weeks ago, the presented explained where the grade boundaries fall and the likely differences where a student would get an A or A* or where it would be a C, D or lower.

For most of the teachers all they were interested in was the lower end boundary between a D and a C. In other words what was the minimum that needed to be done to pass?

My eyes were at the other end of the scale for Jacqueline!

From the personal growth and self help material that I have read over the years, one of the most important factors seems to be EXPECTATIONS. In a learning environment these are expectations that the teachers and parents have of the students and the expectations that the students have of themselves.

If the expectations are low, then the quality of the teaching is unfortunately going to reflect that. I would have thought that if a teacher is really passionate about their subject, that they would want to teach to the highest level that they could and help their students to get the best possible grades. Maybe that is the case, but the system of teaching to lowest expectations does not really allow for that.

Having said that, Stephanie’s anthropology teacher is teaching to the highest expectations and highest level she can. She is partly helped by the fact that this is a completely new  subject at A-Level. It has previously only been taught at degree level. As such there is no defined path, no set expectations and there is not even a course book. This year’s intake of students (and there are not very many in the whole country) are the guinea pigs and no-one really knows whart is likely to be set or how harshly or leniently the papers will be marked.

There is always the counter argument that, if you expect too much of people and they don’t match up to those expectations, then there is the possibility that they fail and might feel so bad about themselves that they never try again.

Shoot for the Moon! OK, you might not hit it, however you might get stars instead, but that is considerably further forward that staying on the ground and being afraid to try.

Just a word of warning to any home educators that are considering College for their children. It appears that an ICT qualification is now a “government requirement” in order to study A-Levels.

Half way through the first term, we have now been told that, on top of 5 A-Levels, Stephanie now has to take an hour a week to take a level 2 (GCSE) ICT qualification. This is not based on any assessment of her ICT skills. It is based solely on the fact that she does not have “the piece of paper.”

There was no mention of this anywhere on the College website and no mention of it in her  Offer. Had they been kind enough to tell us that it was  a requirement, then we could have arranged to take the IGCSE exam, either in the Summer or now in the November session.

Ho, hum! The joys of dealing with the State Education system!

Amanda Goldston

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