GCSE exam certificates and sixth form life

the exam certificates usually get mailed to you or you pick them up from school

I've just found this online, it was posted on 20/12/2020

Secondary schools will keep your GCSE certificates for 1 year after they have been issued. They are sent from exam boards to your school 2-3 months after GCSE results day in August, so will be received in November. If they are not collected within a year, schools will either send them back to the exam board or destroy them.

How am I supposed to know when my school have received them?

As a sixth former, I have no take on colleges but I can share a lot regarding Sixth Form -- granted the specifics will likely differ on a school by school basis, of course.

Sixth Form is a lot like school but with more privileges/lax rules compared to the rest of the school. It's split into two years, Year 12 and Year 13. If you take A-levels, this will typically be 3 or 4. Typically the 4th is Further Mathematics, some schools require you to start with 4 and drop one later on. I personally am an advocate for starting with 4, granted it wasn't compulsory for me.

While you're allowed to drop a subject at more or less any time in Year 12 (Year 13 is a lot more iffy because the subject may be down on your UCAS application and universities may have given offers regarding that subject or the like), you can also take up another subject if you feel like it. I personally took up an extra subject after a half-term, and I recommend doing it before holidays if you choose to take an additional one, as you can spend that holiday catching up so you don't fall further behind. There does reach a point where you won't be able to take another subject because you would be too far behind.

Timetables here work fortnightly, each subject you take being allocated a certain number of lessons fortnightly (9 periods/hours a fortnight per subject. There are 5 periods a day across a total of 10 days, so there are 50 periods in total). As we're also a school, we also have PSHE and PE/Games, PSHE taking up 2 periods a fortnight and PE/Games taking up 4. In year 13, Games is optional. So that's 6 periods from the 50 periods, leaving 44 periods left. Therefore a maximum of 4 "full" A-levels can be taken (9*4 = 36 periods). However, there's also Further Mathematics which takes 5 periods a fortnight, so you can take a maximum of 5 within school timetable (at least at my Sixth Form).

If you have 3 A-levels, you have 44-(9*3) = 17 periods remaining
4 A-levels (inc. Further Maths) give 12 periods remaining.
4 A-levels (excluding Further Maths) gives 8 periods remaining.
5 A-levels (inc. Further Maths) gives 3 periods remaining.

The remaining periods are a mixture of Study Periods and Free Periods. I personally have never had a study period as the lowest I've taken was 4 A-levels (exc. Further Maths), so I can only give second-hand information about those. As the year progressed, depending on performance, Frees were either replaced by Study periods, or were given in place of Study periods. Study periods are basically sitting in a room with others doing work (I believe you have computer and mobile phone access) which is partially supervised and registered. Free periods you can do what you want, for example going home, or staying in the common room/library or the like.

I think some Sixth Forms will allow you to come in whenever your first lesson starts (i.e. stay at home when you have frees), though this might only be a College thing. Here, you have to be in like you would if you weren't at a sixth form, and register (with a teacher) as normal. We also aren't allowed to leave school grounds before lunchtime, though it doesn't stop it from happening (typically when people have no lessons from period 3 onwards, they'll disregard the rules and leave). I haven't seen anyone get punished for this so far, though it's at threat of punishment (I believe removal of right to leave during frees). We also have to sign in/register (not with a teacher/staff) during pre-lunch free periods.

Homework is set like a normal school. It depends on your teachers. Personally I find that some teachers basically never give out homework and then start feeling bad about it, giving out homework for a few weeks and then digressing back to not doing so. Others hand out homework consistently (or inconsistently).

Lessons can get cancelled, which effectively gives you a free period, which is usually nice. It can get annoying if they get cancelled very frequently though, as it ends up wasting your time too -- I find it infinitely harder to do work in frees and as such have long since abandoned attempting to do work there. I do all my work either in lessons or at home, unless it's something I really need to do or really would like to get out of the way. Frees have a lot of distractions, personally.

In terms of assessments, you of course have the small class tests and whole year tests, which will have a role in informing your predicted grade should you do terrible in your Year 12 end of year exams/mocks/UCAS exams/AS exams. We don't do AS exams here. For subjects that typically large number of students participate in (e.g. Mathematics), the proportions of students that get specific grades in the school is relatively constant, so students can be ranked according to their exam grade, the proportion applied and a quick logic check of whether it makes sense for students to be given those grades based on their prior work (e.g. an A student suddenly getting a C), in which other evidence will be looked at. Typically predicted grades are slightly inflated. The highest grade in an AS exam is an A, the highest in a UCAS/mock exams (the exams are made by the school, not UCAS) depends on school and subject. We've had a lot with A* being the highest, while also others that have A like an AS. Predicted grades of course go up to an A*.

You sit A-levels at the end of Year 13. You apply for UCAS universities in October of Year 13 if early entry (e.g. Medicine/Dentistry, Oxbridge), and a couple months more if normal entry. School internal deadlines may be different.
Feel free to ask if you have any specific questions.

Hi, thanks for all the information. during my interview at the school with the sixth form before Christmas, I was told I had to stay on site for the study periods as it would cause an increase in price on my bus pass and I don't mind this, hence the reason why I stayed at school this year after exams to study in the study room as I knew I would have to get used to this, I walk to and from school but stayed all day until everyone else went home or sometimes when there was absolutely nothing else to do in regards to studying I would leave after my dinner. I was told I only have 10 lessons a week but 9 if you don't include pastoral and the rest of the periods being study periods, for these I can use my own laptop if I need to do computer work for the subject, but like you said it depends on the sixth form itself. I was told I only needed to do maths if I didn't get a grade 4 in GCSE. Do you have to do PE as the sixth form said to me I could choose what I want to study so I chose HSC Diploma and HSC BTEC Extended along with GCSE English Language? I also got told that I don't have to go to University which is great as I don't want to go. Is a lax rule just rules like a secondary school but less strict and treat the students more like adults?

Yes, study periods are (partially or fully, dependent on sixth form) supervised, so you need to be on site. I'm not sure if you're confusing this with Study Leave during exam period. You get study leave for GCSEs and A-levels, both during the exam period and should also have study leave beginning at least a week or more before the exam period begins. I believe it's ultimately up to the school how early they choose to start Study Leave. During Study Leave you don't need to be on school grounds or get registered at all. You only need to be present for your exams, and the onus is on you to be there at the correct stated time. You can leave after the exam. You could stay, the most common reasons for staying being either other exams or to talk about how the exam went with friends or peers.

You should never have to do maths at A-level. It seems you school forces people who are at least grade 5 GCSE maths to do A-level maths, from how your sentence read? I know people with grade 9 maths that don't take it for A-level, and I personally feel they shouldn't force you to take maths. Maybe clarify with the school -- maybe they meant resitting GCSE maths if you got grade 4 and wanted to go to their sixth form, or needing at least grade 5 if you want to do Maths A-level.

Some schools may be different, but here doing PE/Games for 2 hours a week is mandatory in Year 12 (but completely optional in Year 13). This is not an A-level. It's quite literally things like playing Rugby, Hockey, Badminton, Basketball, Football and other sports or fitness. You won't be assessed on anything.

I know nothing about the subjects you have chosen, so I can't help much regarding how many BTECs/Diplomas people choose and the like. Have you not already done GCSE English Language in year 11? I know Universities typically require somewhere between grade 4-6 (Uni and course dependent) for English Language to make sure you have adequate English ability to understand the course material, and I assume employers would also require some way to verify a decent level of literacy and speaking pre-interview.

Going to University is definitely not mandatory.

Yes, lax rules means less strict (or more relaxed) rules.

I was talking about study leave during exams - my school made us stay at school all day during the May exams but for the June GCSE exams we came in for revision sessions then went home at dinnertime then if anyone stayed (most of the time only I stayed) we studied independently but as the exams got closer to finishing we came in for 1-2 hours for exam revision then we went home at breaktime - I stayed in order to get used to independent study periods for sixth form. Yes I did do English Language as GCSE in year 11 but the course was on offer at sixth form as well as the HSC BTEC course which I also did in year 11 and so I took these courses as they were the main ones of interest, the BTEC Diploma HSC is just an extended BTEC course. No I didn't say I had to do A-Level maths, I was referring to your previous post about having to do 4 A-levels with the fourth being further maths, I only got asked to pick three courses to study and I only have to do maths if I didn't get a grade 4 in my GCSE maths.