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gcses worth the stress?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Ok so as most of you know, im in year 11, during the most stressful year in my life so far. Today i got a peice of roughly marked history coursework back and just scraped a C, (my target grade is a 
it was a real arse of a question and i missed alot of the lessons on it (councelling). I spent loads of time on it and ended up getting really frustrated over it at one point, but in the end i thought it would be at least a decent C. Whereas one of my friends didn't pay attention much, did it all the night before it had to be in 3 weeks after the original deadline and got an A. So i've been thinking, is all the time and effort we have to put into these gcses REALLY worth it for what they are?
it was a real arse of a question and i missed alot of the lessons on it (councelling). I spent loads of time on it and ended up getting really frustrated over it at one point, but in the end i thought it would be at least a decent C. Whereas one of my friends didn't pay attention much, did it all the night before it had to be in 3 weeks after the original deadline and got an A. So i've been thinking, is all the time and effort we have to put into these gcses REALLY worth it for what they are? Post edited by JustV on
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I recently heard a news report stating that many school leavers can't even perform simple tasks such as filing and that is pretty basic, I think teaching work based skills would be a good thing at school! But I know how you feel and the best thing I can tell you is you have nothing to worry about, just try to concentrate on what you have learnt and your refresher lessons.
It is not unreasonable to expect a lower grade on a subject that you have not attended so frequently, your friend clearly has a flare for the subject, i'm sure you must find some subjects come naturally to you as well. As time goes by your GCSEs will become less and less important, they are simply a stepping stone to take you to the next place in your life. If you want to go to college you usually need five C's or above, so as long as you get them you can move to the next stage in your life!
But don't stress about them, that won't help you in the slightest!
Seriously ballerina, GCSE's are nowhere near as serious as they're made out and those predicted grades thingys are balls...just do what's needed and thats all...now A-levels and uni, different thing altogether.
just teachers make it seem if you dont do well in your gcses then you're going to fail in life and become a gypsy or something
Don't know the specifics of the English system but i would imagine you'd need good GCSE results to do A-levels and then get to uni.
some 'worthfull' pupils (100 of them) were picked to go to this open day about different unis and stuff but i didn't get invited to go so i dunno
i know its all about the C's in english, maths and science though
I would imagine to sit an A-level you'd need a certain grade at GCSE for that subject - like an A or B.
I went to college - it didn't work out.
I got a place at uni - it didn't work out either, I had family problems to deal with.
You never know what's going to happen - and even in my job which is nothing particularly special, they demand at least C's in both Maths and English - they don't give a fuck about A-levels and degrees.
If I were you, I'd try as hard as you can. Even if they don't mean anything in the future, they are a good background in case things don't go the way you're planning.
When you start A level however, the workload and work ethic is so different you may struggle if you're not good at kicking yourself up the arse. I did. To put it in perspective - I was the 'night before guy who gets As' and I got Ds in my first A level exam, whereas my friend who was the 'study study study and still don't do so well' got As! I think a large part of it is that you're playing to your strengths more at a level.
But anyway, are GCSEs important? A little bit, maybe.
I also got some cheap GCSE type CD Roms.
Anyway, I hope it helps... I was undiagnosed with learning difficulties at the time and ended up with 4 A's, 1 B and 4 C's because of self-teaching. It is possible.
Surely you don't know unless you try?
Yes, you do need to have a certain grade to do that subject at A-Level.
Ballerina - can't you get someone else to teach you? During my GCSEs (an at A-Level now) a friend of mine will teach me some maths stuff, if I ask him to...
and if you don't do so well, you can re-take. hundreds of people do.
Plus there's the thing where they make the mock exams really hard to scare you into working really hard for the real things which aren't nearly as bad.
yeh that's exactly it..it'll be something else next!
Without the basics, having a decent career is difficult. Employers need to know that you're capable. They want to know that you can read, write, speak english and can do basic maths. Without GCSE's, you have no proof of your skills.
My sister, has no formal qualifications whatsoever, because she was forced to leave school just before GCSE's (she was bullied) and it's been so hard for her, just to get a job with a semi decent salary.
At the age of 23 she's still only on £5 something an hour, and probably will be for the rest of her working life. Purely because she missed out on so much of her education.
Ilora x
As kaff says, they're only important if you don't have them. So you need to make sure you do.
5 A*-C grades will give you a college place to do A'Levels.Your GCSE grades are sometimes taken into account by university admissions tutors, but not always. They are definitely worth working for, but not worth having a nervous breakdown over.
Your teachers will tell you they're the most important thing ever, because for the teachers they are. If everyone fails the GCSEs then the teachers don't get paid as much, and the schools gets taken under OfSTED control.
For the record, I had piss-poor GCSE results (a shedload of Bs) but got the best A'Levels in my school. They're something you need to make sure you get, but once you have them, they are an irrelevance.
That's hardly piss poor. I got 7 B's and 2 C's and I was pretty proud of myself, even though I know I could have done better.
Really? So how come I managed to et into 6th form with 1C, 2E's and several D's? (Actually, I think that the Head Of 6th Form would've taken a few things into account with me, here...)
wtf? no offence but that should no have been allowed. you're repeating your english/maths and science GCSE's again I take it?
My school had a 2 B's 3 C's minimum for you to be allowed back.
I'm only doing English (I managed to a C in maths) was going to do Science, but it clashed with another subject and I didn't fancy being at school on a Friday until 5 past 4 to do Science...
I did just about get into 6th form, BUT I've been told by the Head of 6th Form that she's going to keep an eye on me for 2 of the 3 subjects I'm taking...
Because colleges and schools quite often suffer amnesia when it comes to their entrance requirements if courses aren't filled.
As a general rule, all colleges will say they want 5 A*-C grades at GCSE, including English and Maths. Some will negotiate downwards, but ones that are full won't.