GCSEs 2012 support thread

Empire where are you? We are in the middle east and ds has two exams tomorrow (Friday) our weekend. Our time difference is 3 hours ahead. Lots of quarantine as they seem to start a bit earlier, after all ds was at school at 7.30am today for chemistry at 11.30 (UAE time), 9.30 (uk). So when eng lit is over with the extra time it will be 6pm. Makes for a long day. Can't imagine what your dc is going to feel like Empire.

Ds has suddenly seemed to have lost his confidence in chemistry, he seems very worried about the emperical formulas. He is dyslexic and has memory problems which may not help. He was going to take A level but was trying to find an alternative yesterday.
Oh well he went off full up on bacon and eggs but quite deflated. The english lit doesn't seem to bother him.

DD had a sensible breakfast of beans on toast and went off for geography. Now there are only six exams left but they are scattered over four weeks.

Next week's physics exam is at 7.30pm (due to time difference), it is just as well she is a bit of an owl.

Morning all! Hows evryone coping? We seem to be in the thick of it now, one yesterday, two today chemistry and eng lit, and two tomorrow.

Ds has goon off having had egg fried rice for breakfast today (god I am such a soft touch) and apparently we WILL be having chunky monkey cookies and meatballs for tea.

Ooh pickgo, ds school did similar. Ds seems v happy and teacher was vv happy yesterday with his work. His school gives the English students two teachers, one has been doing the sight seen poems and the other sight unseen. It appears to have had good results last year. In fact they have had two teachers for the past two years. One did of mice etc and the lord of the flies. With the poetry Apparently it is all Down to structure. First impressions, second reading and what you took away from it, and what you thought the poet was trying to say. His class are doing character and voice.

Good luck everyone.

Pickgo that does seem a bit odd, was this an experienced teacher or a new one? Did the other classes do the same?

DD has chemistry tomorrow. It is without doubt her favorite subject. She is hoping toi take it to A level and then degree - I just hope it goes well. She chatted through the revision book this evening with DH (cynical old goat) while I chatted with the cat. Once DD had gone to bed DH did say that she knew her stuff.

Oh lordy lord please let this one go well!

The pulled post was quite nice, wishing all the students good luck, but it had a shop e-mail address under it.

Another one having their own relationships tested by 'Relationships'....

I have had moody, despondent, confident, cocky and downright reckless.

All not helped by the fact that DS's English teacher chose not to even look at any of these poems with the class until after Easter!

What do you think? Is leaving the poetry to 4 weeks before the exam almost criminally negligent in its incompetence... or canny because the kids will remember it better being so current in their minds?

Answers must be clearly argued and tell me if I should complain once the exams are over.

No idea. How odd.

We've got relanships tomorrow. We might have our very own relationship problems in a minute though, when I tell her we're going to spend the next 45mins revising together!

Can I jut ask, how on earth a post got pulled on a thread like this? Anyone know? If you don't want to say it on here, please feel free to PM me!

DD has been revising in the garden today. Despite liberal applications of factor 40 and staying in semi shade, she has managed to burn her shoulders. I've smothered her in calamine lotion and I hope itchy shoulders wont detract from English Lit tomorrow. Good luck to all the oyhers.

My DD is doing a Physics past paper as I type. I am being terribly supportive by having the tv off and MNing instead! I will mark it for her using the mark scheme when she finishes.

Tw8ce

Poor old DD is having a pre-physics wobble. She is not happy at all. And i have no knowledge of physics whatsoever so can't help. Poor baby.

Poor old DD is having a pre-physics wobble. She is not happy at all. And i have no knowledge of physics whatsoever so can't help. Poor baby.

Dd does higher and so far has a mixture of B's and C's, not sure what the final grade will be. You're right though if a C is the highest a foundation student can achieve in all aspects that does not really allow them much to fall back on. If it's any help dd insists all the answers they need for tomorrow are within the 'article' they are given. Next week is the same but they need to use more of their own knowledge. This is what dd says so don't hold me to it! Good luck to your dd for tomorrow, and you Kez100!

Tbh I'm not surprised there aren't many people doing the place cluster, I've flicked through DS's anthology and all of the other clusters seem a lot more interesting. He's got a 30 line extract of the Prelude to tackle. He's hoping it doesn't come up though as he says it takes a good couple of minutes to read so that would use a lot of time in the exam!

kez100 thank you so much. She has had loads of science revision lessons at school, so hopefully they have covered it all and she will be fine. Just found it strange that she didn't need to revise!
In return I can tell you dd did conflict poetry in January and got a B. English is not her strongest subject and she found it pretty straight forward.

"Relationships" cluster here.
After tomorrow he has only got physics next Wednesday then nothing until after half term. They are in school until 1st June though so there will be lots of gaps in the lessons for revision. It's a rural school and most of them are bussed in so can't get to and from home very easily.

Ds is doing conflict cluster as well.

He got up got the chemistry papers out, then spent the next hour telling me how many points he needed for chemistry. Then how much he wants to go to MIT and finding out what are the top engineering universitys, the how he can't wait to go to uni,
Made me late for swimming, the rang me up quite pathetically asking for blister plasters because he had a blister on his thumb from writing.