GCSEs 2012 support thread

Happy bday to your Ds Bringback.

Oh BringBack1996 I think you are fully entitled to wallow and weep buckets tomorrow.

I have no idea how I'm going to get through tomorrow - DS's last day and his 16th birthday. Can't believe how fast he's grown up :(

It's good they check pockets because I have heard of people who hand in one mobile, while keeping another in a pocket.

Abra- all phones have to be given in, pockets are checked, belongings are in a see-through bag.

I have just been putting the timings for each exam into the calendar. Poor DD has some exams at 8pm, because of the time difference (Singapore). How do the British Schools in America cope- do they have to sit the exams at 1 in the morning?

'Yes, he sits one paper and then is supervised by an invigilator while he has his lunch/sandwiches and then sits the second paper. It is arranged so that he cannot tell other candidates what is on the paper he has sat and they cannot tell him what is on the one he is sitting in the afternoon.'

How do they make sure the children don't pop into the loo at lunch and text their friends? Quite hard to supervise EVERYWHERE, isn't it? Not suggesting that anyone on this thread's offspring would do this; just a general query?

The biol/chem/physics exams I've now realised are in tiers and units - she must be doing unit 3 but the timetable includes all the resits too. Now the languages - NOT ONE LANGUAGE IS NAMED it's all course code and speaking/listening/reading etc - why the hell couldn't they list the individual language against each one??? . DD's now home so we can go through it and amend on family calendar

Thanks Rezolution and Bruffin - you're right I should have had this one sorted some while ago

DS's timetable says biology, chemistry or physics.

Bloody hell there are so many codes for the science exams on the website official timetable I AM going to have to ask dd to decode . It's really unclear which are single/double/triple arrrgggghhh

Rezolution - I am doing exactly that now i'm back home!!! DD has had the revised timetable for a couple of weeks but didn't think to tell me

Got too laid back as all these modules/controlled assessments/resits etc over past 18 months have frazzled my brain

grunge Does the school have a website? Get a copy of the exam tt and print it off. You can't leave something as important as this to a teenager imho

This morning DD casually announced that several of the exam dates inserted in the family planner were WRONG and that she now doesn't have first exam on Tues

Me: But are you sure? What if you're wrong? What happens if you miss the exam?
DD: Well, the school have your phone number, my phone number to call if I don't turn up. And if there's no answer then the head comes knocking at our door. Believe me mum, that means I won't be late for a single exam

24th May is not a good day as DS has a chemistry resit, main chemistry and english lit. But most of them are one exam a day

Just curious. Does anyone's dc have only single exam days? At ds school every child has at least 2 days where they have two heavy duty exams. Just us or everyone?

No block exam leave for DD, as exams are taken subject lessons are dropped but they are still expected to go in.

Starting with French on Monday and finishing at the end of June with German. It is all stretched out with long gaps then doubling up.

Thanks, he is only doing the 2 papers so only doing the half gcse then. There was a twilight for RE on offer but he was doing another twilight at the time and wasn't allowed to do two, but when I saw two papers I wondered if it was the full paper.
I was under orders to buy index cards for bible quotes today, unfortunately he wanted blue but I could only find white

I have a DD on study leave literally groaning in the next room over a biology past paper....

It all starts on. Friday for her with Maths first up and then finishes on 20th June....... Lots of chocolate and hugs will be required in between.....

Bruffin - DS is doing full course RE but only a handful of his year are. They didn't have - time in class so he has been doing twilight RE for a year. There are 4 papers altogether, one done and three to go. I would guess that your DS is doing the half if there are two papers?
DS chose to do it because he wanted to "clock up" and extra GCSE, didn't see the point of half a one. Plus, atheist that he is, he enjoys the ethics and philosophy.
I think it was a mistake because he seems to be spending a disproportionate amount of revision time on RE..
He has stuck post its with biblical quotes all over the house....

DS is doing OCR RS. He's doing a full GCSE for one of his options. He's still got :
a 60min exam on 15th May ('Prospectives on World Religions')
a 60 min exam on 31st May ('Islam 1')
another 60 min exam on 31st May (Islam 2')
He did some part of it last year, and has also been doing some kind of assessments during the year I think .
Don't know if that helps Bruffin ?

I think dd does edexcel rather than OCR for RE bruffin, but for her it's definitely one exam for short course and two for full course (she did one last year and will do the other soon). I thought that was the same for most RE courses but I might be wrong. I got sent shopping today as everything had been eaten - we're definitely getting through more food than usual (especially chocolate)!

I find just stuffing them with cereal helps with the constant need for food, bruffin! DS has been known to dissapear into his room armed with a full box of cheerios and it hasn't returned

Does anyone know if Ds is doing 2 papers for RE ie one for philosophy and one for ethics if he is doing full gcse or a half. The board is OCR.
I was under the impression he was only doing a half gcse.
He is still grumpy and needs food all the time. It's going to be a fun couple of months.