GCSEs 2012 support thread

BeingFluffy - I feel your pain!
Same story here, revision timetable done, revision plan for each subject done, study guides and DVDs bought, study set up, revision wall set up, bribes in place! And still she does nothing..... And breathe!

Your poor DS, Metabilis, how nasty. Hope he's feeling better soon.

Most subjects DS has seem to follow a trend - four 'sections' (be that CAs or exams) each worth 25%. This seems to be the case for history, geog, latin and english. The others just baffle me though!

@yellow She didn't know. We had a look. I'll be in Luxembourg. it's for the best. Luckily the exam date looks far too early to be an issue for either her singing grade 7 or her recorders grade 7 which should both be in July. There might possibly be a clash with Dd2s flute exam but hopefully not.

The real question is whether DS will have recovered from whooping cough by then (it's been 7 weeks now so we might have as many as 5 weeks to go :( )

Her call then. But if you get a burning desire to know/ organise your awayday, the timetable is up on the school website and the module is listed there :)

@yellow I never know when B has a test either. I didn't know when she had any of her English modules. I only ever hear about them when she gets the marks. I think it is probably for the best - I'm a real worrier and the kids all beg me to be away for work when they have music exams so I don't wind them up - but on the other hand I do feel a bit redundant. And they seem to do so little work. But I guess that's a function of the exams these days and the fact that the school can teach them at their own pace - pushing on rather than holding back. Which is of course why we let her go there in the first place.

This years Y9s are doing a physics module early - in June I think. I have no idea what the date is though. I suspect B does but she's not telling. Fair enough.

I've just looked at dd's exam lengths. I can't really remember how long my O level exams were, but aside from French, (just 35mins and 50mins ), dd's exams are all between 1 and 2 hours long which seems about right to me. I think exam papers longer than 2 hours tended to be A level ones.

I'm sure it varies between syllabuses, but it seems odd to me that some subjects have more than double the exam time of others, though amount of CA work seems to explain at least some of the differences. Mostly it seems subjects with CAs have 2 hours of exams and ones without have 3, but Eng Lit has 3 hrs of exam AND CA. French has just 1hr 25mins of exams, but as lots of us have noted, French CAs seemed endless.

I am at my wits end tbh because DD refuses to do a stroke of work. I sat down with her yesterday and we planned what she needed to do but all she did was glance briefly at a book and surfed the Internet for the rest of the day. She is already on study leave, I am thinking of calling her school tomorrow and asking if she can go and work there in the library or something as both DH an I work FT and it looks like we will have to watch her all the time.

@ Metabilis I mean parents not at the school.

1996 he does triple science and his options are History, Geog and D&T. What's a pain is that there are too many days when the longer revision heavy subjects are am and pm.,

Metabilis the January mocks are more than adequate though and the school is great at constant low level testing which is what some parents who don't like the school class as pressure but I find quite the reverse (in that I rarely know when any of mine has a test, they just do them). This particular DS has had a slow start through Y7, 8 and 9 but he's working really well now (for a boy) and has made the (nice) garden shed all his own. My main concern is that we don't get too many bunches of Hoorays coming to stay in the holiday let next door, popping their champagne corks over our fence and being generally loud (that's a euphemism). This rain is great, it flushes them off the decking and back into the house :)

Seeker it's not my memory playing tricks on me then? I'm sure I remember 3 hour exam papers.
DS recommends the website GCSE101 for all the sciences. He says the Biology is particularly useful. It covers Maths as well but he has done that.

But none of the exams are "several hours" long any more. They were in my day too, and I have to stop myself -unsuccessfully- harumphing at the 45 minutes most of my dd's exams are!

@yellow that's something that really worries me for next year. Not necessarily the number of the exams (I remember I had 20 for my O levels) but the fact that they have no practice of that number of exams till Y10. The 'exams' they are doing in Y9 this week just seem like glorified tests to me. And they are doing lessons in between. When I was at school, you had 'exam week' with proper several hour long exams in each subject each year in the first and second year, and then twice a year in the third and fourth year. With proper 'exam week/exam fortnight' time tabling - not coming in if you didn't have an exam (although you could come in if you wanted to brave the buses and the temptations) etc.

Thankfully my DS doesn't have too many exams to go. DS is aiming for A* in Maths, sciences and English lit and language, A-B for the reaminder. As long as he doesn't fall into the trap his sister fell into he'll do OK. Sadly DD kept leaving things (including revision) till the last minute. Teens are such a joy!

Yes, I too have lost count of the number of French assessments he has done. that and Science Modules and resits.

I think DS's geography carried on for a month! It was a ten hour or so assessment but they kept getting the timetabling wrong so some weeks they wouldn't work on it at all . Better that way than all at once though.

The French assessments have gone on and on! I lost count of the times DD came home from school telling me she'd done an exam for French!

She had a 6 hour (so all day) Geography CA last week. It should have been 3 x 2 hour assessments, but the department got the deadline wrong, so they had to take them off timetable completely for a day. DD was really pissed off, as she also had an Art deadline to work to and she lost 2 hours of Art that day.

Controlled assessments have taken over our lives for the last couple of years! Different departments within the school didn't seem to have very good coordination so at one point he was preparing for english, geography, history and science controlled assessments in the same week. It really is madness!

I will tell DD1 about BBC bitesize. Not sure what the reaction will be though. She has studied hard all year so I think has the knowledge.

She has announced that she doesnt want to talk about anything happening after GCSEs (prom, holiday, 6th form etc). However she also doesnt want to talk about how studying is going.

We are rapidly exhausting topics of conversation!

I wouldn't be sad to see the back of controlled assessments GetDownNesbitt - they have been a bit much over the last few months (especially the French ones).

Thanks Maureen, I'll get her to check out Bitesize tomorrow.

When Gove gets his way, it will be 24 exams with everything riding on them - no modules, no early entry, no controlled assessments. And probably only one exam board as well.

That'll be easy to timetable.

I think it's generally English Language they want, but no harm in DS thinking it means both!

I've just been looking at BBC Bitesize. It's pretty good for all subjects, including English Language Just suprised myself on a couple of French tests too! If you haven't looked before, it's worth a look. Some of them are even exam board specific.

I would read that as "an English", rather than both but I wouldn't tell your ds that.