Surely she will end up sitting 30 odd exams?

Ds1 is in yr11 and is doing almost all exams at the end of yr11. (His school don't participate in this early entry, modular nonsense.)
English Lang 2x 1hr - in one sitting.
Physics - ditto (did 1hr last year)
Chem and Biology - as above.
English lit 2x 2hr
German 2x45 min - in one sitting
Maths - 2hr + 1.5hr
History - 2 x 1.45
IT - 1.5 hrs
Citizenship - 1hr

So in total (if you count 2 short exams in one sitting as one), 13 exams for 10 GCSEs.

They are spread over 2 weeks before half term, then two weeks after half term.

He's just done mock exams of almost all of the above I just 10 days and that was fine.

Yellow it is only do-able for some children, not all. I have two DC with SEN. They cannot take two exams on one day, and would struggle with five exams in a week. My DD is under the modular system, her exams can be taken over two years and she will gain 10 GCSE (hopefully ).

My DS is not that lucky, he is going to be doing linear, and will probably only be entered for 6 or 7. He will study the same number of subjects, but will probably not take exams, not because he is any less clever, but because he is not able to take that many papers in such a short space of time. His exam entries will decided by the timetable of the exam boards, not his ability which is, I think extremely unfair.

This is exactly how I did my GCSEs (10 years ago) 30 odd exams spread over a few weeks.

I think it is less stressful tbh. And because all the topics are fresh in your mind I think the extension/further/whatever they call them papers are easier because it's easier to call on what you know about the whole subject.

That's not the theory. The theory is that all the modules of the modular course will be taken in one exam series. But unless they change the current practice, and I hope they do, then each module will have its own session.

Of course the thing Mr Stupid Gove has not taken any account of is that marking criteria are very different now.

When I did O levels, teachers could teach around the subject more, because they knew that background knowledge could be recognised in the exam and given credit for when appropriate. Now marking criteria are pretty specific in many subjects so none of this will make a difference (and could stop you gaining marks).

It took a long time for my ASD DD to accept that she had to give 'wrong' answers to some science questions to get full marks at GCSE (and she is still extremely unhappy about it!)

Six of my DC (and all their peers at school) have taken 11 or 12 GCSEs each as linear, so around 25 or so separate papers in June. It's quite a test of endurance, but perfectly do-able.

Well, I did GCSEs just as changes were coming in to make some modular but I didn't do any modular exams, they way they did it for maths was there were 2 exams, but in each exam paper there were 3 sections, I believe the year after me each section was an exam in it's own right. I think the theory is it will be more like the old system of 3 hour exam - but in that exam your DD will do what would have been 3x1 hour exams IYSWIM.

And now we have exam sessions: am and pm. So you only do two exams in one session if you have a clash. And exam boards have a common timetable in order to try to prevent that for most combinations of subjects.

The point is, as creamteas said, there has been no attempt made to actually linearise the courses. They are modular, they are still modular. Next May and June, children will be taking modular exams. They will just be taking lots of them all in the same series.

The format of the exams, how they are timetabled in an exam series - not changing.

In the olden days of old fashioned "write it all down at the end of 2 years" O and A levels, they often did more than one paper at one sitting, or with only a half hour break or something. I once did 6 papers in a day and three the next day.

Creamteas is right. Exams are still modular. It is only the timing that has changed. So yes, at the moment it looks like pupils will be taking the giving away of exams over a five week period. Not fewer longer exams over a shorter time. Rushed, ill thought out, standard for Gove.

"leaks" ?? - orals!

When I did O levels BTW, there were at least two papers per subject, plus leaks and practicals in some subjects.

I did O levels, and it was really, really rare for one candidate to sit more than 8 or 9.

This is part of the reason why. And it raises a slight grin when I remember a commentator saying recently that getting 12-14 GCSEs showed how much cleverer and/or better taught the current generation was. I doubt that's an argument anyone will try to make again as an O level type exam system reasserts itself.

The problem at the minute is the sudden change. O levels, IGCSE etc are designed for linear assessment, GCSE designed around modular assessment. Both linear and modular assessment have advantages and disadvantages.

Gove's announcement did not allow time for the curriculum of GCSE to be redesigned, he just moved the exam timing.

So for the next few year, students will still be taking modular GCSE, but just sitting all the modules at the end. This is because he is too stupid to realise that the timing of the exams is not the same as curriculum design.

I was the second year of GCSEs and yes we did have about 30 or more 'exams', but as orals and practicals were done early, and lots of them were only an hour or 90 min, you could have 3 in a day easily - and they were spread over about 6 weeks. Really not stressful compared to 2x3 hours per A-level, or Finals which was 21 hours in 3.5 consecutive days.

I remember at Olevels taken in June, it was one written exam per subject ( I did 9 Olevels) and one practical exam in French. They were taken over 2 weeks and we all survived, at 16 you do have a phenomen memory and stamina. We did mocks in rhe winter before with same regime to give us a practice run.

My oxford finals were 8 exams over 4 days to determine my whole degree! It certainly didn't suit the way my memory works. Most subject's exams were at least spread over a few weeks.

When I did my GCSEs before the turn of the Millennium there were multiple exams per subject at the end of the two years, spread over an exam period of about 6 weeks including the half term break. Some exams were shorter than others and some were practicals for science and languages. I suspect that's what they'll go back to. The number of exams may well be quite high.

There's so little detail on this idea yet but what should happen is that the learning is broken up into modules but those modules build on each other so skills/facts learnt in one support the others. Then you get an examination of your overall knowledge of your subject at the end. But who knows? Whilst I think the cries of "How will they cope?" are misplaced - they will cope and be just fine - there is so much buggering around with children's education that it's not surprising standards are seen as slipping because no-one knows what on earth will happen next. It's experimenting with children's futures and I think it's sad.

There are still universities who examine almost wholly at the end. I did 8 3 hour exams in 9 days for my finals, a paper a day and one day off, and that's still the system now. Very stressful but survivable.

I did 11 subjects, one was drama which only had 1 written paper and a practical. One was art so no exam.

Every other subject had two exams each so that was 25 in total (double science is three subjects but two gcses.)

It was fine. Most exams were well spaced out even if on the same day. And the timetables are published in advance.

To be honest, two separate 1 hour exams is better than 1 two hour exam. Less daunting.

Back in the days of O Level exams were 2.5 hours, now they are much shorter.

Two 2.5 hour exams in one day wasn't unusual.

You may have only done one exam for each subject. I certainly did more when I took my O levels. Woodwork was 3 exams, as was Music. English Language was 4. I can't remember the rest of them.

As another poster has pointed out, many of the exams are quite short. In my case all 3 Music papers were on another afternoon and the 3 woodwork papers on another. I can't remember how the English Language papers were arranged for certain but I'm fairly sure 3 of those were in one afternoon.

dd did 11 subjects last year, 3 had a single exam, 6 had 2 exams and only 2 had 3 exams, so that was just 21 exams. It could easily have been 20 if she'd done linear maths rather than modular which would have taken maths from 3 to 2.

She did some early, so only had 14 exams in the summer, but even if she'd done them all linearly it's nowhere near 30! Your dd's school has obviously chosen syllabuses that have more exams than necessary, but this usually means the exams are shorter, so can be timetabled back to back (so eg two history papers one after the other) and it effectively reduces the total number. I'm sure some of the science papers will be done back to back for example and it will all work out fine.

Go back to statistics class [40 years ago for you?] and you'll realise that you're not very accurate. You need to consider each individual GCSE course for the amount of exams. E.g. I had 3 maths exams but for RS I had one.

Not all universities have 2 sets of exams per year. Where my DH works there is only one exam session in may/June ( and resits in the summer!).