Year 11 GCSE Exam Support Thread

Mmm. It's currently being 'debated' Tilly. One of the days I am at the Cats' Protection Volunteers' Christmas lunch extremely busy.
Doting grandparents seem keen to fetch and carry him on a couple of the days.
It's difficult because the 'supervised study' sounds great but in reality means 'at the local chippy followed by mooching round town with his mates' if that's on offer.

he would get more revision done back home IYKWIM.

£547 a year for the school bus and then end up driving.

Ah ha

Sparkling, do you have to go for him at 11.30?

My dd can come home in the afternoon if no exam, but the way their timetable is set up, there's only one lesson in the afternoon, and there will be the odd other day when they are still finishing an exam after school finishes, so she's not gaining a lot!

DS1 next week has to be in every morning for mock exams, some days he will be done and ready to come home at 11.30.

The next week he has one exam on the Wednesday and that's it.

It's not official study leave per se.

We have taken a unilateral decision not to go in late following a medical appointment.

I am quite surprised to hear they are being given time off to revise. I'm not sure DD's school do this, but DD would love it!

I've got one at home revising today.

Many cups of tea have been made .

I'm cooking roast dinner tonight instead of yesterday in anticipation of a knackered DD today after her first 3 mocks.

She did actually do some revision last night

I got a major eye-roll this morning when I went to her just before she left the house to ask if she needed anything .

Good Luck to all those starting their mocks this week and for all of you coping with them!

My dd is starting her mocks this week. She is feeling confident - hope she feels the same at the end of the two weeks.

In terms of sixth form, I advised dd to just go ahead and apply to her 3 possible places. All 3 are very good (imo) but have different strengths/weaknesses and different atmospheres. They don't really need to decide until after they get their grades in the summer.

Do you mind if I join you? I have a DD in Yr11. Mocks this week and next. So far it seems to be going OK but I'm watching like a hawk as I have another DD in Yr12 who also seemed fine at this stage and then went to pieces after Christmas. DD2 seems more worried but also better prepared, so I am clueless. They've been told that they won't get the results of these exams until mid-January which seems rather a long time to wait.

We are also in the position of needing to find a sixth form but our open evenings were a few weeks ago. So far DD2 does not want to go to the same as DD1 but that could just be a sisterly stand-off...

I asked DD about mocks today, hers aren't till after the Feb halfterm. Which sounds like more sensible timing than now to me TBH.

We did some xmas shopping - on the net of course, more sense than to venture out on this ridiculous 'Black Friday'. For the first time ever she's just asking for clothes, having realised that all too soon she'll need them for sixth form rather than uniform. But then more coursework - electronics today, but that's her favourite subject (together with maths, fortunately) so she's putting in a lot of effort.

We've got mocks next week! Though DS seems to be doing diddly squat apart from playing games on his computer. We've had parents evening and everyone said he was doing well and better than expected in a number of subjects. All CAs in English are done with a*s and a in all of them so that's a good sign. He's doing triple science and again the science teacher thinks he's ok.
With everyone telling him he's doing ok I'm havin trouble convincing him he needs to revise. I'm tempted to leave him to it and see what happens with the mocks.

Teacher definitely does assessment, DD got two goes at it as came in under the 4mins (think it was) the first time. Actually I think it was two teachers present. She has just said 25% but pretty certain that is wishful thinking ! We've got a workshop thing on the IGCSE week after next to explain. DD did hers on Orphan Black, enjoyed listening to her on that.

With psychology one of the boys is doing Sport Science and wants to be a personal trainer. Both parents said to me on separate occasions that he's taking Psychology A Level so he understand what makes people tick. I said to both that A level psychology won't help with that but they didn't want to hear it and glossed over it.

I think what happens is it is promoted as an insight into behaviour and I think people think they will be told meaningful truths about human behaviour . Whereas the reality is you have to carry out experiments, learn about null hypotheses , probability, statistics. And that anything you state in an essay has to be backed up with evidence so loads of dates and people to remember. Cognitive psychology is quite dry, social less so.

I haven't seem the syllabus for years so it may be a bit different but doubt it. There is the whole 'I'd better be careful what I say to you because you will analyse me thing ' when people know you have taken psychology and I think people go into it with a very skewed perception of it.

I think it is the teacher and I think it does count towards the final mark (10% springs to mind!)

I've no idea who comes up with them. Teacher?

And I can never get to the botom of whether this part of the course counts towards the final mark. DS is clueless .

DD is doing the English IGCSE but hasn't been given a topic yet AFAIK. They sound like great topics!

He was pissed off not to get Should Ched Evans Return to Football, but relieved not to get What is the Point of Art? .

DS has an IGCSE speaking assessment today (whatever that is). They were given topics last week and DS' group is The Mansion Tax!

That's interesting SugarPlum - do you know why it isn't what they thought?

It does seem better when you know more what the score is. We had Parent's evening this week and I feel more hope she might get enough GCSE's to get on a Level 3 course next year.

However the question of what and where remains and I suspect she will apply for both school and college then decide after results, which means months of chopping and changing daily. I try to let it wash over me.

Inset day here today which is good as DD woke with severe stomach pains early hours of yesterday and is knackered. School have sent us a booklet with info re mocks and there s an evening soon about the English.

Hope everyone going through Mocks is ok. My friend's DD had 4 exams yesterday and having coped the days before, it got too much and she threw up yesterday morning.

I've noticed that Psychology is the one that people start at A Level and then find it isn't quite what they think. Two Year 12's I know who started this year have both said it isn't what they thought. Photography teacher suggested it for DD as a 4th subject next year as she is struggling with that. But I know she will be pissed off with the stats plus all the names and dates you need to learn so definitely not for her.