Year 11 GCSE Exam Support Thread

It's OK. DS said they had one today. But no dancing!

I don't think the kids could have imagined their frankly scary headteacher letting his hair down either. DD was like this when she told me .

T&T - hope she's been ok today. I'm sure you're right to have supported her to go in.

T&T, sympathies to your DD. We also say take it one step at a time to DD and focus on getting one thing done at a time.

SugarPlum, that is utterly horrific isn't it. Absolutely re keeping things in perspective and second chances, etc.

HSMMaCM, I cannot in my wildest nightmares imagine the DC's HT doing a dance with them. He barely comes out of his office. Not sure they have ever done a fire drill, actually. Well, they've never mentioned it!

You're right sugar plum. I have tried to point out to DD that I did my degree as a mature student and only passed my science gcse last year. Hopefully she knows that choices she makes now are not the end of the story.

That is bad about the Geography but sadly I'm not surprised as keep hearing things like this. If you can afford it I'd get a tutor who knows what they are doing at this point as it is playing the game at this point re the syllabus.

T&T I think you are right to make her go in but to take a step back. I think they feel their future success hinges on this and need to know if it does all go horribly wrong there are second chances and it isn't the end of the works as I think the message is from schools that it is. I have been trying to say this to DD. Our catchment Upper had 2 girls kill themselves last year which was totally tragic. She knows about it and I have used this as a discussion point about how it is important to keep talking and keep things in perspective and how it is in my view important to look after your social, creative and intellectual sides. I've said at a time like this the intellectual side takes precedence but important to keep an eye on the others.

That sounds bad, petunia. My DD still has a topic to go in geography I think, but the teacher is an excellent one, track records of getting good grades so we trust that he knows how to pace the work. So there might be time to cover it if they could get a good teacher - surely there are others, can they not swap someone from a lower year?

It's one subject where she didn't need a revision guide as she has a textbook (which looks large but they only do selected topics) - I think it's AQA-specific. If that's what your DS is doing I could check what it is when she gets home if you want (can't see it on her bookshelf).

De-stress not distress

Teen you're right to tell her to take one step at a time. DD's school is bending over backwards to help them distress between lessons, including the headmaster leading an impromptu year 11 dance after a fire drill, still wearing his hi viz vest and shouting through his megaphone. DD said the younger children, heading back to their lessons looked like this

HSM that's how he scrapped a c! have had email back from head of year saying forwarded to head of humanities and head and they'll contact me. I'll wait and see if anything has been said to ds tonight. Am so cross that this has slipped through the net, I knew she was rubbish but to have missed a whole topic of the syllabus is appalling, though it does explain why DD yr 8 has been told they can pick either geography or history to study next year and through to gcse! The only way she can get them through the work it would appear. I think this is gonna come back and bite them on the bum though as not 1 child in year 8 top 2 sets wants to do geography because they all hate her and think the subject is rubbish

Aunt That's terrible about the geography. Go and look with your DS at the revision guides in Smiths, and find the one that covers the right syllabus and he likes the 'look and feel' of. Though there might not be much choice.

DD was overwhelmed by the stress of everything last night (GCSEs and some other stuff too). In tears begging us not to make her go to school today. We chatted, worked out the main issues, got her to sleep eventually.
Sent her in this morning with instructions to take each class at a time, and to go see pastoral care. She's still there (I think!).
Not sure how I'm going to survive the next 3 months let alone her!
The thing is, if she misses a day for stress now, I think it will be even harder to go in the next day. Better to try to sort things out than hide.

Aunt petunia has he done any bbc bitesize www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/

DD had the same problem with maths, but the teacher was sacked and the head of department is trying to drag them kicking and screaming through the syllabus. A revision guide which targets your exam board, or past papers might be best?

so cross with the school tight now . DS came home really frustrated with geography, now I have to say the teacher is poor, she replaced a well liked and redpected teacher at the start of year 10, if she'd been around in year 9 he wouldn't have taken it. Anyway,Wednesday night he was talking about geography and it turns out that they haven't completed the whole syllabus, they have a whole topic to do, they are half way through 5 of 6! with 3 weeks till easter and then 3 weeks till exams they have a while topic which should take 6/8 weeks to complete, according to Google.

The whole class is frustrated but getting nowhere. DS showed me his book the last 7 lessons have consisted of her giving them pages to stick in and highlight important bits, sort of thing you do in primary. half the class have dropped out and those left think they'll fail. DS was one of 3 who scrapped a c in his mocks as he did loads on line. I've written to head of year and dep head this needs sorting. Anyone any tips for decent geography revision guides .

Thanks so much Teen. That is exactly what I was looking for.

Festive JCQ-here

Section 3.3
^2% The most common category of allowance - the majority of cases will fall within this category:
• allowance on last paper taken in a day when a candidate has been entered for three or more examinations timetabled for the same day and the total duration of those papers is more than 5 hours 30 minutes (GCSE examinations) or more than 6 hours (GCE examinations).^

hth

Is there a maximum number of papers you should sit in one day? DS has 4 papers (2 different exam boards) - about 6 hrs in total.

wow sugar that's brilliant, my ds is planning on learning enough Japanese to get him through his trip to Japan which is end of July. He reckons he needs to know basics like toilet, no entry, please and thank you, and hello. :0

Bloody Hell, SugarPlum, that's a massive achievement!

That's great sugar!

Big variations in the number of exams they all have then. She started teaching herself Japanese from YouTube then has been having weekly Skype lessons for several years which got her through the first JLPT exam last December. She now has a local tutor as she needed someone to take her for the GCSE speaking exam in a couple of weeks l

That's great news, SugarPlum! Japanese GCSE sounds really hard - is it her first language? Surely she didn't learn from scratch at school?!

DD has 15 exams only during the exam period, plus a drama performance soon after Easter break. That will be quite enough for her.

That does seem like a lot, no idea how many DD has don't all feint but I have good news. Her Japanese exam she passed counts as a GCSE for 6th form so she is down to needing 4. Plus the Head of 6th form spoke to Art dept. about her doing A level art (not doing it for GCSE) and they have said they are happy to have her which she is pleased about.

Wow, that's a lot! Mine seems to have 23, which includes the FM. I guess it depends on the subjects - she's got 3 (drama, comp. sci and electronics) where there's just one exam because the coursework /CAs count for 60%