2015 Yr 12 support thread

Leeds2 DS1 was going Geography this morning. He needs an A and if he had bothered to remember to text me or to respond to my chasing text I'd be able to tell you how he had done but as he hasn't done either, I have no idea how it went! It needs to have gone well so fingers crossed!

Who else's DC did Geography this morning? How did they find it?

DD1 did not look happy when she set off for her exam this morning. :(

I know she was awake during the night, we all were, DD2's coughing saw to that. :(

Good luck to anyone with exams today

Sounds a bit confusing if they have two clocks in the same room?

Hope you r DD has done fine, Bernadette.

Thanks, she said her heart almost stopped when the adjudicator said time is up. There is a second paper but teacher said she will need nearly full maths as grade boundaries tend to be high.

I've said at least she can resit and tbh am more concerned that it doesn't knock her off stride for the next one.

Onwards we go

Will there be resits for this cohort? Won't current y11 only do a 2 year course?

Oh Bernadette how horrible for her :( Much sympathy. Does she have a second paper to balance it out? (And not to jump to conclusions or anything, but she can resit it next year if she's really unhappy with her result.) She must have felt sick. Hope it doesn't put her off her stride for the next exams.

Ds thinks Latin went ok. Tomorrow revision sessions for
English . Russian history next on Wednesday.

Much sympathy Bernadette. Dd seems to have had a good day at revision here but one of her friends was pretty gutted after psychology - ran out of time :(

One down here!

DD said it (Latin) was really difficult and much harder than any past paper she'd done (particularly one part of it). TSR seems to agree, as did the others in her class, so at least it wasn't just her! Ordinarily you'd expect that to be reflected in the grade boundaries but they always seem to stay consistently high in Latin. Am trying not to think about UMS...

Good luck to any DC with exams tomorrow. Next one's Wednesday for DD.

EMPA - externally marked practical assignment. Same as practical course work but marked by exam board instead of teacher.
DS has Core 1 on Wednesday. He has done most of the past papers and is getting near full marks. I know it is by far the easiest paper but it's very good for his confidence. He is not doing Further Maths though. They do the AQA FM course at his college which involves doing all the Maths modules in Y12 and the FM in Y13.
Getting the maximum UMS in AS is always going to be useful but, having been down that route with DS1, I am very glad DS2 is not looking at Oxbridge.

first exam for DD2 today (Psychology), quite a bit of stress here (she has a medical condition which amongst many other things, causes brain fog, and it's pretty unpredictable if/when she'll be ill), but we got a lot of the uni stress out of the way in Feb half term with a massive 6 unis in three days road trip, which weeded out a lot of potentials. Trouble is, her first choice is now Cambridge, so i'm joining the rest of you in UMS calculations .

Exam timetable is a bit rubbish - four exams this week, three next week, then just two after half term. We had the same thing for GCSEs - three quarters of the exams before half term.

And DD1 starts her finals today as well (or rather started half an hour ago), and although she's not at home, I'm getting daily de-stress phone calls to talk her down from "I don't know anything, it's all going to be dreadful". Up till now in her head each set of exams has always had the options of "I can make it up next semester", but this is now the next semester, and the last chance to get it right. NOt that there's any danger of messing up, because even if all she manages to do is turn up to each exam and write her name on the paper, she's done enough to get a 2:1, but she's so very close to a first, and anything less than that is naturally a fail .

I'm very good at soothing and patting shoulders and "there there" ing .

Can't get a doctors note without going to the doctor. Can't go to the doctor if at school (she is at school, always goes in during study leave, it gives structure to the day). I might get DH to ring the school and see if they advise her to try and get an emergency appointment tonight...but we would be very lucky to get one I think...

Oh no Gently :( Hope she's over the worst of it today xxx

Oh that's such bad luck GentlyBenevolent. Are you going to let the school know? Not sure how bad they have to be before extenuating circumstances kick in and I'd imagine you need a doctor's note.

Really hope she's feeling better by tomorrow-I'm always worried that illness will strike during exams and there seems to be loads of bugs around at the moment.

DD1 has now got DD2's lurgy. She is really sick. :( damn and blast and bloody hell. DS has it too but she's in Y10 so it doesn't matter (except he unlike them has asthma and because he had full blown WC a few years back any cough makes us a bit worried because it can come back...)

Thanks Atia, yes it tends to be that he ends up not quite finishing the last question. He's OK with the topics (except for one which he's looking at today, something about surds in fractions) but tends to rush because he's worried about running out of time, and then makes silly mistakes. I'll suggest that he does a very fast whizz through a paper today as you suggest!

I know what you mean about revision stuff everywhere. We were about to set DS up in the guestroom but now MIL is coming to stay in a couple of weeks just before the busiest exam week! Not ideal!

(Sorry, went into maths tutor mode rather than mum mode!)

Hmm. Is he very short of time, or just not quite finishing the last question? If it's the latter, I'd imagine that the adrenalin of the exam situation will push him through a bit quicker. I'd hope that as a FM candidate (sounds like he is doing all of maths AS & A2 this year) that he is happy with the C1 topics (assume he'd be hoping to get near full marks), so maybe he just needs to feel a bit more sure of himself. Perhaps if he did a paper today trying very deliberately to do it as fast as possible? No double checking himself, no getting distracted.

Maths C1 is the first one here on Wednesday. DS feeling reasonably confident on topics but keeps running out of time when he does practice papers.

EMPAs are the science practical exams. So I have learnt here!

Good luck all DCs with exams this week!
DD2 only has maths on Wednesday. She is much better but still coughing and has a cold. Her physics written EMPA was a disaster last week mainly due to the head cold I think, so she will be hoping to claw back marks in the main written papers. It is normally her favourite subject.
She has looked at open days and booked a couple today - still undecided on what she wants to do though. She has also booked a Cambridge masterclass (which has totally surprised me).
She is now insured on our car so we went for our first drive today (she has already had a few lessons).
DD1 (year 13) is very tired and I think may be coming down with DD2's bug.