Year 11 GCSE support thread 5 - finishing off the exams

LineRunner, still 7?

Glad the exams seemed to go OK for most of them today, sympathies for those who found them hard.

I am in awe of those of you looking toward uni entrance - DD can barely face the thought of starting sixth form, which will almost certainly be in a new school/college and she is worried about finding/making friends rather than the actual courses.

How was chemistry? I asked.

Haha haha bloody ha. He answered.

This was OCR paper 2 of 3.

Chemistry2 was bad, but not as bad as Chemistry1 (which she found v.hard despite everyone else saying it was easy). I did get her to remember some stuff this morning, but it is clear that again her difficulties in interpreting what information the question wants have affected her ability to show what she does know. (She got a B on a practice paper yesterday too.)

I think DD's brain is on empty now. But only Physics2 to go, which she will find dire anyway, so additional science is probably a write off. But if anything is to be failed I'd probably pick additional science, as it's not critical in any way.

DS says Chemstry was fine BUT he is now thinking that maybe they wanted more in depth answers than they had been taught to give. Oh the optimism.

History tomorrow. Then another 7 bloody exams to go, up till the 19th.

I lost my temper today. Stress +.

Chemisty (GCSE and IGCSE) both straight forward here.

mrsB I think you have every right to be proud of your DS. Resilience is one of the qualities I aim to foster in my DC. Imperative IMVHO to a life of success and happiness.

Message from my dd that chemistry (AQA)was really easy; made her wonder all the more what on earth that biology paper was about, and has her wondering whether physics will be more like the one or the other.
Sorry to hear that some of you have had such an awful time. Puts it all in perspective.
I'm interested to read so many uni comments. should we be looking at that already? My dd knows what A levels she wants to do. but feels that her uni choices will be dictated by whichever courses are easier to get into. She believes that she can't even try for geography as the bar is set too high. I haven't even started thinking that far ahead.

+ve feedback on chemistry here as well.

So sorry Mrs Bennett, take care of him as when exams finish it might hit him hard.

I have had to tell DS that his great grandfather passed away this morning. He was 96 and had been ill for a few weeks so not unexpected.

Funeral is tomorrow in another country so DH heading of and DS is quite resilient to these things.

It is a bit smelly - damp, bleach and I dread to think what else. Have cleared up the worst of it. We need pegs for our noses.

DD2 (A Level daughter) passed her driving test so that has cheered me up.

DD3 thought AQA Chemistry was a nice paper.

Feed back here re Chemistry was that it was VIAL! HAhahaha such a sense of humour my boy, he's been saving that one up for a while.

Greek was good though.

Little hope you have managed to clean up by now - only ever had that with the drain outdoors, not indoors.

Apparently AQA chemistry was easy, they all checked the front page to make sure they didn't have the foundation paper. Makes me cross though that they didn't do Unit 1 first as it would have given them all a boost in the first week.

MrsB, sounds like he's being tempered by adversity and proving true steel.

You can always count on MN to give you perspective!

MrsB - its a pleasure to know you and your wonderful DS

Little - in the life of every householder there is that occasion - hopefully this is yours and never to be beaten!

Sunny - is the view nice from where you are? is the sun warm on your back? Lay out a few rugs and get the wine on ice will you, we'll be joining you soon ...

Yes Mrs Benet, you must have both been through a terrible time. And at such a difficult time in terms of schooling

Just wanted to add to everyone else's comments MrsB that you and your son are amazing. What a difficult time for you both. Wishing him the best of luck.

Oh little that's awful hope you get it sorted quickly (am imagining the smell in the sun! ) (silly emoji not envy sick)

MRSBENNETT your ds sounds amazing hope he has time over the summer to mourn his losses and move forward but what a resilient man. Condolences to you for the losses.

Ds is off for chemistry I had a job interview this morning so left him with strict instructions to get out in plenty of time. So hope that both things go well for us. He's got 7 left and he really is running out of steam now.

Juggling I have also been talking with DD about open days. She said she will definitely book on one for early September - she went to a summer school at the same uni last year and liked the city and the campus so is keen to go and look round as a prospective student. I asked on the Open Days thread about going as a year 12 as DD1 left it until Year 13 so it would be nice for her to do it while there is no real pressure to make a decision.

MrsBennet for you and your DS. He sounds fantastic and feel free to boast away. Attitude and maturity like that deserves to be celebrated.

DD is full of angst and attitude. I'm quite nostalgic for the days when she was poorly and compliant I think the prospect of 10 weeks or so of holiday is very daunting - DD1 will be home soon to start some summer work - I can only hope there is something there for DD2 too. She is struggling with motivating herself to revise for her two remaining exams. It is a great comfort to see that she isn't the only one. all round to the stressed mums - someone earlier said that parentcraft classes don't prepare you to be an emotional punchbag. Amen to that.

I'm getting a little antsy myself following this thread. At the beginning everyone seemed to be doing the same exams on the same day albeit with different boards. Now they seem to be diverging and I'm checking the exam timetable every day even though I've committed it to memory just to be certain that DD isn't missing an exam.

dd has been talking to me a lot this week about Uni possibilities. Maybe she's beginning to lose her exam focus slightly but if so is turning it in a nice other direction. She did just say to me "Mum, I've done all my "A" level option GCSE's IYSWIM" with Maths the last of those yesterday. Yeh, so these last 4 are just for fun right?! Chem, History, RS, and Physics to go for us - finishing on Friday
Anyway, so I booked us a visit to an Open day at a Uni dd liked the look of (because of the course) and thought it would be good to dip a toe in the Uni waters as an after exams outing to do together, whilst we both have some time too. But now dd has found out about another one she likes after some website browsing and was very encouraged yesterday to get a reply from them where they confirmed that her A level choices would be "perfectly acceptable" (after she sent them a query via their enquiry page)
She's also been asking me a lot about what happened when I applied. I've been telling her everything I can remember about it but it was a long time ago It's been a nice thing to talk over and begin to look to the future with a sense of excitement.
Anyway, aren't they all growing up fast? Like you MrsBennet I'm impressed and thankful for the robustness and maturity being shown here - though for us that's been over the last year

MrsBennet no wonder you are proud of your DS - what an amazing young man he sounds!

mrsbennet. Hats off to you and DS for keeping it together. It's a cliche but I'm sure it's what his dad would have wanted. Kids, amazingly resilient, as are you. . Although I do think you deserve a much bigger bunch than that. Maybe MN could give us [bigflowers] as a new emoticon?

Well Done MrsBenets DS!

Great news Sunny!

SugarPlum, it makes me really mad that teens are being given the impression that if it's not a Russell Group uni, it's no good. I have been talking to DD a lot about this. I chose to go to a Poly back in the Dark Ages because the course was what I wanted to do. Most of our friends went to poly's. We are all successful adults.

Thank you to everyone, yes they have. He has been spoken to by his Form Tutor and the Head said to contact them if help is needed. He's back from this mornings English and is in the kitchen, cooking pizzas and helping his friends revise for this afternoons Physics. He finishes Friday next week. He has said every exam was ' easy ' no probs Mum, but I'm getting so anxious. It's too early for Gin isn't it?

Thanks Sunny, that ray of hope will keep the rest of us going