Year 11 GCSE support thread 5 - finishing off the exams

Littleham DS did both Advanced and Further Maths this year! (& did his iGCSE last year). He's a glutton for punishment.

poppy!

i have strict instructions not to wake DS up at all tomorrow. fortunately he's in the attic so won't hear normal day to day noise anyway.

(attic is a bedroom. i don't just shut him away up there).

Sorry to hear about the horrible Further Maths exam. Thank goodness my dd's school chose Advanced Maths (which I guess must be easier than FM). I get confused about these in between Maths exams.

Good luck for tomorrow.

Horse, I work for the University of Manchester so I'm a little biased! Unlikely he will choose it though because of the connection, but it will give him an idea of what a city centre university is like and he can ask questions about what work experience they are after, what A levels they look for and how to go about writing a personal statement (he is interested in doing a business degree).

Good luck tomorrow to all those still slogging on.

That's the one, bebumba, thanks for confirming.

So, History tomorrow morning. I feel quite weary. Must be the conversation I just had with DS about Gerald Ford!

LineRunner, ds definitely has the 2 hour calculator paper on Friday morning.

It's the longer Further Maths paper on Friday, 2 hours?

Yes, FM definitely a shocker, worse than the 2012 paper which was deemed hard.
DD said the last 10 minutes you could hardly hear anyone writing. I showed her the grade boundaries, she has calmed down. Last paper - FM Calc - on Friday, let's hope it is a bit easier to digest.

OCR Chemistry today - DS1 said this paper was harder than the last; he couldn't do 3 or 4 of the questions. I did an air punch in my head. I don't want to get my hopes up, but he got an A in his mocks, and I think he might get an A in the real thing. fingers crossed, please, please, please

Books were returned. Some books to read over the summer for some of the AS levels were listed with requirements to write book reviews in I think economics and was it geography? Presumably to make sure they read the books. They seemed quite impressed by the geography society talk and might join which is unusual as they tend not to join and won't join economics society. I am not sure how they make that distinction but there we are.

Thanks again, noble. It really is much appreciated.

Ono40, I went to University of Manchester in Jan with DS1 - I loved it! Sadly he didn't choose it, I was quite disappointed!

Biology here was considered easy ! Hopefully that's good sign but it is his best subject.

I mentioned uni open days and he just laughed at me and pattend me on the head ( I'm not used to being small) saying mum not happening this year let's just see what grades I get. How is my 15 year old so calm?

Nothing tomorrow but in school for physics and graphics revision both of which exams are Wednesday. Good luck everyone for tomorrow

Sorry to hear the FM was grim. I'd personally like to strangle Michael Gove and the exam boards for changing the goal posts mid-course and ruining the DCs' self-esteem. And of course the next hurdle is negotiating the mess of AS/A2 which affects the Y11 most of all

Meanwhile DS had his no s**t Sherlock moment yesterday when he said "If I'd done more revision I could have done so much better", (really, you don't say?)

Anyway taking someone's tip from this thread, we are off to the University of Manchester open day on Saturday to hopefully inspire and enthuse!

Noble, do you know about grades for OCR FSMQ Additional Maths? Is that the same as this morning's FM where it doesn't go below a C?

LR, last year's grade boundaries are here - so 15 marks on this paper would pass, so given this one is reckoned harder and he's almost certainly got more than that he should be ok.

Ds came home and said General Studies was boring, I interpret that to mean don't expect too high a grade Mother! He was fairly happy with Further Maths but said the time went way too quickly.
I think he is finding it difficult to remain motivated when most of his friends have finished.

So sorry to hear the FM was horrible

DS said Further Maths was vety hard but at least he was expecting it as he hadn't been taught most of it.

He thinks he got 15 marks definitely, a maximum of 28. So maybe 20 being realistic? I think that's out of 70.

Yes agree Errol, Noblegiraffe we really do, thank you You were very kind and helpful on a thread about DD's Maths a well - resigned to that being a 6th form retake.

BTW, for noblegiraffe - we do appreciate you keeping an eye on this thread and providing so much information.

DD said all her friends thought the fm maths was horrible too. She actually seemed quite happy with it - said it was 'nasty but good' in that while it was difficult and there were 2 or 3 questions she couldn't do, she thinks she did enough to do ok. Results day will tell, but I think she's right about the FM in particular, the low grade boundaries make it a matter of doing the parts you can and don't despair if you can't do the whole thing. This maybe is harder for the kids who've always aced maths tests - she had a dodgy year 9.

I think thats the one Bearleigh. The concensus seems to be it was a very hard exam so yes, lets hope the grade boundaries are nice