Finishing year 13 in 2017

OMG, that puts things into perspective. What an amazingly focused teenager. I can't begin to imagine.

Funnily enough this was just on my fb feed

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4607048/Teenager-survived-towering-inferno-sitting-GCSE.html?ito=social-facebook

Bless her. I did chuckle that she also had her phone, my two would save their phones too.

Just heard a mother from Grenfell Tower on the car radio saying her two children both had public exams today (GCSE and A Level). Can't begin to imagine how they could manage. Absolutely extraordinary.

HSM, maybe, if she is back from uni (presuming she gets there)

Juggling, the one visit I did was to my old uni

I want to visit my old haunts when it's DS's turn, perhaps with DD as well.

As ever I expect I'll take everything just that bit less seriously with younger child dragged through a hedge backwards

God Ive just realised that I may be needed for uni visiting again this time next year Though I did only go to one with DD!

DD is more hardworking (when she outs her mind to it ) tban DH and I put together and will hopefully get better Alevel results.
But I do wonder at what cost - all the pressure from the government/school to achieve means that she has had at least 4 years of being WAY more stressed than either DH or I ever were

I'd agree with you that intelligence must surely depend on a complex set of characteristics ageinghippy

DD may have got her innate genius from me but luckily for her I think she got her excellent memory from her father or possibly others in the family. I have the attention span of a goldfish!

I had lots of desperate phone calls daily from DD during her GCSES - I was a bag of nerves.
I havent had any so far for A levels!

I think its true that the most able/those that set themselves the highest targets are those that are hardest on themselves.

I would like to take credit for dd's intelligence, but she is much brainier than I am

It seems to me intelligence is a complex set of characteristics and there must be several/many genes encoding for them. Did the article say what exactly they were looking at on the X chromosome?

Talking about where they get - or don't get - their intelligence from, apparently intelligence is carried on the X genes making it twice as likely to come from their mother as their father I guess. Anyway article I read suggested intelligence comes from our/ their mothers 😊

I don't understand that much about genetics so would be interested in any further thoughts on this?

Yes,I know what you mean Ono.My normal ritual before dd exams is to drive her in to school whilst we chew Bach Remedy Calming sweeties together .
Errol is your dh still a perfectionist?
No wonder you both have such a clever daughter.Its nice to know your Dd has a practical sensible side as well as academic.I'm not convinced Dd is brilliant - clever yes and definitely hard working.I think she has her Dads really negative streak.I was once told by one of his friends that he is the most negative person she has ever known!This was when he was much younger than he is now.63 with 4 young children!And he is absolutely negative about everything.

Edexcel physics deemed quite hard by dd. She has a friend on social media bragging he reckons he got 100% on one of the maths papers. Glad social media didnt exist back in my day ( Stone Age)

My dd also said physics was hard and she didn't do as well as she would have liked.

Her usual thing is to come out of the exam feeling ok about it, then talk to her friends about their answers and feel worse.

She is dreading next week, it's her busiest with 4 exams.

Not sure which board my DD had for physics ... she said there were some hard questions but it was fair and she didn't detect any exam board cockups.

AQA Physics - not the best exam & no time to check answers. Oh well.

Onwards and hopefully upwards.

Aww Errol what a lovely story, first thing that's made me smile all week

I agree that the reason DS feels despondent and therefore nervous is that he is all too aware of how well he could have done. As I said to him when I did my A levels I knew so little that I wasn't aware of what I'd got wrong so I thought I'd done well.

I am with you teta on the desperate phonecalls, I think I am suffering from Rescue Remedy overdose!

Teta - my observation over the years is that sometimes very able people are most likely to come out of exams full of doom and gloom, simply because they know their deficiencies. During my uni finals, one guy was a total pain like this - remembering details he'd omitted, points he might have answered better. He was predicting himself a 2:2, on which basis just about everyone else would have failed. I pointed out to him that some people would have actually got things wrong - this came as a revelation to him. Anyhow, he apparently got the best marks for 25 years and people who estimated they were 2 grades below him got firsts. Reader, I married him and fortunately our DD seems much better at assessing exams realistically - for which I'm extremely grateful!

Oh dear, Ono, your poor ds!
Needmoresleep thank you for your reassuring words.Ds will be fine, we have always had a second choice as it was a 50/50 chance of him getting in.He was a undiagnosed dyslexic at 11 and couldn't string sentences together when he left his state primary.He has been in a class of 7 and has had lots of attention and input which will hopefully stand him in good stead for the future.
Dd has now decided Chemistry was ok but why does she always come out saying it was hard and it went dreadfully?I've asked her this and she says it's because they're hard and she doesn't know the answers to everything and they're not GCSE where you literally know everything beforehand.The only thing is my nerves cannot take any more desperate phone calls .

Well done! Glad your DD wasn't fazed by the SD thing. I pity the markers sorting out the mess - they have to be fair both on the kids who couldn't attempt the question but also on those who did and therefore had less time for the rest. Presumably if someone had a go but misremembered the formula, the markers have to work through the maths and give them credit anyway?

Interesting about the mistake of not giving the formula for SD in Biology paper. DD was pleased that, having done Maths AS last year, she was able to remember it.
Sounds like they will be generous anyway - let's hope for some low grade boundaries as I'm sure it will have been unsettling for many.

DD only has two Biology papers left, one next week and one the week after, so nicely spaced now. And a couple of general studies thrown in too, but not too stressed about those. I hope she can do her Biology justice and finish on a high, then we just have to keep our fingers crossed that Geography worked out OK overall, in spite of her long answer not going as well as it could have done.

In other news I just found out I passed my Counselling course - the first year of training towards becoming a counsellor. Early days yet though!

Poor ds!

My dd barely spoke to me this morning. It's probably a sign of nerves. I took the hint and stayed out of her way.

DS was properly nervous going out this morning - he actually threw up!