Year 11 support thread - keep on keeping on!

AQA higher here - DS thinks it went well. He had similar answers to a friend he walked home with. Said friend got 100% in all the maths mocks so this is genuinely reassuring!!

My ds home after Edexcel Higher. Said it was better than the previous one and the things he revised yesterday actually came up. (Not solo revision but working with MyTutor - thanks Mumsnet for getting us with them. It has made all the difference). I've urged him to forget about Maths now and focus on his Chemistry for tomorrow. By the sound of the guitar playing coming from upstairs... he is focusing on something.

AQA maths (Foundation) was 'great' (as were papers 1 & 2). As I've moaned said before, DS was entered for Foundation at the very last minute after the maths department panicked. I'll be relieved for him to get a 5, but annoyed if he could have got a 6 on the higher paper. We'll never know what could have been (he could have done badly on the higher, obvs). The only cloud on the horizon is that he needs a 6 in maths to stay on at the 6th form, and yet they've just emailed details of his induction day in 3 weeks' time. I'm ready to confront the admissions department on results day (assuming all his other grades are up to scratch) and fight my corner. For now I'm just glad it's over. Chemistry and history tomorrow and physics on Friday. Breath.... And relax...

Word from the kidz is that for AQA maths "they" think it will be about 56/80 equivalent for a 7. Though one of the maths teachers said she thinks it 'might be closer to 50' ... so know one knows but dd is really hoping she gets the 6.

Apparently, a fire alarm went off in my DS's maths exam. They didn't have to evacuate as they established it was because of someone burning something in the kitchen (my interpretation of why 'opening an oven door' would have triggered a smoke alarm!) but they had to stop the exam for nearly 20 minutes and the students had to sit in silence.

I got this from the school, not DS himself.

Special consideration is being applied for for the whole year group!

Oh dd's finished all the papers in an hour ... that's not because she's good at maths though

Need to give her a boot up the bum to do some chemistry now.

AQA Maths Higher - "easy". DS finished it in an hour. He's finished all 3 Maths papers in an hour. He is a Maths geek though.

I'm a bit surprised that Additional Maths next week (FSMQ so higher than a GCSE) is apparently only one 2 hour paper, whereas everyone has done 4.5 hours of exams for their GCSE.

Sorry to hear about the disruption in your DS' English exam LittleHo

Edexcel higher.... "Hard, hard,hard." Apparently others thought it was easier than the paper 2, but ds thought paper 2 was alright. At least it's over now (until results day!)

Edexcel Maths - "not brilliant but not awful". I don't care, we are done with Maths!

Foundation AQA maths here - apparently not too bad so there may be hope for the 4 so she doesn't have to do maths again.
2 x chemistry and 2 x physics to go - finish lunch time on Friday.

Edexcel higher here...DS says it was a very forgiving paper. Finished with plenty of time to double check each answer. So much better than the first two papers.

Edexcel higher here "much better than paper 2" which is a relief as he was very down after paper 2 (supposed to be something of a maths whizz)

"Difficult. Very difficult"

Ds has forgotten his phone so won't find out how it's gone until 4pm, he's got catering this afternoon. He has been revising flat out the night before most exams so I think you've all got exceptionally studious dcs!
We have ended up hosting an end of exams party here fri & im working Saturday & dd has to be at school first thing to do d of e. Ds was so rude last night that if I'd had the energy I'd have called the party off. He seems to think he's put a huge amount of effort in btw, funny how differently they see things.
Good luck to them all, especially those suffering from stress.
Littleho, I saw a thread yesterday re somebody walking in on an exam taking their child to judo, had ignored the exam in progress sign as it was 4.30 apparently, wasn't in your Dds exam was it?

AQA - very hard, worse than the other two papers, lots of bounds & ratio. Dd couldn't do the last question but had a go at everything else. Even their resident maths guru (full marks girl) said it was hard.

It's in the lap of the gods now. Dd needs a good day tomorrow.

Just heard from DS he said maths was hard but he managed to finish it, hopefully that is a positive and not many mistakes. That was Edexcel Higher.

good luck all - DS has slept a solid 12 hours a night plus daytime naps since he finished on Friday.

His skin was in a terrible condition with breakouts for last month but even that is beginning to look better, I really think we underestimate the stress on them.

DD didn't revise for her mocks (in fact she's revised very little in the past) and only started revising a week before GCSEs despite nagging. She's revised constantly since. The one subject she thinks she'll drop on is biology as she made some silly mistakes on first paper and with six important subjects the week of second paper biology which wasn't really prepared for it.

Good luck all today, it should all be finished in app 25 min.

4 exams left after this and definitely wine o'clock Friday afternoon for us.

Yes! Also can't wait for maths to be over with. Hope it goes OK. Dd seemed fairly chirpy about it this morning. Not much gets her down, but I can see she is at the end of it, flagging daily now. Wish she was finishing this week like most of her friends but all paper 3 science next week. I'll get her to check out that video, thanks giraffe.

That sounds like a good plan unfortunate! Unfortunately for me, ds is doing OCR triple science so doesn't finish until next Wednesday so my prosecco consumption will have to wait a bit longer.

Good luck to all today. SOOOOO pleased the dreaded maths will be over (please God let DS pass so he doesn't have to retake )

Both DS and I will be screaming at the end of maths today! Only 3 exams left after this, beginning to seriously flag now. Cannot wait until Friday, I will be attaching myself to a bottle of prosecco at 3.30 p.m.!

Gnome, dd feels same. Hoping this paper will be better than the last for her.