Year 11 support thread - keep on keeping on!

DS only has 3 more papers to go - the triple part of Chemistry and Physics and his second history paper, the British Depth Study. It's really hard to persuade him to do any work. We are going to pick DS1 up from university today so DS2 will be mainly playing the guitar and hanging out on social media, I suspect.

I'm beginning to wonder if our house is a bit too laid back! Oh well, all will be revealed in August. We are going to reconvene on the 25th, aren't we?

Totally agree that it's relentless - struggling to advise DS how to do his last revision push with ten papers still ahead of him - too much to do and not enough time to do it in :-(

Apparently circle theorem came up in paper 2

I don't know about final push. Our house has completely run out of steam. The exams just keep on coming, it seems so relentless somehow.

DS school gave them links to "predicted" maths paper 3 on Corbett maths and Justmaths websites. Think there are both higher and foundation papers for edexcel and aqa.
DS has english language, maths, chemistry and physics this coming week. Good luck everyone for the final push.

Woodlands, sorry to be a pain but could you pm the foundation list? Thank you.

Dd1 came down in her prom outfit about half an hour ago. Not sure why, but she looks very elegant. Doing her GCSEs is making me think how little time she has left living at home

@woodlands01 would love to have your list too.
Dd1 reckons circle theory is a cert as it hasn't really come up yet, but other than that is revising all. She says paper 3 is usually her best, so I'm hoping she'll come out cheerful-she did after paper 1, but said paper 2 was dreadful.

DS had a BBC Ten Pieces music thing this morning, and a jazz band gig over lunch tomorrow. Otherwise fact checking on various subjects in the run up to the Big Push - 7 exams in 5 days.

We were prom outfit fitting today. DC1's band has a gig tomorrow. Been good to have some downtime. :-) They're now upstairs revising British history dates.

We've been clothes shopping too, building up a wardrobe for DD. Fortunately her sixth form don't demand business dress - it's only if you aspire to be Head Boy/Girl that you have to turn up looking like a young estate agent. Apart from that it's a simple dress code: No bare midriffs, no ripped or dirty denim, no rude slogans on T-shirts. Apart from that anything goes - jeans and band shirts = OK, blue hair = OK. DD will be living in DMs and apart from that it looks as if she is going to range from Insane Office Smart (pinstripe dress with fishnets and DMs) to metal fan to off-duty lumberjack. She's so looking forward to being out of uniform.

Woodlands01 could you please pm this maths list (higher tier) to me too if you do not mind. Many many thanks!

Wow thank you all for the music GCSE insight. Dd would love that now, she already wants to learn more composition which she hasn't really done, she's only 9.

Our English exam board on Monday is WJEC, is it the same task as Edexcel?

transactional writing I think - two extracts to analyse & compare & a piece of writing (article or letter), something like 8 or 9 questions in total. Literally nothing interesting to quote dd. Don't know anymore than that.

Is there anyone around who knows what the EdExcel English paper is next week?

2!!

I think DS has just done 10? 12? Including serialism and minimalism and all kinds of stuff...

The ensemble can be any size as long as - I think - the pupil is the only one playing their part. So DS's is, AFAIR, his school Wind Group with him as Clarinet 1. He's been involved in recordings for others with e.g. a county jazz group, an informal adult / teen jazz band, a small ensemble from the county music centre. The school may well prefer something that they can control and can be recorded by their technicians, but it's not a requirement of the current spec.

Fleur - it's worth noting that the boards differ quite a lot with music. The WJEC spec taught at other local schools only have two set works and they are much shorter. From memory one of them is Rainbow "Since You've Been Gone" and the other is a 3 minute Mozart piece.

Fleur - here's the link to the music spec for next year onwards. It looks pretty similar to the current one except they have reduced the number of set works to 8. The key with the performance seems to be don't be overly ambitious. It only needs to be grade 5 level and has to satisfy a certain criteria. In DD's very musical school most of the students doing GCSE music are at a considerably higher level than that and they all did grade 4/5 pieces but played them beautifully and got full marks for the performance element.

qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/GCSE/Music/2016/specification/Specification_GCSE_L1-L2_in_Music.pdf

I wish DD would consider looking at Woodlands list but she won't look at predicted questions because she thinks it misleads you into only revising what is predicted. She's still revising the lot.

Fleur, with regards to music GCSE, it's presently suggested they're around Grade 5 so that's already in your DD's favour. Ours composed three pieces and chose two to submit. The ensemble involves two instruments, your daughter playing one and the other person can be another music student or in my DD's case her violin teacher. I can't believe the new spec wouldn't involve some element of playing music. DD hasn't found the composing easy but your daughter is playing an instrument and will have some knowledge already which will help. The present Year 10s will already be on the new spec, so someone should be able to tell you.

@woodlands01, sorry another one here asking if you can PM the Higher list. Her school have gave them no suggestions as to what might come up in papers 2 or 3, which they said they would do - just gave them a paper to do at the revision session..

@woodlands01 I'd love that list of Higher topics too.

that's terrible Jungfraujoch were they caught or 'just' the other kids knowing about it?

DD did three hours of history yesterday then we had pimms, burritos & an early night ... she was actually up before me this morning. Her plan this weekend is a few hours of maths & chemistry & lots & lots of history. She's dreading the next history exam (Wednesday has the potential to be awful with history & two chemistry papers).

I've ordered (we both hate shopping) loads of clothes for 6th form for her to try on, she needs something for the induction days & it is 'business smart' including a blazer and she has nothing even remotely appropriate. She's gone for skater dresses, DM shoes & a couple of mildly edgey blazers - bloody hope that's okay 'cos it is expensive!

For the higher paper that is. Thanks

@woodlands01 would you mind Pming me that list top if that's OK?

If it isn't too much trouble could I see the the Edexcel maths list too?

Thanks in advance but don't worry if it is a lot of trouble.