Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

Is 12 GCSEs in one sitting madness?

82 replies

montenana · 22/01/2018 09:44

DD is setting herself to be sitting 12 GCSEs plus a higher level Maths qualification all to be sat in one sitting.

I don't think the school have quite realised...
DD is "up for it" and laughs when i say it's going to be too much. She is bright and hard working and certainly is taking it all in her stride at the moment.

Those of you who have been there - should I put a stop to it before she starts?

OP posts:
Seeline · 22/01/2018 10:15

Also it's not just the final papers.
It depends what other subjects she is doing, but with no creative subjects, that is an awful lot of essay/writing based subjects which are heavy going throughout the two years.
Under the new spec, there is very little/if any course work so it will all depend on the final exams. Things like art/DT (even if there is a written paper) the practical exam tends to be timetabled before the main exams so freeing up some space during the final assessment period.

TheSecondOfHerName · 22/01/2018 10:11

DS2 is only doing 10 GCSEs plus the further maths qualification, and even that is 27 exams.

Anasnake · 22/01/2018 10:08

My dc sat 10 last year - so only English and maths were the new spec - but still had 23 papers. The new ones will be more. He did well but it took its toll.

Original poster
montenana · 22/01/2018 10:01

She doesn't want me to talk to the school as she thinks the obvious solution would be to move her down in either Latin or Maths if i say i dont want her doing the extra maths or Greek...

I think keeping a close eye on her grades / stress levels / workload is the answer.

OP posts:
Original poster
montenana · 22/01/2018 09:58

thank you, i'm veering towards letting her get on with it. if she's not coping i'm sure she can drop them mid course.

she is doing one extra off timetable after school
she is top group Latin so is doing Greek & Latin in that timeslot.
she is top group Maths so they are doing an additional maths qualification in addition to the GCSE (they used to do maths a year early but this has been changed)

she isn't doing any creative subjects... which i am not sure if it makes it better or not. at least she won't be spending days and weeks on Art projects.

she's yr9 so has no idea re number of papers. Her exams have very little coursework afaik.

OP posts:
Couchpotato3 · 22/01/2018 09:51

Doable, but only if she's truly bright and hard-working and school are confident she will get good grades. Presumably she is doing extras off-timetable? If you are worried, speak to the school. Extras can always be dropped later if her grades start to slip.

What are you hoping to achieve by stopping her?

My older DCs' school was always worried they were doing too much extra-curricular stuff and didn't believe me when I said it was up to them. If I had stopped them, I don't think it would have made any difference to their academic effort.

DC3 took 12 in a sitting. He was offered another that he could have done, but said no as he knew his limits. He managed it with no problems, started 4 A levels, but has dropped one now as it isn't going to give him any particular advantage with uni applications. He enjoyed the breadth of all the different subjects at GCSE.

Trust your DD and roll with it, would be my advice!

Anasnake · 22/01/2018 09:47

It's much tougher than it used to be. Has she looked at how many individual exams she will have as some subjects have 3 papers now ?

Swipe left for the next trending thread