GCSE 2018 no. 6: stress, struggles and success (hopefully) *Title Edited by MNHQ*

Strategic choosing of subjects: don't forget that if they want to apply to university, the UCAS form has to include the GCSE grade from every subject they sat.

hmc - I wouldn't worry at all about dropping it (DS dropped DT). 9 gcse s is plenty - even 8 is enough. And you have a good humanity in there. You will save not only revision time but the time and stress of the actual exam too.

adrinkifwater I'd second the search online - Teachit is a good resource and some of the stuff can be downloaded for free.

DD has already done her first paper (the Paper 1 History drama ). Yes it is a leap and I can see why your ds would be reluctant to drop it - it feels very cavalier just deciding not to take it...but I think its the right plan for dd in the circumstances

It reminds me of the hesitation we had at the beginning of Y10 when we told dd's head teacher that dd wouldn't be doing an MFL because she is dyslexic and finds MFLs impossible. It was the right call though

adrinkofwater DS2 isn't doing Jekyll & Hyde, but for his texts he made a quote bank for each character & theme.

My DS spent forever looking for quotes for English - Jekyll and Hyde. He has done this before and I don't get how come he doesn't already have quotes....but he says they aren't right for all characters/ themes. It seemed a big waste of time to me- not that I said that!

After tea I "tested" him on RS Buddhism. I'm thinking (hoping) the grade boundaries will be low. It's like learning another language!

Not heard of Tassomai until this thread - just taken a ganders and signed up for the 3 sciences in AQA. Better late than never

Funny you should mention RS. DD and I tentatively decided to bin it yesterday. We've always taken the view that she has too many GCSES for her (given her processing and memory challenges), and that she should focus on other core subjects and just 'wing' RS on the day and see if she can get a pass. However as it gets closer she feels that she ought to revise rather than be a rabbit in headlights in the exam, completely unprepared. But - she's done nothing to date on RS and to prepare for it now would squeeze the revision time available for core subjects (which matter for her A levels). So I said - lets just not take it? She's on board with that

Are we being rash? She should have by the end of GCSEs the following:

Maths
Eng Lang
Eng Lit
Biology
Chem
Physics
PE
History
Art
ICT (short course)

That list doesn't look deficient does it? For lacking RS? (beginning to doubt myself now)

That should say Tassomai and 6750 questions...brain is definitely not in gear!

I think I worked out that there is probably a total of around 6750 - if they are repeated 4 times then 1700 individual questions...

I'm just going to suggest to DD that next week she does 1hr a day on Biology - Paper 1 (100% coverage) plus 1hr a day on Chemistry Paper 1 (about 40% coverage) and as soon as she has finished Biology she can replace with Physics 1 (exam is following week). All three higher tier exams after HT here too.

She has French this morning then she's off to the gym ...

RS is a nightmare, I agree. One thing I realised yesterday when ploughing through past papers (all verbally, with me asking the questions then reading out the MS answers after DS had had a go) is that there is a lot of leeway for a lot of the answers and in some cases you can just apply common sense. I had to keep reminding DS to do it, I think they're so used to 'learning' everything and sticking to rigid mark schemes that they forget they can use innate knowledge/opinion if they can back it up. Obviously this doesn't work for the real knowledge based stuff on particular religions.

Everything bar Science and maths paper 2s is before half term for DS, which poses its own problems...

Yes, the % does seem to creep up very slowly. DS has been getting frustrated with it in the last few days, hence why I paused the paper 2 stuff. I think its real advantage now is that he just does it as a matter of course at some point in the evening when he's 'finished working'. So it's kind of science revision by stealth.

Not sure how your DS's exams fall, but all the paper 2s are in the second week after half term for DS, so plenty of time to revise for those, both with Tassomai and past papers. So if he does fall short in the paper 1s, he should hopefully be able to compensate with the paper 2s.

Dd has been at work today. She also managed a bit of physics (Thanks mmzz) and some literature.

She's written a list of all the character and theme sheets she needs to do and it's very daunting. She's done all of the animal farm ones and most of the poems but hardly any r&j or ACC. What are your dc doing for literature? I feel she's left it too late to be making these sheets now. She should have been doing this weeks ago

Still she's downloaded the ACC audio book for the drive to Alton towers so tomorrow won't be a total write off for revision.

DD went to the beach with a friend this afternoon - weather much too nice for anything else.

On the upside, he was almost jubilant at the prospect of moving on to doing some Maths with all its certainty!!

I'm very envious of those of you who have spent the day watching sport.

DS and I, on the other hand, have spent the day grappling with RS (I've been testing him with past papers.) It has to be the most annoying subject ever. Half the time it's not even clear what the question is, never mind the answer!

It does seem like one chapter is closing and another opening...its quite sad seeing some of the girl's posts who are moving on to pastures new - some of the girls have virtually grown up with each other for the last 9 years from Yr3 to Yr 11. I'm more than happy that DD is staying on now because it does feel more than a school..the teachers really do care and go the extra mile...

Teenmum that's sounds like a lovely day. It does feel like one chapter is closing - it makes me a bit wistful.

Glad you DS got a game Kingscote. DS really disappointed as his game was cancelled (wet pitch ). Not quite sure how that could be possible.

He has managed some biology and Latin though and is having some down time on the PS4 now. It's very unusual though as none of his friends are online, I suspect some of the other parents have stopped access or severely limited it.

I'm exhausted after a whole day in the sun watching DD play sport - almost as exhausted as she is.

excuse typos!

What a lovely day for cricket..

DD has a lovely day yesterday ...they hired in a bouncy castle and there was a lovely group photo taken of all the girls chilled out relaxed ..slightly nicer than the formal year group photo. So nice that all the teachers made an effort ...DD's form tutor and prepared little brown paper goody bags for each girl with their name spelled with their individual attributes (inside was humorous gifts like bubble wrap for stress reliever etc) - such a lovely thought.

DD worked fairly hard this afternoon on Tassomai and watched some computer science videos (that are actually fairly boring)...

Hayfever has really kicked in today (poor thing) so just as well we are indoors at the moment.