Gcse 2018 (10) The one with half term

Idsisatwat - just worked out your username! Iain Duncan Smith, right?
Anyway, I suspect your DD has long since calmed down after her meltdown yesterday. We've all been there, I suspect.
What works to calm DS down, and get him to refocus, is some logic. He argues against the look at your class test results attempts at persuasion but his revision timetable helps.
The revision timetable has a list of all the topics taken either from the CGP guide or the exam board specification, and I get DS to go through and answer honestly how confident he is about each micro-topic, plus how much more time he needs to learn that micro topic well enough to go into the exam with it. He always looks at the list and panics, but then when he starts going through it, he realises that he knows a lot more than he realised, and also what he needs to learn is manageable.
This approach has worked each time with DS, but, that's because it suits his personality (he likes logic a lot!). Maybe it will work with your DD too?

It's a nice thought Oratory but it's been 14 years and I'm still waiting for a time when DS2 will let DS1 show him how to do something (i.e. admit that DS1 can do something that he can't)! The fierce independence started when baby DS2 still couldn't sit up unsupported and it's never stopped.

Oratory there is clearly harmony amongst your siblings

Just finished typing English paper 2 questions for his teacher to mark, Ds is clearly stronger on this paper that paper 1. I'm so impressed with his teacher we send his questions late in the evening and they are back early the next morning and she thanks him for taking the time to do it!!!! DS has asked me to buy her a present which he will give to her after he has done the last english exam.

mmzz older siblings can be a great help in the revision testing which at least shares the load !!

hmc DS has delayed sleep phase disorder. I used to get melatonin posted from the states. It sort f helped, but not really. Then one night I gave DS a sleep mask from one of those long distance flights packs and it has made an enormous difference.
It's definitely worth a try before going down the chemical route.

DS is 15 too, but what difference does age make? I can see it when they were 5 or 6, but 16 or nearly 16??

I can spell! This is the iPad autocorrect messing around with my posts!

It's just hit me:DS2 will be doing RS GCSE in row years! I can't face it again!

Peggy I don't either (although it was the RE stuff I really didn't want to do). YouTube videos (for the explaining) and Tassomai for the checking knowledge have been a saviour.

Sticker I got the letter today, we will be going - the evening of last exam for ds!

Several from ds's school will be going to your first choice. My friend's son went, he very much enjoyed it there.

It's so hard to keep going isn't it.
DD needs company to revise and someone to help with making sense of paragraphs longer than 2 sentences.

But I don't WANT to do waves and electro magnetism.

Goodness knows how DD feels.

Stickerocks - EXACTLY the same has happened here. Months of being a patient mum with sporadic revision from DD has not worked. Gave her THE TALK today. History books are out at last. Good luck to you. X

Total agreement here Brainmelt
Sostenueto Nothing wrong with Nat King Cole! I'm glad she's feeling better now.
DS has wasted the afternoon gaming but assures me some revision will happen later...

Totally agree brainmelt

Well cheered dgd up a bit dd bought her an I tune voucher which she promptly bought the album for kyc and Frank Sinatra album too!. Her all time favourite song....Unforgettable by Nat King Cole?????
Such strange taste in music my dgd has!

education should be taken out of the hands of politicians, and it should be the teachers who have the say

hear, hear.

DD far to pragmatic to worry about results ......she seems to already have a PlanB of how to get into Medicine if PlanA doesn't work. This is a girl that had no real career ambitions 2 weeks ago!

for all of you who have had concert ticket disappointments. Its so hard to get hold of them these days! Some years ago (dd would have been around 11/12) we got tickets for dd to see One Direction (she was only 11/12 so we'll let her off!) through viagogo for 4x the surface value of the ticket. When we got the NEC we couldn't get in - the seller had cancelled the tickets. It was a nightmare - dd in floods of tears. NEC were very good and let us have some restricted view seats up in the Gods which rescued the day

Idsisatwat - I think a good number of dc on this thread have had an exam stress meltdown at some point. During dd's meltdown (last week) she threw a chocolate bar at her wardrobe and it slipped down the back (and is now inaccessible) - cue more hysterics. It was almost comical

Wonderwine - yes their profiles do sound very similar indeed! I must confess I am worrying a bit now about the discussion on here re a tightening up of criteria for extra time, in case this impacts for sixth form and suddenly dd finds herself no longer eligible

Brainmelt - I've read that about melatonin before. Dd stuggles with sleeping much before midnight and is usually on her knees by the end of the week with all the early starts. She used to get a bus into school which necessitated getting up at 6.30 and she protested so bitterly (and looked ashen with exhaustion) that I ended up routinely driving her in the 34 mile round trip - so that she could sleep in an extra 45 minutes until 7.15. Taking exams early certainly impacts on dd - she isn't even 16 yet

stickerrocks- it would cost us a fortune in rackets!!!
It’s weird though because when she does finally talk it through rationally it normally transpires that it was a couple of questions that were hard and not the entire paper but that’s all she can focus on after the event.

Idsisatwat - is your DD taking breaks/seeing friends/doing sport?

Stickerrocks he must have been put up a year because you do NAT5s in S4 (Secondary year 4) when you are either 16 or 15, but about to turn 16.

They don't cram 2 years of A level into 1 year of Higher.

Highers are a 12 month course (with all the usual school holidays). So the students that have just finished their Nat 5s will be starting their Higher courses now and taking them this time last year. Whereas in England, all our children won't be doing anything until September.

Also the Highers are less deep than the A levels. Typically students take 5 of them, whereas here its only 3. However, the Scottish universities pick up where Highers leave off, so the english students who go to university in Scotland find that they are going over old ground at first. IME, they find the first term at university in Scotland is like year 13 i terms of content, but from January onwards they are doing new stuff. (The English students I knew thought they were going to be a whole year ahead and got a bit of a shock after Christmas).
But Scotland does 4 year honours courses, not 3, so although you go to university behind the English students who've done A levels, your age group in England join a year later and you finish at the same time.

I don't know how the advanced Higher thing works. My fear is it relates to the "narrowing the gap" that the SNP obsesses over, which in practice means holding the more able students back so there results look closer to the less able's results.

The pisa rankings indicate that I may be right. Scotland has gone from having an excellent education system to having one that has suffered through political interference.