Gcse 2018 (10) The one with half term

Omg! Wrong papers don't they think the DC have enough stress!
Dgd also worrying about geography as regards timing. She says not enough time to write complete full details for high mark questions in order to get all marks for them.
Update on pup.....she has a phantom pregnancy and us even lactating! Apparently more common than you think and happens directly after heat is over. Overload if hormones that can take 70 days to get better! One injection and a lot lighter in pocket and managed to get a little food down but had to give pink pig which she has adopted as her pup a bit, then her a bit and so on. It is comical to watch her because usually stuffed toys last about 3 minutes and I wondered why latest toys still intact! Depression, going off food, not wanting a walk and lactating all signs of phantom pregnancy.

A bit late to report but DS's Edexcel history Medicine in Britain went really well and he very kindly told me what he wrote for each question in great detail without me having to even ask

Well done Jufus DD on the dancing trophies!

Secretly dreading tomorrow English Language.......my fault I shouldn't have offered to type up his questions for his teacher to mark, I would of remained in blissful ignorance of his ability otherwise!! He's also got geography in the afternoon which should be fine.......I've been nowhere near his geography!!

Teen They lost, though he played reasonably well, and he is unhurt! Hoorah.

That's awful about the paper Aragog - what a nightmare. Thinking about that, what's happened about those poor DC who has revised the wrong play - can't remember which posters were telling us.

Teen I think it was you thinking about asking if your DC could drop a subject?

2 of mine have done this. One was a MFL and school could see it just wasn’t going to happen. I can’t remember where DC hung out instead of being in German.

Other DC dropped RE at start of y10 just to reduce stress and manage workload. Her form tutor was a computing teacher so she went to her form room and did coursework, blooming Welsh Bacc report or just wasted time at the back on a computer.

Just remembered another DC dropped French and has library lessons to do homework and music lessons in the empty spaces so it doesn’t impact on other lesson time.

I didn’t realise how much dropping out we have done

Wonderwine the contrast between driving - you can learn when you like, at any age, and GCSEs - 10 subjects at 15 or 16, is massive.

Jufus - well done to your DD...

Sost - Hope the pup is OK - have you been to the vets?

Kingscote - How did your DS get on yesterday?

Yes, the potential for a child to get really stressed must be huge. I suppose at least with modern technology the delay could be minimised. The exam board have apologised and appear to have accepted responsibility, but its really not great.

Gosh how unsettling to have the wrong paper, that would freak out DD!

Aragog I'm pleased they didn't make us wait in the exam hall, the delay was a couple of hours if I recall. And it was a 3 hour paper so we'd have been sat there for 5 hours! Good on your DD for keeping her cool. It's far from ideal though.

Oh my goodness - the tension Aragog. Glad it was spotted before they started but very unsettling.

Well done Jufus's dd!

I think its difficult to see how they will change the History grade boundaries ..I think they have been around 90% for an A* the last few years ...movement maybe just the odd %.

In our case the papers were handed out as normal and we were told to begin. When we opened the paper none of the questions made sense and it took a few seconds for us to realise that we had the wrong paper.

Simple thing - was being handed out, just before they were about to start, when a teacher noticed a few girls looking puzzled - who then told the invigilator it was the wrong paper.
They weren't allowed to leave the exam hall. Just had to sit and wait, though they were given some bottles of water. As they were in the halls it was exam conditions so had to just sit quietly.
Luckily DD takes most things in her stride though I imagine fr a particularly anxious child it would cause a real flap and potential issues too.

Aragog that happened to me only it was an A Level paper! In our case the papers were handed out as normal and we were told to begin. When we opened the paper none of the questions made sense and it took a few seconds for us to realise that we had the wrong paper. Cue a load of hands going up and panicked invigilators! We had to file out of the exam hall and wait in a classroom while the exam board faxed through the correct paper (this was pre-email) and then the papers copied. It took an age! I still have an exam dream about that all these years later. That few seconds of thinking I'd revised all the wrong stuff was awful.

Glad to hear that exams today have broadly gone ok.

stringmealong my dc did the same history paper but said the opposite. Liked the Germany bit, but wasn't much to say on America

Dogs - don't tell me that, she really wanted top marks for history!

DD had AQA History today - Germany and Conflict & Tension. Though AQA had sent them the American history paper! School discovered on opening the papers just as the exam was about to start. Mean a delay of 45 minutes whilst school contact AQA (it was the board's error) who apologised and emailed through the proper paper, had them printed and copied for them to start the real paper. DD said it made for a fairly stressful start to the day. Though she seemed to think the paper ' wasn't too bad" whatever that means.

Stringmealong - the consensus at DS's school was that igcse edexcel history this morning was an easy paper so grade boundaries are likely to be high.

@JufusMum - wonderful news! I think it's really important to keep some balance in the DCs lives. I have to say not everyone I know IRL has the same attitude 😬 and there have been absolute bans on extra curricular stuff for their DC for a couple of months. I think it's overkill personally but each to their own.

Well done Jufus DD. I think you're right - success in one area and the confidence it brings can really boost performance elsewhere.

Well Done on the Dance trophies Mini Jufus! But don't tell DD - I vetoed all comps during the exam period. Mostly because rehearsals for the summer show are ramping up and she couldn't possibly commit to both on top of exams.

And well done to the historians, sounds like all did well.
DD said psychology2 was quite nice but she didn't enjoy it as much as paper 1 (I didn't point out that the exams weren't necessarily designed for her enjoyment. . .)

Thanks Sticker. No more competitions until 8th July now which DD has a bit of a face on about. She has missed so much class in the past few weeks, I didn't think she would but she has made the decision, I'm surprised as all of her friends are at dancing rather than school. Glad I let her do the competition yesterday though, walked away with a 1st place and a 2nd place so she is boosted by that and hopefully her good mood will last all week!

*stringmealong" - yes, DS was very happy with the Classical Civilisations paper too! All the question areas we predicted would come up DID, and he wrote his essay on the Circus Maximus & Colesseum which are his favourite topics!

I just had an interesting chat with DS1 (doing A levels) about how ridiculous the GCSE testing/exam system is, and he said why could GCSEs not be more like the DVLA Theory Test? His proposal was:

• a big bank of questions for a subject which can be randomly arranged into an exam, with each exam attempt being different
• ability to visit a 'GCSE centre' using passport/biometric identity data and sit (or resist) an exam whenever you are ready for it
• little private booths and computer screen (all entries made via computer)
• no mass panic over summer exam periods - students could 'collect' their GCSEs over a period of 2-3 years (or longer if necessary).

It all sounded v.v. sensible!

DD just called to say she is not going to dance again tonight - she must be very, very serious! She had a competition yesterday so very little revision but two nice big trophies haha!
English and Geography tomorrow, hoping for good things with the English having spent a small fortune on (rather good) tutor. Hope everyone's DC are doing well.

GCSE 2018 (11) Paper 2s await...

would be my suggestion.

or GCSE 2018 (11) Eng Lang - what could possibly go wrong?!

Classical Civilisations was apparently easy!