May half term - holiday for child doing GCSEs

Just as an FYI, English lang starts BEFORE the May half term this year - exam boards have released timetables.

OP, my ds is the same age as yours, gcses next spring. We're having a last break now. Revising for mocks will start next week. Then a break at Christmas, before more serious revising and focus next spring.

We'll go somewhere lovely after they are finished.

Is he treated for his ADHD?

Correct papers? I meant core papers obvs

Tbf @Longma mentions IGCSEs, eng lang is very early IIRC, this year it was in early May I think.

But most students don't sit IGCSE so will certainly have a good number of the correct papers - eng lang, maths and science - as well as most likely some option subjects after half term.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow yes, he is severely dyslexic, sat all his GCSE’s that school entered him into, scraped one pass in Eng Lit, he is 20 now and works hard in an very specialised area of tech, his lack of GCSE’s hasn’t held him back. His school would fine parents for the cost of the exam if they didn’t turn up.

How is your health now? improving I hope

But he still needed to do GCSE?

Highly unusual. All major exam boards timetable their exams in the same slots, so Eng Lang for example is always after May half term in the same slots regardless of whether you're doing AQA, Edexcel, OCR or Eduqas. Has been the case for at least 10 years.

My DS2 wasn’t academic, we would have taken a holiday, chance to relax from the pressure of school.

Interestingly enough my Ds was like this. Wanted the champagne lifestyle on a brown ale income!
By really knuckling down and studying he achieved results beyond his (and my) wildest dreams. He now sees that hard work brings rewards and opens doors and is doing A levels with a decent career path to aim for. But it was hell getting him to that point!! And could do easily have gone the other way…

The provisional timetable for the exams is available on line, so you can see what exams fall before and after the half term. I’ve also got a Y11 and not planning to go away that week.

Absolutely not. I had a reluctant reviser. It was actually a big O birthday for me in that May half term and I’d have loved to have been sipping a cocktail on a beach rather than ferrying him to extra revision sessions and policing his revision time at home, but I didn’t as I put his GCSES over a nice holiday and my own celebrations.
You sound like you’ve given up even trying to push him on revising and the holiday is far more important to you.
At the end of the day only you know in your heart if it’s the right thing to do and you will have to live with the consequences if the results aren’t as good as they could have been. There will always be that doubt as to if you had stayed at home, the results might have been better.
Personally I couldn’t live with that ‘what if’ feeling.

Just a reminder for those booking summer holidays to check dates of results weeks as well. Depending on whether the results are as expected, there may be a lot of rethinking required following results, so while they can get them remotely I wouldn’t advise it (had one dd who went through clearing and we absolutely spent all day on phones)

Don't do this. Instead, book a lovely holiday for after the exams finish. It's only one year, but GCSE results could affect opportunities available going forward.

Not fair to go away. They will miss revision sessions at school and will need to spend the week revising at home.

I would never have gone in the spring of either GCSEs or A-levels. They need to be revising. You could plan one or two day trips maybe. It is a real pain in the neck when kids have exams and the effect on the wider family, but you have no choice but to put up with it. You also need to give a message that you take it seriously.

Having been through this a couple of times no I wouldn't go away at half term but this year we have one doing GCSEs and one doing A levels. Contingency day is 26th June I believe this year so we are planning to go away straight after that. Still 'term time' so holidays are cheaper and quieter and it's something to look forward to when it's all over. I'm sure there are a lot more exams now than when I did them, several papers for each subject and definitely seems more pressure these days.

Absolutely not. We go away every may half term also but this year we stayed at home so that add could revise- she had 8 exams the week after half term and 7 the week after. It is a vital time and I would consider it selfish to go away just because you love your holidays.

Just checked AQA and papers after half term in 2018 included both eng lang, three Spanish, one history, two geography, two maths, one chemistry, one biology, one physics and three German. Obviously not all students will sit all of those. DS2 would have sat 11 of those if that had been his year.

Maybe your DD took PE, CS and French and no humanity. She still will have sat 3 x science, 2 x maths and 2 x Eng lang in June tho.

Apologies I see you say it was 2018 so post-reform.

By May half term she had done the vast majority of her exams.

@Longma that is unusual tho, even before Covid stretched out the timetable. was this post GCSE reforms - bc these have meant more exams for a lot of DC (eg more MFL papers, drama exam etc)

DS2 took exams in 2019 under the new spec (so the number of papers is more relevant than DD in 2017 as she sat fewer papers) and his last exam was on 12 June IIRC. He had a lot before half term, for sure, but he also had a lot after. It was a roughly 60-40 split - he certainly had a week with about 8 papers after the half term break.

Some history was after the holiday and so was some Spanish; Eng lang as well and some maths and deffo some science as the last paper was physics. People who took German had all their MFL in June. Maybe your DD did subjects that were all in May (DS had CS and PE in May as well as Eng Lit). But I think for most DC (especially now) there will still be a significant number of papers to sit in June.

They are right, you can't go. Dd was furious with us for taking her away in the January of her GCSE year. Yes I think lfe pretty much does have to go on hold Jan- June.