Y11 2025/26 The Final Stretch

DD also upset as didn’t know lots of the paper. She’s being brave and hoping to make up points on the other papers. It’s a knock in confidence early on though especially after a positive day yesterday.

Same. DS came out of biology combined and said it was awful and he had never seen some of the topics that came up before. Then he collapsed in tears in the car on the way home. He was predicted 7 possibly scrape an 8. Now he's on the reddit thread looking for what others are saying.

Mine just burst into tears saying biology was harder than expected !
English and business yesterday in her words were a paper sent from heaven!

Just found this thread. Waiting for a message from DD on how triple Biology went… I felt like she seemed pretty well prepared last night but the lack of feedback is making me nervous

DD said separate biology was harder that she anticipated and that there was a tricky data set question on vaping. She doesn’t seem too gloomy about it though so hoping she’s done ok

Just found this thread trying to find some info on today’s bio exam. DD has come out very deflated saying there was nothing she knew. We’ve had a pep talk, said it will be better than she thinks and to forget about it now.

Dd2 just home - she said triple was fine so that’s something.

Dd also said biology combined was super hard… we have spent so many hours going over mitosis , enzymes , heart and none of them came up. Hopefully grade boundary will be low 🤞

Dd1 has gone to the gym so I have to wait and see. No text is not the best sign though…..

DS2 reports back that biology combined was better than expected . He reckons about 50% which would be good for him and science .. he was 4.4 in the mocks (though I think the chemistry was massaged ) .. it is always possible that he’s missed the point on another posters strange questions though !

This has felt like a long 2 hours waiting for bio to finish. It is DD’s weakest science and she was so worried about it. I hope it’s going ok.

As my eldest reminded her, higher paper grade boundaries for science are really very low. Sometimes it’s only around 60% for a grade 9. So they can feel like they did badly but still get a high grade. Exam
board was AQA

Oh god. Dd1 is sitting this and wants to do bio a level. She’s a track 8 for bio normally and a track 7 for the other 2 sciences, occasionally an 8 on a good day so was counting on today being ok.

dd2 is doing the triple paper so hopefully that went ok

Those of you who did GCSEs in the 90s, I did mine in 1993 and it was 100% coursework for English lang and lit! Exam board was NEAB (northern). Looking back it seems crazy that it was allowed. So much writing and rewriting of essays!

DS also said RS was fine this morning. I asked him to tell me about nirvana (the state not the band) this morning on the way in and it came up on the paper. So that made me feel useful 😜

Tbf he is generally quite upbeat after exams and it is no indicator of how well he’s actually done!

DD has just come in saying biology (combined) higher paper was super hard… and questions were very strange.

DD said it was “fine”, make of that what you will. I couldn’t get any more out of her as she was busy cramming for Bio.

You can usually get an idea of the exam content straight afterwards on the gcse Reddit thread. It seems like a race to get on there and post a comment or meme about something that came up!

Thank you. Good to know!

@Caddycat your poor DD that's awful of her friends. Hope she gets a break from them.
DD has a classmate like that says paper was easy DD says it was hard and she normally scores higher than her classmate.

Agree with this. As an ex teacher I always taught flex. What do you know, how can you apply it to the question and what they are asking. Avoiding the situation of - that’s not the question I thought or wanted etc….SM telling kids this is what they predict is going to come up is not helpful.

@Caddycat your poor DD that's awful of her friends. Hope she gets a break from them.
DD has a classmate like that says paper was easy DD says it was hard and she normally scores higher than her classmate.

Any news on AQA RS? I usually get a text from DD post exams but radio silence. I did tell her paper/s out of your head onto next one. So won’t be texting or quizzing her. Just wanted a heads up if anyone had heard from their DD or DS to read the room before she gets home so can support best. Biology this afternoon. Long day with three papers and extra time. And expected in school on non exam days/periods. 🤯 Really feel for them all and yes absolutely remember taking English lit books marked up during A-levels at least. I did 10 GCSEs too but did not have 24 exams! I hope everyone is faring up ok, kids and parents.

@Caddycat all those hours of studying WILL have paid off, they really will. I don’t think the YouTubers do harm, apart from when they act like they definitely know what the Lit questions are going to be (they don’t!), and so kids don’t revise anything else. When it comes to exam technique, tho, most are teachers and can be useful resources. I recommend Mr Bruff and Mr to my students (and dd), for example. But it would be impossible to base your entire Lit answer on a YouTube video - your dd will have brought in all her fabulous ideas and knowledge much more than anything a YouTuber told her. It’s more likely she just picked up a tip or two.