Y11 2025/26 The Final Stretch

That sounds really good!

One of my students wore ripped black skinny jeans, a red leather jacket and a tee with a sequin teddy bear on it. He looked EPIC.

We have heard absolutely nothing yet about The Prom. Ds wants to go mainly because of FOMO. But i just suggested we go looking for a suit to wear and he had a freakout. So who knows. Last year one of the more confident boys wore a sequined jacket and he looked terrific.

Lol @3GoldenLamps I remember reading a Mills & Boon instead of doing physics revision..I ended up with a D but was so relieved I was giving it up. I did much better in my A levels and did go to a great uni so it didn't particularly hold me back!

We had a long chat last night about whether DD did really want to do art a level, based on art thief comments up thread. She's considering doing architecture which it would be good for, but also I feel that was something she just said she may like in y9 ( we have a few architect friends) so am wary of choosing A levels based on a whim. She's got work experience in the summer so that may help her decide.

We also went down a rabbit hole of looking at modern language courses at uni as she loves German so felt quite inspired by that. @clary may ask for your advice if she goes down this route. She hasn't done another language (she did Latin in yr 8 &9) but would love to start another at uni if possible.

She goes to a very academic grammar school where most kids want to be doctors, lawyers or bankers so I think is feeling the pressure to know what she wants to be and choose accordingly. So much more intense than just doing the subjects you like which is what I did.

No prom dress here yet which is a further stress but I have friends with older kids who said Zara had a great selection in May half term so that's our plan ATM. Haven't talked heels but we do have the same size feet so she could wear some of mine, if she can walk in them!

Shirt embellishing party planned for next weekend with her friends.

Just to echo everyone else. I actually think I could sit the science GCSE and scrape a 6 or 7 given the amount of ‘revision’ I’ve done the last 2 years. 🤣 Physicis is hard though so no chance of me getting anything over a 7. Sad times.

I remember it being really hot - and sitting on my bedroom floor with my back to the cold radiator - revision book on my knees .. I know I was bored - felt I’d read it all to death so did a lot of daydreaming . There wasn’t any guidance in those days , no past papers etc

I got middling grades and ended up at a red brick uni - didn’t even get offers from the I really wanted ( Exeter ) .

It was tough getting work when I came out of uni . I was looking for a training contract - I started my career as a lawyer .

My only clear memory (I was brought up in Australia) is going with my dad for a long weekend to Singapore - which we did quite often- and getting back the morning of my Politics exam. He went to work and I sat around in our garden drinking rum and coke then went to school for the exam in the afternoon.

But we did not have a GCSE equivalent- just an A-level equivalent. So i was slightly older. I did get into the uni I wanted- but pretty much everyone did in those days. Lord. That was 35 years ago!

I only vaguely remember sitting out in the garden working on a tan reading a textbook.

Definitely pushing students alot more these days. But was so easy to get jobs in my day.

I barely remember mine. I can vaguely picture a very busy O level revision timetable and it was 2-3 week period. I don’t recall revision but I must have done a month or so around lessons

😂I feel like this too.

I'm way more invested now than I was during my own.

I think I've learn't more maths in the last 6 months than during the whole of my GCSE's 😄

Meant to say new format is MFL GCSE, not IGCSE which is the same as previous years for both main boards (tho there is a big difference between the exam for Cambs and for Pearson)

The format change:
Three tasks- read aloud (new); role play (the same but prompts in English); picture task - no questions given, discussion is just on that theme. Examiner has set questions for pic and for readaloud task. Then general convo on pic theme.

AQA - no choice of theme, two pix to describe
Edexcel - choice between two themes for pic task. Two pix, choose one to describe.

It used to be role play, pic with some set qus abd some unseen, general convo.

I do exams in exam centres for HE YP and those taking the exam out of school (eg school does not offer it). I also do some in school but usually A level, GCSE is usually the teacher (A level can be too).

That’s interesting! Dd had her Spanish on Monday and felt it went well. Out of interest, how is the new format different to last year? she didn’t have an external examiner, just her own teacher. Are external examiners randomly allocated?

Yes I hope everyone taking MFL who has had their speaking felt it went well.

In case any are still to come, I have been doing lots of them this week as an external examiner. One tip if it’s GCSE (rather than IGCSE) is that the read-aloud task does not test your French or German or Spanish accent – but whether you are saying the words correctly. So watch out for umlauts in German and endings in French and loan words in both.

Thank you. And thank you also @Caddycat . I did not realise it's a whole paper.

Hope the MFL people got on ok today .

DS is in school tomorrow for organised revision - which is probably a good thing - I don’t think the teacher doing it would be sacrificing his Saturday morning if he didn’t think his class needed it .

Hope it’s not going to get too hot too soon .DS1 has year 12 mocks starting next week too ( for predicted grades - I am going to be peeking between my fingers )

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zktrg7h/video
@3GoldenLamps
other videos too

@3GoldenLamps
we found some good videos of medicine in Britain on BBC bitesize. They are short, snappy and engaging. My son actually said he liked them and wanted to watch another one 🤣

@BeasKnee at least art doesn't have a paper. Dance has a paper where they analyse choreographies and that's worth 40% of the final mark... So pointless. And Drama is also english disguised as art... So little acting, but DD loved it.

I agree that the history content is just too much, and so disjointed in a way... DD is doing History of medicine, Elizabethan England, Germany 1890 to 1940 and Conflicts and Tensions Inter Wars. The only saving grace is the overlapping of Germany and inter wars, but it is so so much and the way they have to answer questions is actually quite hard - knowing the syllabus isn't enough. @3GoldenLamps I wouldn't advise ignoring a whole topic though, he will have a 1 hour paper on History of medicine, that's 25% of his final mark.

@Lemonthyme I agree about learning the quotes, such a waste of time. I feel sorry for them.

re Prom shoes. DD had heels but also some cheap fold up ballet flats in her bag. By the end of the evening a lot of the girls were in bare feet.

Oh my DS did that history of medicine bit first I think @3GoldenLamps and found it dull as shit. He's far more interested in the cold war stuff they did but that was less of their syllabus.

I get why nowadays English can't be reverted to 100% coursework like it was in the 90s but when it went to the exam method, they didn't have the AI tools which are here now. Sadly it means they can't go back and that kind of torture will continue. What is the f'ing point of making them learn poetry quotes though? Really??? How is that helpful in life? Even if I impressed by son by quoting some of Romeo and Juliet the other day, it's only because I had to learn it for Drama GCSE.

DS and I were talking about History yesterday. The last bit they did (on their own) was either History of Disease or History of medicine- can't recall what it's called.

He said he was just going to ignore it. He doesn't have time. Pity as it's such an interesting topic. I can't see the point of the cramming and intensity. It just ruins a subject for them. (Don't get me started on the utter shite the English poetry syllabus is.... I scribe for alot of the iGCSE English and the topics, the subject matter etc are so bleeding dull... and the questions for essays really quite uninspiring IMO).

They're getting somewhere, just a tough slog for now. Be worth it when they get their results..

Time-wise I think she does about 2 hrs each evening and 5-6 each wkend day. Seems a lot but she won't do less. I've learnt not to interfere, she has her plans. Still try though as they need breaks, usually bribery is involved.

Agreed about History. High in content. I suggested to DD that she did Geography and Computing, rather than History and Art - purely because I knew the differences in amount of work they'd need to do (not saying Geography and Computing are easier - just less content to learn). But she loves History and Art so it didn't seem right to do GCSEs she not interested in!