Y11 2025/26 The Final Stretch

Good luck all in the Geog / Maths /German / CS today tomorrow x

@whereonthestair my son same. Geography in a few minutes! Maths and history. We had to blitz geography last night and this morning. He had done it over Easter but that seems ages away now!
I hope it was the right thing to do to cram. It’s awful really choosing between cramming knowledge and sleep / stress.

Agreed. Yes DD also academic - sounds like it was a tricky paper! GCSE Reddit - hopefully she doesn't know about it either, I'm also not looking.. 2 days no exams before the next 2 on Friday, here..

Relentless this short many and often - I much preferred the 90's way (did mine in 93) of 2-3 hr long, 2 in a day over in 2-3 weeks. But I do see why they don't do that these days.

My DS has Geography today, maths tomorrow history Friday. On reflection I think it is a great shame the exams are not over a longer period. I know some started last week but I don’t think my DS has an out there set of exams but other than half term he has no school day without an exam and many days with two.

We are planning on enforcing no revision after dinner tonight. I am also going to try to get him to go for a swim given usually he swims 5 hours a week minimum and he hasn’t been since Sunday.

Maths tomorrow and history on Friday. Nothing here today

Exactly the same. Dd has declared “I’m done”. She had everything revised so much and none of it came up.

Nothing for son today. Maths tomorrow. History and Latin Friday.

good luck to those with exams today.

My dd has not got over that AQA triple higher paper. She was so happy and confident going in. Had worked so so hard with extra tution as needs a 6 for Psycology. She came out, shut herself in the toilet, I picked her up and she was in bits :-( she is really deflated.

German and computer science and geography

Just geography for DS today. Maths tomorrow and then week 1 is done.

Good luck all doing exams today.
I know a few have got Geography what other exams are on today ?

I have a DS1 who was burnt out in the last week doing 24 exams last year . He was working solidly but nowhere near to the extent that some of your DC are . He also wasn’t crying - and he is of the temperament where he might. His results do show that - think 9 in paper 1 and 6 in paper 2 . That does impact Uni choice a bit - so better to avoid burnt out if possible . Don’t be my DS1 - even though he’s lovely

I second parking after half term content till half term and enforcing some breaks - even if it’s just sat in the garden with an ice cream and their phone .

It’s tough , and fundamentally too much for them really . I’m glad DS2 only has 16 .

apologies for what sounds like a bit of a lecture

@Caddycat and others it is so hard.

I hope everyone has done what I recall DS2 doing (he was my only DC to do the current spec with no coursework and more exams) – at the start of May he basically put away anything that was after half term – so no physics, history IIRC etc. This really helped.

Remember and remind them that these exams are not a test of what they have done in the last two days; they are testing the last two years, and in some cases (maths. MFL, science, Eng lang) the last five or even 11 years of work.

I do think at this stage getting a good sleep, maybe doing a bit of exercise – yoga video, go for a run, have a kickabout – and something to eat (probs not in that order) are really important.

All the best to everyone this week.

@UncomfortableSilence DD is shattered. I suggested no revisions and an early night as shes got no exams today. She refused, then cried doing maths as she was clearly too tired to do it (she had printed end of papers to do hard questions only). We then did some history which was basically me speed reading through her book out loud, so she could feel like she'd done history. How we are going to get through the next 20 exams i have no idea.

Good luck everyone today.

I'm leaving DS and DH to sort themselves out today as I'm unavoidably in London (which is Some Distance from where we live). About to leave now and nervous because DS is up and panicking also.

My DD was in a bad mood so I think she struggled with it to. Hopefully we can move on

My DD did the edexcel combined science foundation paper and said there were lots of questions she had to guess so is feeling very down. She said the topics she had revised most throughly just didn't come up. Looking through the reddit comments though, most others seemed to find the edexcel ok. I hope it doesn't knock her confidence too much.

My dd too. She’s really deflated.

My son thought biology (AQA separate science higher paper) was surprisingly okay. It’s not been his strongest subject so we shall see.

Only three exams in though and he’s just gone to bed utterly, utterly exhausted and without looking at geography.

Phew what a day! A day of two half’s here.

RE - DD was buzzing about this! Apparently there was a really difficult question but randomly they had looked at this topic only last week so her whole class were over the moon.

Biology - well I’m bloody fuming! 🤣 All the revision I’ve done with her for nothing 🤣

Day free tomorrow, so we’ve encouraged her to have a bit easier night tonight as this is going to be a hard schedule to keep up. However she’s upstairs doing history now.

DD did OCR Biology (triple) which no-one else has mentioned, she said it was easy. It is her favourite subject so no idea whether she's done well or it was just an easy paper. Hey ho on to Geography.

Too funny! Nice of you to reassure them.

DS did AQA triple biology today and said it was "easy". I'm starting to suspect that he's going to say that for every exam, no matter how it went.

I did GCSEs in the 00's. No annotated texts there but we still had a fair bit of coursework. I was the swotty kid who loved exams. I think I'm more stressed this time round as a parent!

@ShesRunningOutTheDoor 13yo DD ran into the house yesterday and called me to come and see our 16yo NDN snogging her gf. I declined on the grounds that ogling teenagers would be weird. Giving motherly advice on Reddit sounds ok!

I’ve answered a couple of 16 year olds on Reddit to reassure them - but now my son says that’s wierd!!! I should start my answer with as a 46 year old mother of a year 11. My son says stop talking to random teenagers 🤣😬