3 GCSE exams in one day

Mine had 3 in one day last week. It was brutal. 3 different subjects and only a 20 min gap between the 1st and 2nd.

She coped though and was pleased to get them out of the way.

I'm slightly surprised at F.Maths and French - F.Maths is obviously a minority subject, but most of those doing it will be doing a language, so in schools where the main language is French, there will be quite a lot of pupils affected.

I don’t know how many schools offer FM though; certainly none that I know well locally to me (which is about half a dozen, through work or my own DC).

French only clashes if the school has chosen Pearson Edexcel board. AQA is the most popular board and that has no clash bc the R and L papers are on the same day, so it is done before half term. So I suspect this clash is not very common.

I had 3 A level exams in one day - and it was my 18th birthday!

The exams used to be longer and fewer. The move to more papers makes things easier in lots of ways - it means that those who have extra time can fit their exams into the school day, for instance. Since covid, they have made sure to separate the papers for each subject by at least a week, so that if someone is ill they don't miss both/all papers, and can still be awarded a grade.

However more exams means some doubling-up to fit them all in. All the exam boards use the same days for the same subjects, and they won't double-up on things like English and maths, and probably not things like history and geography. I'm slightly surprised at F.Maths and French - F.Maths is obviously a minority subject, but most of those doing it will be doing a language, so in schools where the main language is French, there will be quite a lot of pupils affected.

Because the exams are mostly shorter, three exams usually fits in the 5.5 hours unless there is extra time involved, so it's probably no worse than when we used to do two 2.5 hour exams in a day, and it was the only paper for each subject so everything hinged on it.

This is not unusual. Pupils are usually held in a secure environment if there is a clash so a later start can be accommodated. Years ago I remrmber staff were asked to host some pupils due to clashes😫

@ExamExamExam My DD has the same exam clash (and it is a clash of the Further Maths & French). They'll sit Biology in the morning and then the other 2 in the afternoon, with up to a 20min break in-between.

My DD had 3 in a day last year. No phones and fully supervised until the 3rd was over. Luckily she really liked the lady who was supervising, she’s autistic and can struggle with new people so I was relieved it went ok. She also had more than one day of 2 exams, her timetable was worse than anyone else’s, it’s luck of draw with subjects and clashes unfortunately. Good luck to all this year’s cohort!

No it’s totally normal
There may be a topic or a text that is preferred from this board or that one, or a style of paper.

Pearson Edexcel MFL allows a choice of topic for the final speaking task which AQA does not under the new spec. So that may be viewed as a positive.

Ahh - it's Edexcel French isn't it? For some reason Edexcel has split up the reading and listening papers for MFL this year which means the written exams are on three days, while AQA has stuck with reading and listening on the same day (they are only short as noted) – so German R and L was yesterday – thus if you are doing AQA French GCSE you don't have a French exam on 8 June. And the FM which is less commonly take is the reason as well. Hope it goes OK for your DC.

One of my A Level kids has three in one day coming up.

All three over two hours! Kid has to be sequestered all day and start early.

That sucks but it's always been the same.

Is it unusual to mix the exam boards?

Which exam board is that? DD is doing those subjects and I don't think that she has three in a day. She is AQA.

There is a limit of 5.5 hours per day including any extra time allowed. If the total time exceeds 5.5 hours he should be allowed to sit one exam the following day and has to be supervised overnight.

I think 3 is pretty rare. My dd only has two days of 2 and no 3s

Oh what subjects? but you say they are short?

<glances at timetable> is it something like Citizenship? I would imagine at least one of the subjects is less commonly taken as apart from MFL three GCSEs in one day is not common. It's usually only if you do an unusual combo like Italian and psychology.

Yeh MFL listening and reading are usually on the same day as they are max an hour each.

Actually Pearson Edexcel has moved to separate days but AQA had two German exams today. Then you could have had another in the am session.

It will be fine @ExamExamExam - I think with reading and listening you get in the zone and do better tbh.

sometimes you get paper 1 and paper 2 for same subjuect following each other like paper 1 is multiple choice for 1 hour then 30 minute break and longer written paper is 90 minutes or similar

also happens with listening exams which are generally only 45 minutes

Quite common especially for mfl.