Y11 2025-26 - Trying not to melt and pushing through the final weeks

My DD the same (she did creative subjects) she couldnt wait to drop sciences!

I am also loving getting rid of past papers and revision notes as we finish each subjects. Revision books are being piled up on a shelf and will be donated to school, along with uniform. They have a regular second hand sales for parents. We've bought quite a few items although most of the revision guides came from Facebook about 4 years ago when ds1 was in year 10.

Ah ok. Fair enough.

Ha polar opposite here… dd loves writing and cannot WAIT to never do physics chemistry or maths ever again!

DS also ran out of time.. .this has been a common theme since primary that he doesnt have enough time. and hates writing He said he wrote 2 paragraphs instead of 4 but said it went OK. But he said a lot of people found it hard.
He got 2 grades lower than expected in mocks but went this morning saying he knew where he went wrong, before and what he needed to do different...so I feel bad that it didnt entirely go to plan...
He did say hes pleased he doesnt need to write an essay again (hes doing STEM for A levels)

Essentially they can take retakes in any subject where they’re not happy with the grade.

@makemineadecaf but surely that would only need to be English or maths?

gosh I’m not binning anything until we no there’s no retakes!!

We haven’t cleared out yet. We also haven’t written on anything so plan to give them away

Yes me!

Every time a paper is over I ceremonially rip in half all the associated past papers, notes, knowledge organisers and dump them dramatically in the recycling. Gather all the books and revision cards ready to donate to the school.

My dining table which was laid out in order of exams and associated stuff is getting nice and empty. Just the sciences and maths now for my boy.

It's very satisfying.

DD is looking forward to a big clear out - SO much paper! I'm in 2 minds as to whether to keep the revision guides, they have all been used a lot, highlighted and annotated, but her sister isn't too far behind... Im not sure how useful they would be but equally we have so many, I feel bad binning them.

@SevenKingsMustDie We’ve also got a box where it’s all going, also all the revision guides are going in there, I will ask school if they would like some that have been hardly used as she mainly used online tools for revision. I can’t wait to give her room a really big clear out when it’s all over!

DD also happy with English, she said she had a feeling it would be AI/Tech and she has plenty to say about that. 6 more to go!

@LittletreefrogI hope you and your DS are ok and he’s able to process it all. What a let down from his school it makes me so angry.

RE Art, DD was given her raw score by email, they were all given it with the deadline of when they can appeal that mark. We viewed all the work the other evening after it had been moderated. DD had done a large A2 canvas for her last piece and her teacher had advised to really bring it down in terms of size for the exam to ensure it could all be completed.

I bet that box weighs a tonne!

DD has a big box that she’s dumping all her gubbins in as she completes each subject - nice visual representation of how much she’s put into it all!!

6 to go….

On a different note who’s enjoying recycling all the piles of paper each day! My house is getting less cluttered every day now 🤣

DS said English was "fine" I've just left him reading his Autism diagnosis report after letting him know the diagnosis. We couldn't wait until after the exams as he was asking constantly and said he knew it was coming this week. Hopefully it doesn't de-rail him too much but just maths, sciences and geography left. He is normally ok with maths and science and we are not too bothered about geography.

I'm trying to write an email to his school to express my disappointment that it didn't occur to them to mention to us at any point in the last 5 years all the difficulties they disclosed to the autism assessment.

I won't share that thought with DS @Drivingselfmad or he will be glaring suspiciously at his teachers.

He said that English Language was "fine" and he thinks he'll get a 7. I hope so!

My son did OCR higher Maths this week and said it was really hard. He is autistic so doesn't say much but did say it got very difficult after each question. Paper 1 he was happy with. I hope paper 3 is better!

Did anyone elses DC do OCR Higher Maths this week? Dd said it was the hardest paper 5 she has ever done. Do we think grade boundries are likely to reflect this?

Did anyone see the news today about the A level Maths this week and there being a petition as it was 'impossible' is it just me or are they really changing things up this year?

😆 Love their suspicious minds. If I was on the grade scam, I’d have been teaching my Y11s all the wrong things too surely, to advantage my DD - which would be truly diabolical!

From an English teacher perspective, it was a good paper today. But lots of kids saying they didn’t finish / maybe they all had so much to write that they ran out of time. Not spoken to my dd - she’s off with pals and prefers to debrief in person.

DD enjoyed English Language today (AQA), though she said she had no clue what a phonograph/phonogram(?) was in the olde worlde text. She's really hoping for a 6. 4 exams left for us 🥳.

Whilst she wants to do A levels, she's got an interview at a local college on Monday to discuss T levels as a backup plan. Super proud of her getting this far after EBSA since year 8.

Luckily my son, whose imagination is not the best, has actually worked with children in summer football camps so he was confident writing about that. Also luckily, I’d made him read an article on ‘should phones be banned’ this morning when I turned off his TikTok and told him to revise 🤣

Dd said English 1 was better but was pleased with English 2 today - even though she was writing to the wire and only just finished without proofreading time. Apparently timings were super tight with this paper!

Still 8 exams to go…

Eduqas was ‘can we live without phones’ and ‘write a letter to the council explaining why you’d be ideal to work with children’ (not exact but along those lines)