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

Yes it was. We were all very amused that DD wrote all about how dreadful AI was, having literally just used it in paper one to write her creative writing piece. 😆

So was AI the topic on Q5? DS has a LOT to say about that 😂 so that's good.(He was not impressed when I was using it to mark his french writing practice questions).

DD also said her timings were out for English and she didn’t finish, she is usually really strong in English, I think she is super tired after a full week of exams. Thank god this week is over! Just all the paper 2s for science, paper 3 for maths and further maths left

Music now for my DD too! She was dreading the part where they have to write the notes on the score (or something like that?! I’m completely non-musical). She said that part she finds so hard!

DC also didn't finish Eng Lang this morning, but thinks the Q4 and Q5 went well. Is hoping for a 6 - I think it will be borderline, fingers crossed they have done well enough in what they did do.

I hope so - this has given me hope! She’s glad it’s over as for some reason this the subject she dislikes most.

English didn’t go that well here, sadly I suspect. Usually I get “fine” or “good” or “ok”. This time I got “I only made 3, no wait 4 major mistakes - not counting grammar and spelling obviously”. I mean if he remembers them and they are preying on his mind they must be pretty major as normally he totally forgets the entire paper as soon as he’s done it :(.
Now feeling a bit panicky about the results in the summer. Silly as nothing we can do about it now but can’t help it. Trying not to let him see though.
Glad it went better for others.

My son upset he only wrote half a 16 marker in history yesterday due to timing. He loves the Cold War so stayed in his happy place for too long 🤣
He made sure to be extra vigilant with timings today and managed fine.
its a hard pill to swallow though when you know you could have got the marks but ran out of time! V frustrating

No feedback on English yet as she'll be heading into the Music exam now. She was unlucky with timetabling and had 7 'double days' so this is the last thankfully! The coursework element of music has taken the pressure off for the exam and we're off for cake afterwards to celebrate being 75% through😀

DD not too happy with English Lang paper 2. She said she found the reading passage hard (she has dyslexia) and they had to write an article but she wasn’t sure she fully understood the question. Hopefully it’s gone well enough - the first paper was ok I think as creative writing is a strength for her.

As for Art, she was disappointed with her raw mark. We were going to query it but we only had a week and she was ill and also apparently you can only say you don’t think they applied the marking scheme fairly and having looked it up, I don’t really know whether it was or wasn’t. She was just disappointed as she’d been led to believe it would be a solid 8 and she had a chance of a 9, but on last year’s grade boundaries she’s only an 8 by 1 mark, so it could well be a 7.

Since it’s her favourite subject and she wants to go on and study only Art next year, she was disappointed, especially that they hadn’t given any indication when she still had time to do more. But I think she’s put it behind her now - I think it must be pretty subjective and different from school to school however they try to standardise it.

The timings really threw my DD out this morning too. And she’s normally pretty good at working within timings.

@Crispsandwich25 oh no sorry to hear that. Good news though that DFD ain't panicking nothing can be done heard of people miss out whole sections and still get a 6/7.🤞
DD wasn't keen on Eng exam question but iffy, but glad it's over and never has to sit English again.

My DD felt the same about Q5 this morning!

DD is done with 6/10 GCSEs now - only science and maths remaining, nearly there! Hope they’re all hanging in there!

My DS also only finished 2 or 3 subjects depending on how you count English lang and lit. He is sure today went badly as far as I can tell because he has less time than he wanted for the Q5. He did write a decent amount thought from what he said and he thought paper 1 had gone better than expected so fingers crossed it’s not a problem

Dd1 update was English good but she didn’t finish. She did the big markers though so hopefully that’s ok. Their English teacher is excellent and they both usually do pretty well (7/8) so fingers crossed that remains the case.

7 left for dd1, 9 for dd2 (she’s doing further maths). So single figures but all pretty hard exams. It feels a bit odd that they have only totally finished 2 subjects (3 if lit and lang count separately.

so hard core science and maths this weekend with some history to break it up - both enjoy paper 2 content or to quote dd ‘I do love nazis’

Daughter done with 4 entire subjects 👍 still 5 exams to go.

Not confident on any of them 😬 Maths apparently went particularly badly. She was so confident going into Paper 2 especially and came out totally demoralised 🫤 so not looking forward to getting that mark 😱

Oh no @Crispsandwich25fingers crossed it’s ok

10 days and five exams left here, can’t wait for it all to be over! Five GCSEs are now over and done with following this morning’s English language paper.

Argh, DDs second English Lang paper did not go well with timing and she missed a whole question (8 marks). In mocks she’d always got a high 6-8 and with the error she made on the first paper I’m now panicking about her even getting a 5. This is the only subject she’s had any issues with but has messed up both papers! The rest of it went well apparently so right now she’s not panicking (just me!).

AQA English ok, and now down to just 6 exams, hurray! And every exam they sit from now on in will clear off that subject which is a nice position to be in. 2 more weekends of revision then freedom!

We only got Art raw marks yesterday. We were expecting it to be very close to an 8 based on previous sketchbooks but it's come out as a solid 7 - which is also amazing but this was the one subject where she thought an 8 was possible. There's some confusing maths involved but I was quite surprised that internal moderation brought down her two previous sketchbooks/outcomes so much - she went down about 4 marks despite adding to them following advice before final submission. She wants to ask her teachers why but I'm not sure it's worth it. I don't have the knowledge to accurately challenge a grade/marking and I'm sure it's not the obvious cases where they've missed whole pages of work, for example.

True but they do have the external people come and check the schools marking standard. After that the raw marks can go up or down. The finale 1-9 grade isn't determined until then.

Definitely not a fool proof process though - my daughter and friends are certain that some externals will be influenced by some schools / teachers to keep their marks 'as is' even if they're objectively too generous compared to other schools..