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

100% on YouTube here too. I actually think it’s quite good, I’ve watched a few with him and learnt something.

finally managed to get in a pre-exam joke this morning - he asked for money to go to the shop before school and I know he’s after a Monster energy (YUCK) so I made a terrible pun about chemical energy transferring to kinetic (which is probably incorrect). He was horrified

@Littletreefrog - I think watching stuff is definitely a thing . Neither DC seemed to use their own notes taken over the course at all .. YouTube and save my exams and the odd more specialist YouTuber

My DS's whole revision strategy since we bought him a laptop in April (big mistake) has been watching YouTube videos. My young work colleagues have been telling me it's a legitimate revision strategy but my "born in the 80s" mentality can't help thinking a bit of reading and writing would help!

Argh so sorry to hear that - my dd is on the tail end of a similar thing. Yes do let the school know - ours was v supportive and has put measures in place. It’s awful timing isn’t it and feels so unfair.

sending extra luck to the two DC that are still unwell - hope the adrenaline kicks in .. I had gastroenteritis in my Geography gcse many many moons ago - still remember now - something did kick in though and I got through it

DS2 was watching one of those YouTube videos that tries to cover all the content in no time at all last night … he keeps telling me he can pass just by doing the calculations with formula in the first few questions and then calculated guesses in the multiple choice 🤷🏻‍♀️ .

DS told he was very comfortable with physics - tested him last night and I wasn’t exactly blown away!

We had to get a doctors note for DD the week before half term, She did one exam (English Lit) while ill with ear infections in both ears and a chest infection, then she didn’t take computer science paper 2 in the afternoon at all. We put in the note for both and hopefully they will accept it. It’s such bad timing.

I really hope your DD is feeling better soon.

@FlyingPandas is sleeping seriously a thing?? I’ve seen others say it happens. It was only one hour !! ( OCR here)

@Wincher I think that’s very sensible to let school know. Even if they can move desk further or similar

Hello again, somehow had missed the new thread!

DS is ill - what terrible timing. He’s been feverish/lethargic/had the runs since yesterday. He seems a bit better this evening and had some dinner but he lost all the physics revision time he had planned for today. Going to have to dose him up on paracetamol before the exam tomorrow - and it’s only just occurred to me perhaps I should mention to school in case they want him to sit apart from the others so as not to spread germs. Just hoping he’s on the mend now!

What a lovely thing to do @NotDarkGothicMama I have a theory that PE GCSE brings out the worst in some students who can behave like perfectly decent human beings until they step into the PE arena! I had to invigilate it at our school today and it was painful. Was very glad it was only an hour. And even then we had multiple toilet break requests and several just went to sleep.

DS had his final Greek paper today so that's another subject ticked off. He is another one who is 'quite looking forward to physics, actually' and says that 'it's is usually a really enjoyable paper'. Sometimes I can't believe I gave birth to him!

He is autistic so does struggle with writing stuff that is untrue

@tourdefrance yes this is definitely a thing. In fact lots of YP IME are not keen to make stuff up, which is one reason why the schools topic is always a winner – at least for DC in school, most of them have a view about favourite subject and a teacher they don't like haha.

Reporting back that The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui was fantastic. And contained a lot more explicit history than I'd expected. DS certainly enjoyed it and we discussed who the characters represented on the drive home. I didn't book it as paper 3 revision at all so that's just luck.

We have a double bill of History and French on Thursday too. DS types his and checks the word count. He is autistic so does struggle with writing stuff that is untrue, but we have been working on that. I gave him a choice of writing about a wedding he'd attended (he never has) or the musical instruments he plays (he doesn't) over half term and he wrote about his cousin's wedding quite convincingly!

@NotDarkGothicMama thats a nice thing to do.
DD is meant to be doing physics for ALevel 🙄

DS loves Physics and Maths. He rants at great length about all the other subjects, just to balance it out.

I've bought the PE department a net of footballs to say sorry for DS being the most infuriating GCSE student of the year. I bet they're as relieved as I am that he's finished that subject!

Hi just found the thread thought everyone was gavia break over half-term 😂

@NotDarkGothicMama your DS might be in the minority looking forward to the physics exam 😅
DD just wants it over with. Even bit back at her bfs mum who was saying he was going to fail it as not done enough revision. Said her uncle left with no gcses and was on 6 figures oops.
She has done a few past papers for maths and physics got stressed over silly mistakes.

@Drivingselfmad hope your DD is feeling better.
Can't recall who was asking fir advice over a perfectionist I got DD to look at grade boundaries and how they can differ. I knew she would have problems so chucked her into sport so she could learn to cope with being beaten definitely helped her racing against someone her age in the UK top 10 🤣 taught her to race for herself.

DS finished PE today, hoorah! That's PE, Business Studies and English Literature done. He's looking forward to Physics tomorrow.

My DS would have definitely done better just doing exams straight through but then some kids needed the break so you can't please everybody unfortunately. He is not at all in the zone now like was before half term.

Big week here, RE today, then physics, maths, french, history and English lang. I’m so ready for this to be over, I know DD is. It’s almost crueller giving them half term off and then asking them to start over again

Sorry that was my poor wording (bad English teacher!). As @Crispsandwich25 said, it’s a question where they ask you to analyse language from specific lines of one extract only. So you need to make sure you have the right source (A or B) and the right line numbers.

No. It’s the question where they give an extract but the instructions tell you to refer to only a specific set of lines from the extract. My DD referred to the whole thing rather than just the specific lines she was meant to.

Hopefully she’s been reading the questions properly in the other exams .

Thank you so much

Hi, I’m sorry but could you please explain this? My dd had no idea? Do you mean limit the number of lines you write?

Yes @Anonymousemouses they get a sheet. See the attached link from AQA which explains in detail.

www.aqa.org.uk/news/gcse-maths-and-gcse-sciences-formulae-and-equation-sheets-for-2025-2027