Parents of Year 12s - exam time again! (oh no!)

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Just noticed we were running out of thread!

Hope you are able to source suitable clothes eggshell.

Last 2 As's for DS tomorrow, and we had university admissions open evening at school today. (Bad timing) Ticked off to discover Cambridge exam (forget the name) is in our Autumn half term, so that puts the kybosh on plans he had to go away to serve with our church youth. He has not had the opportunity to go before, and he will be too old for a youth trip in the future. So far he has managed to balance his volunteering, faith and studies, and he is disappointed to miss his only opportunity. Oh well, he can do something else in the future...

Dd on two days study leave before last lot of internal exams on Thursday and Friday. She heard that two boys had received D grades in their history internal so she is fretting about what her grade will be. I think they always mark down in internal exams but it can have a negative effect.

Had to spend a jeffing fortune on D of E stuff yesterday. It transpired she needed a new rucksack as hers split at Leeds festival. And she wanted a new sleeping bag as she has used her father's on previous expeditions and she pointed out that it is at least 20 years old. The cheek of the girl!

Hope your DD is ok Choc.

Ursula I feel your D of E pain! I have dd2 doing her bronze this weekend and then dd1 doing gold Tuesday to Sunday.
I had hoped that dd2 could just use all the equipment dd1 already has, but with a one day turnaround they are insisting on another sleeping bag amongst other things as cleaning/drying in time will be unlikely!

We have UCAS info evening at school tomorrow - those who have already had theirs, is it worth going? Did you learn anything useful?
DD thinks we don't need to go but I'd hate to miss out on vital information!

It has been a revelation to me that you can buy sleeping bags for different night time temperatures. DD wanted to go for the thinner, lighter one, but I pointed out that the chances of it being over 10 degrees overnight in Snowdonia in September are pretty slim.

Dds internal exams have begun. She was ill Monday due to period pain so missed two exams
She's had English paper 1 which went well and R.S which went ok it not amazing
English paper 2 tomorrow and then 2 Friday

Last week of internal exams here too.

DS is away for a Biology field trip next week from Monday -Thursday. I'm hoping that he will be a little less grumpy when he returns as this week has been a bit rubbish. Exams on Monday and the two days he was hoping to have off for study leave were taken up with Geography field trips.

Closing in to the end of term, finishing early July. He's applying for summer jobs and looking forward to Leeds festival.....

Dd has had English. Horrid start teacher messed up her computer so she started late then put the wrong time on the board which put dd off and was talking to her in her final 5 minutes. She's gutted

DD started her period last night and is really struggling with them at the moment so was not in the right mood for today's exams.
Considering all the randomly bizarre reasons that pupils at her school get extra time for (I'm thinking slow processor and the like) is it worth asking for dispensation for wimmin's issues?

And I ask that with a mahoosive dollop of irony.

DS1 got his marks back for his internal exams in English Lit.

Shakespeare paper (he completely messed this up, restarted the essay 5 times, and only made one point): D
Dystopia paper: B !!!!
Overall grade for Y12 English Lit: C
Predicted grade for A-level: probably B !!!

This is much better than we were expecting; I'm really pleased for him. He is now feeling more hopeful about being allowed to stay on for Y13, and has even started thinking about maybe doing a UCAS application this winter.

However, that's only one subject, so we need to see how the others have gone.

TheSecond Hopefully he'll have learned a lesson with the Shakespeare, one that he won't repeat next year, and if you take that one out of the running then it's not hard to see that the grade will lift. Given his rocky start to the year it's a good place to be in right now.

Well done to your DS TheSecond, that's brilliant. :)

Final AS exam for dd today. Not to the afternoon. Once she gets there safely I feel that we can breathe again for a little while.

Considering all the randomly bizarre reasons that pupils at her school get extra time for (I'm thinking slow processor and the like) is it worth asking for dispensation for wimmin's issues?
For actual A level exams, it may be possible to get special consideration (with a doctor's note) for medical reasons and that may include this type of problem if very severe.
But you don't automatically get extra time for slow processing alone - pupils should be tested and scores have to be very low (below 85 in more than one test) to qualify. If you think the school isn't following the rules then there could be ways of reporting this to the exam boards or JCQ. At the school where I work, very few pupils qualify for extra time now due to new tighter rules and so it is very unfair on them (or others) if other schools aren't following the correct procedures.

DD has M2 this afternoon then nothing until a week on Monday. They are back to normal timetable next week but she is unsure what they are actually going to do.

Well done to your Ds TheSecond.

thesecond
Dds class have all messed up on Shakespeare including dd she is gutted

as exams over for dd. Hooray, another exam season survived. Now it's project work and lots of uni related activities.

FantasyAndHope sorry to hear that your DD also had a terrible Shakespeare paper. I hope that DS1 has learned a valuable lesson about taking a couple of minutes to think about the structure of his essay before putting pen to paper.

DD managed a B in her internal history exam. She was pleased but the tutor was disappointed in her. Although he said she had been sidetracked by revising for her Biology AS. Her mate who claims to do no revision got 5 marks more which peeved her. I never trust folk who loudly proclaim to have done no work.

In other good news, DS1's café job is going well. He has now been taught all the steps for making a latte with the big machine (each of which has its own sound effect when he describes it to me) and has made one for the owner.

Her mate who claims to do no revision

She should take that with a pinch of salt...

I had no idea a latte was complicated. Our teens definitely need different skills than we had to learn. Coffee meant Nescafé and milk when I was 17!

We're off to the Leeds open day today. Having over analysed the prospectus in my usual way I suspect this will be a non-starter but it's a lovely sunny day and not too far to travel.

College started them off with their UCAS forms yesterday.

DS also finished exams yesterday - he has done three A2 maths / further maths papers, as well as a week of internal exams. The school has just had a week of activities around UCAS/gap years/ whatever and he's started his UCAS application (filled in his name and address I think

We're off to the Warwick open day on Friday next. Not sure how many more open days we will do - he's not all that enthusiastic, and having been through the whole process with DD (7 open days in all!) I feel a bit more relaxed about waiting for offer holder days.

Latte sounds complicated!! DS off to Leeds today for open day, we are not going with him to this one. We're all off to Warwick on Friday. He went to a university fair yesterday, picked up a few more prospectuses, but not sure how useful it actually was.

We have just got back from the Leeds open day. DS managed to plan everything he needed to, lecture/talks/etc. Looks like it may be a contender. He checked out the course he is most interested in and found another that isn't as highly publicised but may be an alternative....

Liverpool and Manchester next week and couple of more the week after..

When I went for my interview to Leeds it was winter and raining. It looks so much better in the sun than when it is grim and grey.