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

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Just noticed we were running out of thread!

Signing in. Dd has her Biology AS next week. Yesterday her Biology teacher wasted 45 minutes of a lesson doing precisely nothing as only three students were there. The other 12 were having prefect photos taken. Dd is the only one doing an AS, he has yet to finish the syllabus, she pleaded with him to give her some assistance but he refused.

Oh how I hate that school.

That's terrible Ursula, really bad. How can he not want her to do as well as she can?

TheSecond. Tidying is clearly a great stress reliever! (actually, it's what I do when I'm stressed. Friends think I'm very tidy, not realising it's an expression of stress!)

FP1 this morning. Cooked breakfast with my eyes shut.

He hadn't realised her exam was next week apparently.

She did a past paper and asked him to mark it last week but he told her he was too busy with the Y11s.

That's terrible Ursula. We've had some problems with syllabus gaps, with no excuse as all the students are doing AS. The French teacher hadn't realised exams started this week and they wouldn't be in class!

Hope your DD is ok. Can she appeal to HoD and get some to help her?

DD has English Lit and FP1 today. Maths is MEI.

Five minutes between due to clash. It doesn't seem long to switch your brain over.

I wish my DS found cleaning a stress reliever. His room is gradually getting worse. Trying not to lose it with him during the exams.
If he was younger I'd go in and sort it, but he doesn't want that. I keep dropping hints that it's a nicer environment to revise if tidy

Raspberry you would expect then to allow longer between exams. Enough time to use the bathroom and have a snack at least.

That's quite mean Raspberry. How long is English Lit?

90 minutes Kitten. I asked about the toilet and she reckoned not, but they must have provision for that surely. She is in the same room as as the people doing FP1 at the right time. They go and she and another girl start again.

That's not ideal at all. I wouldn't make a fuss in front of her, but I've been doing a quick read and 15mins-30 mins is normal, having invigilator ready to supervise those who need the loo. Where exams total 3 hours or more then the college can move an exam to the afternoon at their discretion, with students supervised throughout.

Where exams total 3 hours or more then the college can move an exam to the afternoon at their discretion, with students supervised throughout.
That's what happened for dd on Weds. 2 exams clashed so she did the 2 hour one in the morning and then the 1.5 hour one after lunch. I think you need permission from the exam board to do this though. The exam clash students were in a different room to those doing the main exam so had no contact with the others.
I invigilate exams and 5 mins isn't enough time to collect in the papers for the first exam and then put out papers for the second one so there should be enough time to supervise students going to the loo. (Usually use staff loo to avoid contact with other students).
No study leave at the college and it's back to normal lessons. It looks as if one of the questions on the paper was controversial and the teacher has made a complaint to the exam board. dd seems to be the only dc on MN taking this subject so no need for anyone else to be worried.

Hola! Spanish all done & dusted yesterday & Paper 2 was better than expected says DD (well, better than Paper 1 anyway!) She's so relieved it's all over. Geography today & Biology last ones (hurray!)

Ursula & Ripple that's a worry for you both! Lobster I don't envy you next year! A friend who had five of them going through exams & dissertations all at once said the only way to keep sane that year was copious amounts of 🍷 & 🍫!

Best of luck to all those doing exams today - nearly the weekend!

DS has law this afternoon then a concert tonight in which he will be the guest performer, complete with biography in the programme. I wrote that, with particular attention to SPAG. Having them both on the same day isn't my idea of fun because there will not be enough time to get him from one to the other if he comes home on the bus so it's mum's taxi again.

I really would like it to be the weekend but I'll settle for a fast forward to 8pm tonight.

Ursula I understand that students here who are taking an AS in linear subjects are expected to do a lot more work because there is no revision time in class and I'm not even sure that they are guaranteed to have covered the syllabus. I am very glad that DS is only taking the AS where it's a non linear subject so everyone in the class is taking it and teaching is structured around the exam.

Next week should have been one exam and study leave but the teacher of the exam is offering revision sessions so it's going to be a daily hour's round trip to college for just over an hour's lesson.

Is Biology linear? I've lost track.

She was going to drop English originally but would have only covered half the syllabus this year.

Scary Knitting! you must be very proud though.

Biology is linear. As is Physics, but dds college seemed to have fitted it into the time without any issue. I've no idea how well it ties into the a level curriculum though.

No exams for DD1 today, so though she says she has three subject to revise for for next week, I know that already today she's played the piano, and played about on UniFrog with her short list... both constructive procrastinations I suppose.

Ursula Biology is linear for us. Lots of time spent doing revision notes at home by DD & then learning them, as not enough time in class to do everything. I'm hoping the AS syllabus underpins the A2 syllabus, but as stand alone qualifications now, hard to tell until they start the A2 stuff. All such a learning curve between older DD's exams & now younger DD's exams. You need an exam in education these days just to keep up with it all! Just glad we haven't got the amount of papers we all had with GCSEs last year though!

UniFrog? that's one I've not heard of.

UniFrog - I think school pays for it

It's a good little tool I think - makes them a short list with bags of important information and course details for everything they are interested in, and mails their form tutor with the details. The then score points for all the extra work they put in to finessing their info.

DD has only just started using it, but she does seem to like it.

That sounds interesting!

I gather that the FP1 paper today has been rather unpleasant.

Are there less papers for GCSE this year? There is a girl at the yard who is Y11 and she seems to be around a lot and looking quite chilled.

Hi, haven't been on the thread for ages - it's moved on quite a bit!

OYBBK, my DS also found today's further maths paper difficult, but he says everyone did, so that's some consolation.

Same at dds college Muffin.

Ursula, maybe some schools have put them in for less because they are getting more challenging. There are 3 papers for maths now.

There aren't any fewer exams for GCSE this year. My y 11 pupils are mostly looking rather stressed, particularly the conscientious ones. The ones who have messed around for years are still messing around but tell everybody they meet about how hard they're working

Dd's fp1 isn't till 14 th June. She is still in lessons, but doesn't have another exam till Wednesday, which is C2.