Last term of Year 13. Gulp.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Can you believe it?

last thread

All welcome no matter which path your dc have chosen.

DS1 tried to go on Google classroom today to download some extra resources for this week's exams. He couldn't log in so checked group chat to see if anyone else was having the same problem. It turns out that the school removed the whole of Y13 from the system. In the middle of their A-levels.

A lot of students have emailed the school, so hopefully access will be reinstated tomorrow.

Wow! How unhelpful is that!

Well DD has had a melt-down tonight and is convinced she doesn't know anything, and the the bits she might remember won't be on the paper.

I've just given her a little good luck charm from me and DH and handed over my watch she is using to time.

Will be so glad when this is over!

Your poor dd raspberry. I hope she manages a good nights sleep tonight.

This stress seems worse than GCSEs.

Third that's totally balmy. What possessed them?!

Bless her raspberry
I too will be very glad when these exams are over. DS2 has taken GCSE exams in his stride so far, but DS1 has been all over the place.

Bela that sounds so tough for your dd. I'm glad she's feeling relieved at the decision being made. If I was her teacher I would be horrified that she'd felt under such pressure and would be fully supportive that she takes a break and concentrates on her health. I hope her school are as supportive of her as she needs, it sounds like you're all very supportive at home.

Raspberry your dd sounds very stressed too. Poor her! I hope she manages to relax a bit.

Ursula you don't seem to be having much luck with your horse. I hope he's alright and starts behaving himself.

Dd thinks chemistry was good today. She's happy with how things went, her teacher did a good job at the revision session this morning of predicting what would come up, so she felt very prepared.

The staff at dds school are being really helpful. An envelope arrived thus morning with some handwritten notes on Othello, there is a Handmaids catch up later in the week and The Psychology tutor was hopping around outside the exam room to see how it went.

Yes the horse is a bloody nightmare OYBBK. We call him the self harming TB.

Ds1 was quite pleased with chem today. He said his most difficult topics seemed to have the easier questions while the harder questions were on the topics he felt more confident in.

Ds2 was checking his geography paper through and discovered he had missed an entire page. He had to very quickly write in his answers.

We had a roofer out today to look at our kitchen roof and see what needs to be repaired - it's coming off completely and being redone. We also removed boxing from around our boiler ready for new flooring in the dining room and found it has been leaking and the floor underneath is rotten. It feels like one step forwards two steps back at the moment. Something else to sort out!

Sorry about your horse Ursula.

Raspberry I too will be so glad when this month is over & exams done! The extra stress & meltdowns are due in part to our DC being guinea pigs for the new system & syllabi & not knowing exactly what the new papers will be asking of them.

Sending lots of to all those DC going through the mill right now & for us parents trying to support them all too!

Lashings you are so right that they are the guinea pigs and this is getting to them. Also they spend so long thinking about what happens next in their lives and they feel that the A levels are so important when taking that step.

So we start tomorrow....

Dd says everyone was saying chemistry was dreadful at her school
Hopefully they’ll lower the grade boundaries if this is the case?
Hugs to chemistry students

Dd has had a meltdown similar issues to you beka
The school don’t think even with 4 consultant letters she will be granted special considerations
Dd said she feels tired and sick in the exams and she knows she isn’t performing as well so she panicks
Also, there’s a boy doing his GCSEs on computer with dd and he’s a distraction apparently in the room he simly speaks out loud to the invigilator instead of calling them over.
Hugs raspberry it will all be over soon

Raspberry not for the first time I'm thinking our DDs are very similar!
We've had tears tonight too - for the exact same reasons. DD is terrified that she doesn't know everything, and now doesn't have enough time left to learn all the things she thinks she doesn't know.
The truth is, the sheer breadth of the topic is ludicrous - nobody could possibly remember every single date of every single amendment and act and election and strike in 100+ years of American History , not to mention all the thousands of other facts and figures.

It's too much. There is too much information. Tonight I've been over her notes with her again.
Her notes consist of over 100 revision cards. Each card has at least 10 events on it, and for each event there are at least 3 facts to remember (dates, names, places, numbers)

In tomorrow's exam they will be asked just 3 questions.
So much of that information won't be used. It feels like such a waste.

Anyway, I've finally prised the cards out of her hands and sent her to bed.
I've never seen her so anxious about anything - not the admissions exams last year, not even about uni interviews, and certainly not about GCSEs.

I'll be so glad when tomorrow is over.

It's like living with a pressure cooker Marmite and the government wonders why mental health issues have doubled but continue to meddle with exams & school league tables whilst sticking their head in the sand! Rant over

It is not wasted, she'll remember the general jist of it forever, and that is the point of doing an A level, even if the individual topic doesn't come up in the exam. It is not like playing roulette, it is a course of study that develops your mind and imagination. The exams are just the carrot that make people study, otherwise they probably wouldn't waste all that time...

[thoroughly jaded]

Lobster, your daughter will be fine, the minutae facts are just tiny details, the main thing is her grasp of the arguments and just a framework of some supporting evidence, it doesn't have to be every single bit of evidence. If she hadn't done the revision cards, her arguments wouldn't have hold together, but it is almost a process of developing understanding, the actual information on the revision cards doesn't have to go verbatim into an essay.

Otherwise we would all have to have superhuman recall to get good grades.

Just finished watching Streetcar with Jessica Lange and Alec Baldwin.

Hope today’s exam takers have slept well and the ones upset about papers can refocus for the next one.

Such a pressurized time - and yes they are 18 but still young.

Ds has 2.5 days off now before physics on Friday. Next Week is the hard one - 2 maths papers & geography (which he is doing for his degree).

Wishing everyone a drama free day and happy faces after today’s exams.

It's the first exam here, morning exam and then back into class this afternoon. When I rang at the end of last term and asked I was told there was no teaching after half term which is clearly not the case.

Chemistry, he was unsure about how he did. Apparently his practice papers have ranged from an A- a C! But it's done and it's only a third of the exam so fingers crossed. C2 today, he seems quite confident about that.

DS said Chemistry yesterday was 'okay'. Thank god as it is his degree subject and most of his revision has been for the maths exams he has today, M1 and FP2. Don't know whether he's even thought about Biology tomorrow

I've not slept worrying about the horse.

Heard dd have a massive and prolonged sneezing fit during the wee small hours. She gets bad hay fever.

She will be doing last minute History revision this morning whilst her father and I attempt to catch the horse. Wish me luck!

And better luck to those with exams today.

Wanted to say a special good luck for history today. Can't imagine how much there must be to learn - the amount DS has for GCSE seems ridiculous enough!!

Good luck to everyone else too!

DD has maths M1 this morning. I think it's her least favourite maths paper, but she seems quite calm. Chemistry was apparently "alright" but harder than last year's (OCR A)

DD may well have been a beacon of calm on the surface but I see from her email in box (that still appears by mine) that she signed up for clearing alerts from the student room as soon as she got in. Of course it could just be that someone mentioned it in school and reminded her to do it...

Upshot was of course that I didn’t sleep at all last night - awake till it got light. I am now worried sick that she will have another MH episode. The irony is not lost and I will not even suggest to her that I am concerned !

Thinking calming thoughts! I suspect the poor dog may be walked into the ground today.

DD managed to sleep (so did I!) And seems much better this morning thank goodness. Nervous but determined.

Nettles thankyou for your kind response and for being the voice of reason last night, that was exactly what she (and I ) needed to hear!

Good luck today everyone 🍀🍀🍀

Good luck today everyone!

dd was much better today. Another cooked breakfast done and eaten (bacon sarnie). By the end of the day, another exam crossed off.

I hope that's just your dd being pragmatic Hardwick.

Good luck Ursula. Don't fall down a rabbit hole!

Good luck to everyone today