Last term of Year 13. Gulp.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Can you believe it?

last thread

All welcome no matter which path your dc have chosen.

I hope the cheaters get taken to the cleaners.

Hugs to your DS Downey. Amazed you manage to keep it from him.

Lonicera that is great that your daughter understood the question in Biology - Chemistry seems to be very important for everything. Even in Textiles which is dd's interest, chemistry is going to come in useful, polymers, dyes, fading, flammability.

Really tough day Downey

downey such a tough day. Best wishes for your ds for Thursday.

It is some comfort that biology was difficult for everyone. I remember struggling quite a bit with Higher biology because I hadn't done chemistry so it is good your dd was able to apply her knowledge lonerica

Dd has her needs assessment for DSA tomorrow morning. The one we had with ds was amazingly good so I am hoping for the same for dd.

Hugs downey hope all goes smoothly as it can be at this tough time
I’m rather shocked at this whole cheating scandal

Best wishes to all.

I think A levels are the first experience of true consequences for many students. Dont do the work, the results wont be enough and the university place will melt away. Get caught cheating and it wont get brushed under the carpet. Schools have to report any irregularities.

DD has been aware of pupils cheating with phones since exams began.

If it makes any difference the mother who complained is a police officer.

I don’t understand how if the DCs have been so aware of the cheating, the invigilators haven’t noticed it happening. Why has it taken someone’s mum to phone in for them to know? Sounds like really poor supervision to me.

According to dd it's a generational thing. She reckons the invigilators are ancient and simply not on the ball with regards to modern tech.

Well one of dds invigilators was half asleep in her exam they finished 2 minutes past the time allowed

I'm quite shocked that people are taking their phones into the exam room at all, let alone actually using them to cheat. They all know the rules, so it would have to be pre-planned and deliberate. The risk of being caught is quite high and the consequences are serious.

I am completely shocked at the cheating!
To begin with I can't imagine why anybody would risk it?!
But I also can't imagine how they could be getting away with it?
I did a stint as an invigilator when I was between jobs about 10 years ago and there is no way a dc could have managed to look at a phone!
There were always at least 3 invigilators, even in the small rooms, and there was literally nothing to do but look at the kids! So we scrutinised them!
If a dc has been looking at a phone during exams then those invigilators are not doing their jobs properly!

Downey hugs to you and your DS. That must have been a horrendous thing to do.

Am not sure how students are taking phones into the exam rooms. At ds's school kids have to turn out their pockets, roll up sleeves and can only have equipment in a clear plastic bag, no pencil cases.
The consequences are severe and rightly so.

I guess different schools will have different practices. dd did do one long exam once by herself when her invigilator fell asleep. Fortunately dd isn't a cheat and would have found it very difficult to cheat in that particular exam, but still.....

They have to use clear pencil cases for exams at DD's school.

Any way, I'm off to work. Good luck to everyone's DC today. Chemistry 2 for DD. She is bored to death of doing practice papers.

Downey Thinking of you and your DS.

NoHaudin How long did it take for them to get in touch with your about DD's DSA assessment? We applied three weeks ago but haven't heard anything yet.

Good Luck today for Chemistry and any other exams 🍀

Am I the only one who thinks it's a bit harsh having Chemistry the day after Biology? There must be a huge percentage of DC who do both, you'd think they'd have spread them out a bit more, At least given them a day in between.
My DD is doing neither, but she's so lucky, hers have been beautifully spread out.

Dds exams have been on consecutive days so far. She moans that it's not fair.

Feel like we've gone off the boil a bit.

Good luck all exam sitters for today.

Well, we are done. Two DC home until September. From what I can see I don't have enough bread, or plates, or glassware for this to be a viable option and the sooner I get them jobs the better. DS3 is tamping at the unfairness of it all.

I am just that someone would cheat. I am the kind of saddo that is glad they were dobbed in, hate rule breakers!

Chemistry for DD2 today, not exactly bubbling over with confidence. Planning to go into school to do some more practice questions this morning.

I think we are in the middle phase of the exams. Plenty behind but plenty still to come.

I keep losing track of which exams are coming up. The exam entry list provided is in order of subject which is apparently best for the student. Absolutely no consideration for the over anxious parent - the cheek of it!

We have three print outs of her timetable and I put it in my outlook calendar so we all know where we are up to.

Downey that was an incredibly tough day for your DS & yourself & so terribly sad

Cheating is despicable after all the hard work DC put in & a very sad indictment of a society that thinks it owes them something for doing nothing! The press was awash with teenage exam angst stories over the weekend too, with students who are top graders finding them hard.

DD has 2 days of revision now before next exam. Best of luck to all your DC sitting exams today.

@lonicera and @gnome, DS has chem 2 this afternoon too. He's more confident about it than chem 1, so i only hope that is conveyed in his answering of the paper! Once this is done he's half way through, 4 done 4 to go. He is lucky in that his has been spread out. A friends' DD had 5 last week (2 days with 2 per day!) and 4 this week - all done by Friday.
Good luck all with exams today.

Good luck all!

Dd has her last RS exam on Monday but as she's repeating year 13 she's still got to go in for lessons for the two new subjects she picked up earlier this year! She seems absolutely fine about it and said this morning that she doesn't feel ready for uni this year anyway. So that's good and positive. I'll have to join a current year 12 thread!!

I've sent ds1 off to his Eng Lit Frankenstein. I don't think he has worked very hard for it and seems to know about half of what he should (ie did not know about nature with a capital N) (I'm thinking ahead to the examiner's report 2018 where it will be reported that some candidates misunderstood this question and wrote at length about .....[--] instead of Nature with a capital N)

MrSlant so exciting! I've told dd that she should teach herself grade 5 theory (she is at about 2 atm) and get an instrument up to grade 3 in the holidays. I've told ds2 he needs to read 10 actual books. And do the Sixth form preparatory project for photography if he is interested in trying it for A level (no gsce requirements apart from 8 x 5s - just portfolio) That should keep them busy.
Ds1, well, learning to cook. Learning to drive, learning to run and learning to live outside his room/classroom.