Thread 32 - Corona Cohort 'May' the Mumsnet force be with them for their venture to exams

[OrangeCinnamonCroissant]

This is a thread for supporting all young people post GCSEs 2020, regardless of their educational setting. It is respectfully requested that all are supportive and helpful to each other. If you want to start a debate, e.g state vs private, please don't within this thread. Please also be sensitive when responding to threads about grades.

Some of us have been here since first thread back in yr10, some will be new. Everyone has been friendly and helpful in the past. Everyone is welcome. It is hoped this will continue.

Our DS/DD may go down various paths (such as employment, apprenticeships, higher ed) We have decided for anyone interested they will most likely find us within the Further Ed board.

Previous Thread 31

CONGRATULATIONS ZEBRACAT !

@justhere you might well have a point re. Stress related rashes there. The Gp has diagnosed it as a sunlight sensitive antibiotic rash. The Cortisone cream seems to have soothed it a bit, as it's less red & weepy today. We've stopped the offending antibiotics. But I'm waiting for a clinician to phone me back about optimum antihistamine doses. I can't go to the Gp or chemist as they will just tell me to stop taking the ADHD drug right away. Which under the circumstances won't be good.

I can see your DS's Bio teachers point.
It's far easier to capture more marks in the high marks questions, than the lower marked ones. It's a strategy for picking up the most marks. However it's not one that everyone uses, as it upsets some pupils not to work methodically through the paper. Your Ds is obviously a strategist and it will get him far in life.

@Cantonet bless him, it must be very hard to deal with it all. You try and help with one thing and you just get knock on side effects which create more issues. I hope it clears up soon for him

I also understand DS/the teachers point but I worry because he needs an A to get where he wants to go. I'm generally letting him get on with it and we certainly aren't arguing about it thankfully, but I don't want him to not think the other stuff isn't important. I hope you're right abut him getting far in life, I need him to get me in a good home when I'm old! 😂

I think biology is quite hard to get marks in anyway, there's such a lot to learn, and at gcse at least, the marks are triggered by such specific words eg a mark for 'wider', no mark for 'bigger' type of thing. Good to make them really think about their language but neither of mine seem to have picked up this detail in school and it's a right old faff to check the mark schemes and learn what is and isn't acceptable terminology.

Totally agree re marks scheme for Biology @singingstones . DD is constantly moaning that she understands it all but is totally frustrated with how the marks scheme works. Therefore revision at school is a waste of time as it's the marks scheme she need time to revise rather than the content.

Also same here about not revising everything - although for Biology I think she is going to anyway but definitely not for Psychology. She said she will read the stuff she hasn't revised once the night before just in case...

I've just made the mistake of asking her about something I read in her school email today (she asks me to check them) but it wasn't important (it was fun rather than work) so I shouldn't get involved - It was re voting for who was most likely etc. I should have known to have waited for her to talk to me about it later as now she's in a huff in her room. oh well I can crack on with invoicing instead... It's such a tricky balance at times..

@Cantonet hope its sorted soonest, what a pain for him (and you).

@Cantonet I hope your DS gets some relief soon.

DD is currently baking cookies to share at school tomorrow, this is after a trip to the park last night and before she goes to an exercise class later. I have kindly questioned whether her time would be better spent revising but she says she's fine.🤐 She did make me laugh earlier mind, doing some practice maths questions and she asked me to help her with something (I have no clue on the maths, sometimes it just helps her to talk it through I think), she explained the only answer she thought it could be but that it couldn't possibly be that because it was too easy and the question was worth 5 marks, I pointed out I did well in maths at school but has never heard of the thing she was talking about, she still wasn't having it so I had to find the past paper marking scheme online to show it really was that 'easy'! I only hope she doesn't spend time in her exams trying to complicate things.

Lord! Your post about Classics gave me a proper scare @KingscoteStaff 😱
DD says feedback from those of her friends that sat Classical Civilisation today was that it was a nice paper.
Meanwhile, for her , she’s cracking on with revising for the 2 ‘unseen verse and prose’ papers in Greek and Latin that she’ll be sitting next week.
Whilst also having flashbacks to the CAT…

@singingstones I have said this on here before....ds1 didn't want to know his results. He had arranged to meet his friends at school at 10am to open them together. So he wouldn't look on ucas or at emails. He was driving to school and heard a text come through. He looked at it when he had stopped the car, thinking it was me asking his results. It was his firm university congratulating him. So he knew he had met the grades and was disappointed to get the text. So anyone who doesn't want to know, don't have a phone nearby!

Ha, that's a good tip icanbe, I would never have thought of that!

I'm not sure what DD will want to do but I would be worried that if she didn't look at UCAS first to see what uni she has been accepted to, if she got to school and looked at results first but didn't make AAB (say got ABB) that she would be gutted that she didn't make Nottingham - but they "might" have accepted her and therefore sad for no reason and lost the excitement momement. But if she knows she is accepted at Nottingham she will assume she got AAB but if found out she didn't the acceptance will cushion the blow of grades. God I really haven't worded that well at all. Basically I would rather she looked at UCAS first then found out grades as I think that would be better for her - and me ;-) But as everything else she will do what she wants anyway :-) I think she will look at UCAS first because she can. No idea re gettings results from school yet anyway.

Results day is a whole other minefield awaiting us Heifer!
It's three months tomorrow, ages yet, so I will try to stop thinking about it until DS has done his first exam at least 😂

Sorry @ProggyMat - that will teach me to listen to DD with one ear and Only Connect with the other…

Sounds like lots of us are going to be stressed next Tuesday with the first psychology paper? I'm glad one will be done before half term.

Psychology is DD’s first too @NCTDN although she’s mainly worried about learning the content for her first history exam.

@EspeciallyDistracted did you do an 18th photobook? Which company did you use? I’ve only got 2 weeks so I need a fast service!!

First exam done - DD was very nervous beforehand but says she thought it went 'quite well' - it was a speaking exam. She was OK with the topics (she got a choice of two - neither her favourite one nor her worst so quite positive, on balance). Back again on Thursday for the next one.

I’m worried about GCSE results day as ds seems overly confident and I’m dreading it being a let down after he’s put in quite a lot of work (for him). Plus, if he does no better than his mocks he’ll decide revision isn’t worth the effort in future! He seems sure that he got a 9 in today’s biology paper. But he’s never got more than a 7 in any subject before!

Another one with psych as the first exam next Tuesday, swiftly followed by Business on Wednesday....

@crazycrofter DD thought biology was very straightforward today - she has now sat 3 gcse exams and each one she has described as much easier than past papers. She said Computer science was so simple her whole cohort finished it incredibly quickly and then sat their twiddling their thumbs for a full hour waiting for the exam to officially finish.
She is now worried that all the exams will be so easy that the grade boundaries will be insanely high and quite arbitrary at the top end, varying only by 2-3 marks…

I remember! We were also quite hopeful that the opportunity would be taken so that GCSEs could less labour intensive...a bit like we imagined the coastal waters would stay clear and pollution free like they were in spring 2020

Crazy and NCT we too have psychology Tuesday. But first Ds1 has sociology on the Monday and so far all revision seems to have been mostly for sociology.

DD has her first exam for Psychology on Tuesday too.

Good luck to your DD today ealing

This is exactly what DS said to me that so many are coming out saying they found the exams easy that the grade boundaries will be high. English language GCSE this morning, DS will be glad to get that one done!

DD plodding on with revision going into school to make full use of the teachers time. Her next exam is after half term. Good luck to all those with exams starting this week.

English Lang this morning for DD too, and economics this afternoon. So far she hasn't found anything easy though! Several of her teachers have said grade boundaries should be a bit easier than last year so she's hanging on to that thought!

No, it's psychology he's been mainly doing. At the detriment to sociology and basically no business hardly at all. We talked about it this morning.
I asked him to reconsider separating them more evenly now. Tbf it did seem like he needed to pay more attention to psychology in his revision up into this point, because it is the trickiest.

@Cantonet I hope his skin calms down soon.

Interesting about the GCSEs so far seeming easier. I've said a couple of times to DS small boundaries are likely with the A levels. I think the biology essay questions may be crucial.