Thread 33 - Lovely Jubbly Jubilee Break, then back 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. Possibly a move to Parent of Adult Children Board in future?
previous thread

Meanwhile, DD is working hard for AS levels in online shopping and travel planning - all very relevant for core maths.

DD is pretty good at those subjects too @mummyinbeds , particularly online shopping for prom dresses. She currently has at least 8 in her room, which need to be whittled down to 2... Bearing in mind she has been buying and returning dresses for at least the last 2 months, and we've had at least one delivery a day it seems for the whole of that period, she's something of an expert!

Dd2 is pretty similar @CrazyCrofter & @Mummy. Especially for special dresses. She's now informed me she needs dresses for her holiday in 3 weeks when she's going to Phuket & Vietnam with her school friends. She now says her only denim shorts & skirt from last year are too hot for Asia.

Motivation for ds1 was definitely flagging here over half term. This revision period seems to have gone on for ever. I don't know how much work he did, but not as much as he would have liked. Two more Psychology exams for him left, with 1 tomorrow.
Ds2 had Maths GCSE today & has 3 more to go.

My DCs are flagging a bit too, especially DS as he has only two papers left, one on Friday and one the week after next, it's too long a gap between papers if you re only doing one subject.

DD is just tired - she's got GCSE maths and geog today, already had a bad start when we got to school and she realised she'd forgotten her compass, luckily had time to whizz back home in the car and fetch it as we had gone in pretty early. Made me late for work though. She would get top marks in GCSEs The Marvel Universe, Dr Who and Harry Potter. DS would get top marks in the English Premier and Football Leagues for the last 10 years, also the capitals and flags of the world.

Dd has been texting me about what to do with her trust fund money - which ISA to opt for etc.and how much to withdraw for summer spending! She tells me she has more money in her bank than she thought as she’s waiting for £310 back in refunds on prom dresses!

I am sorry to hear the upsetting news from a few days ago. How sad for all involved and those touched by the ripples.
This seems to be a heavy week for lots of us. Dd has 2 exams on Thursday and another on Friday morning. Roll on the weekend!
dd went to the gp last week and had a full blood test. I phoned for the results this afternoon and they wouldn’t give them to me, they spoke to her and said she needs to speak to a dr as the liver function and bone profile ones were amiss. We now have to wait until July to speak to them. She’s a bit taken aback and anxious so I’m not sure she’ll be in the right frame of mind for revision this afternoon bless her. I’m trying to reassure myself that if anything was really wrong, they wouldn’t wait until July. Eugh, it seems there’s always something doesn’t it?

@Seeline @GoldenRuby dd also has 3 exams today and tomorrow and the eng lit is 3 hours long! Has anyone heard how that went this morning? She's doing it now because of the clash.

DS says his Eng Lit was OK, he doesn't seem quite as confident as he did with History but onwards and upwards.

@cariadambyth I'm not surprised she's a bit anxious. Agree they aren't rushing around so it won't be urgent but still. With our GP DD can say to them 'talk to my Mum' and hand the phone over. She's lots of medical stuff to juggle, and it gets her down sometimes so I'm happy to discuss meds, appointments etc None of it serious, but it all has an impact. All we can do is say 'put it out of your mind and concentrate on your exams' but that is easier said than done!

DD said her Eng Lit went ok - she didn't quite finish the conclusion of essay 3, but at least she ended on a full sentence - so who's to know she had more in her head?!

DS reports maths was ok.

The supplementary subjects are amusing. Loving xbox with French!

AQA sociology was rather left field by all accounts but DS is fine.

Eduqas sociology very nice!

DS said his AQA maths went well this afternoon although did say that most people who weren't doing further maths found it very difficult, which tallies with twitter. When I asked if he finished it he said he didn't do the last 3 mark question because "I was bored, I couldn't be bothered and it wasn't worth it" 😏

I love the AQA Xbox with French, sounds fun!! @mummyinbeds

DS said general consensus was that maths was ok.

DS said the consensus at his school was that the Edexcel paper was hard. He sent me a 💩emojee when I asked!

DD took WJEC English lit this morning - unseen poetry and Chaucer. She said the poetry question was “ a gift”, but isn’t totally happy with the Chaucer question and is now ruminating, feeling she’s not done well enough to get her much- wanted A.

Edexcel GCSE maths paper 2 was “ pretty good”, according to DS.

Anyone do WJEC pure maths this afternoon? 😱

DS has been getting 80%+ consistently on pure papers over the last few months, he's good at it. He reckons he might get 40% if he's lucky, there was a lot of stuff they had never seen before, apparently. His first big wobble. Gutted for him - Dominos ordered, going out to get him a beer now. Then back to physics revision tomorrow!

Oh no Monkey sorry to hear that 😓DS’s was OCR.

I think we will see super low grade boundaries, DS was very confident about this paper, maths is his most reliable A* but he (and a lot of people on TSR) did not have time to finish. Hopefully same for WJEC @singingstones .

@singingstones if it helps twitter feedback on the WJEC maths is that it was awful so your DS is not alone. It will no doubt be reflected in grade boundaries.

Yep maths very hard apparently. I feel sick.

Really sorry to see some Maths boards were awful, they really don’t need this. It is positive that is a consensus that some of the boards were really hard and think Monkey is right, there will be low grade boundaries. Doesn’t help their morale one bit though .

Somebody I know who was aiming for a C in maths thought the Edexcel paper was good, so maybe there was a very broad range of difficulty -the easy questions were very easy and the hard ones very hard.

Thanks 22 that's good to know. Just need to try and keep him focused now. I've bought some Fab lollies which elicited a brief smile
#oldiebutgoodie 😂

Ds reckoned that the sociology was a stinker and would cause a mn outrage. He said the questions were vague, not nice, niche, and the 20 marker on religion was only just on the periphery of what they said they would be tested on.

Onwards to psychology tomorrow he says.