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

DD said Psych (AQA) had some nice questions on it, and it was OK. She'd guessed at the topic of one of the essays, and was happy with the research methods section (she is weird and actually likes that bit!) Hope everyone else is happy too.

She is now panicking about tomorrow - Business and first biology paper. I think she feels really under-prepared for bio.

Had a message from DD asking if my hay-fever is suddenly very bad. Just realised it is 8 June which is the date weirdly mine always use to badly kick off. I think it is the start of the grass season.

Dd messaged to say Psychology wasn’t awful but she’s just checked her notes and realised she got loads of silly things wrong. Oh well, nothing to be done now, I’m hoping she feels a bit better for tomorrow and Friday as it’s never great doing exams when you’re unwell.

@Shimy 2019 was the first year of linear A level for maths and the style of the paper was very different from the old syllabus. Students in schools where they taught them maths from first principles did well (ours had record results) but "exam factories" who focused on how to answer exam questions (like my niece's top performing indie) had terrible results. The grade boundaries took a significant dive as they were hard papers

OCR psychology was apparently ok, but not enough time.

@Monkey2001 You are quite correct about them being the first yrs of linear Maths, had forgotten about that. DS1 was also at an indy but not one of the top ones , probably what saved him.

My DD said that Psychology (AQA) was good this morning and she was happy with the questions.

She also said the Sociology (AQA) wasn't great yesterday but wasn't as upset as a lot of others and, like someone said earlier, just did her best and answered as best she could with the knowledge she has!

Hope others with exams today get on well - over halfway through here now!

@Shimy just to clarify, I didn't mean to sound anti-indie, just saying that "coaching" to pass exams rather than "teaching" is part of the way they can generally get better results for their more marginal pupils, and that did not work so well in 2019. Of course there is a lot of excellent maths teaching in indies and 2 people I know who were on the UK maths team were both at indies. They still did a lot better than state schools in 2019, but not by as much as usual.

@Cantonet DS's DSA approval only went to his email not mine, even though we had arranged the assessment through mine, so might be worth getting him to check.

Thank you @Extremely that's really useful to know. I'd better chase up Ds & his emails then, though I'm still waiting to hear how his Psychology Exam went today.

Well that was stressful. DD asked me to walk to the rail station with her, got there and one platform closed, all trains delayed, hers with no time, just the death warning of 'delayed'. Staff said they were testing a new type of train on the tracks and it was in front of DD's train so slowing everything down. Decided to drive, so ran home (literally) and drove her. After the IT issues with her first exam, she's feeling a tad cursed!

DD text to say AQA Psychology went really well. Re core maths, DD doesn't actually "need" it now, but was aiming for a B (not revising as much as the other subjects) but recently decided she would like to get an A for the teacher as his actual Maths A Level class was struggling and she felt bad for him! I guess it doesn't matter what the motivation is... I think she will find getting an A isn't that easy though (especially when it's been neglected for other things (pub, gym, snapchat) ;-) She has worked really hard really overall but definitely less work on Core Maths. She is nervous about Biology, although it's paper 2 that is giving her the wobbles along with paper 2 Core maths.

Hope all well with your DD/DS today. Will report back re Core Maths..

@Cantonet how far in the DSA process have you got? DD has her online video chat with a company recommended by DSA and we are waiting for DSA approval for their suggestions. DD was definitely emailed rather than me even though they had both email addresses.

@Heifer Good queston - After submitting his documents (application and evidence) DS had a virtual interview from DSA where they asked him loads of questions about his SEN etc and I thought that was it, but he said they told him they will email him the test??? but that also they will email their full report on what they had discussed. This doesn't sound right to me & ds probably didn't get info right so have been wondering what everyone else did.

Is the virtual interview he had not the assessment interview? he was given a choice of coming to a center or doing it virtually and he chose virtual.

@Heifer- I know your question was to @Cantonet I thought i'd join in, hope you don't mind?

@Shimy of course I don't mind- the more info the better. DD had the online interview - asked her lots of questions and made recommendations. No test. They then email her a summary of the meeting and their recommendations.

Reading about another WJEC mess - Eng Lang & Lit A level which includes questions about a given extract from Shakespeare, they didn't put the extract in the booklet. DC were told to answer any questions they could while teachers tried to contact the exam board 😱

@crazycrofter I hope your DD feels better soonest, it's hard enough without feeling crap on top too. Can she rest up tonight or will she will be cramming for RE tomorrow? I tried to get DD to bed by midnight last night but failed miserably. Going back some posts now I am too very impressed that your DD has covered returning goods! Must have been part of your curriculum whereby DDs school (me) is inept in that dept myself.. (actually has a package right in from of me on the desk that needs to go back to ASOS (jeans for DD)....

Thanks @Heifer , she's not good at going to bed early either and will probably want to work for RS. She's gone straight to the uni library from her exam though, so hopefully she'll get some work done.

She has quite an efficient system for returns - the parcels appear by the front door with the QR codes written on them and then I'm supposed to take them to the In-post locker😂which I'm obediently doing at the moment, but as soon as her exams finish she can do that bit herself too! I'm working in her room today and there are at least 5 parcels which haven't been labelled for me yet!

@singingstones that sounds bad 😮@Wheresthebeach hope your dd's exam went ok after the stressful start. I had to drive dd for her first exam before half term, because London Midland decided to change their train times and we hadn't realised. You don't need that sort of stress before an exam!

@singingstones That is the stuff of nightmares!

Agree with @Oblomov22 that learning to just deal with what's in front of you, as best you can, is part of growing up.

Sorry to hear many are unwell. Hopefully all will recover quickly. Got to say two colleagues (whose paths haven't crossed) have tested positive in the last 48 hours. There's also a dreadful cold doing the rounds again up here.

@singingstones blimey that is bad!! 😮How are they going to deal with that? I'm assuming they didn't get the extracts there in time?

@Heifer I've spoken to Dd & he said he told me he'd received an email back back OK-ing the funding over Easter.
I'm not sure he did, but it could have been post a g&t!

Ds1 is upset after his Aqa Psych.
He ran out of time & didn't answer one 5 marker question. Plus was only half way thru' a 10 marker. He said he knew the answers but just ran out of time due to slow processing. He needs to get a B & now thinks he won't.
I'm trying to reassure him by taking him the grade boundaries from 2019.
His teacher was only giving them B's at around 70% in the mocks. But I think a B was from 55-70% ish?
Does that sound about right?

DD is not happy with Core Maths. She says there were questions on topics they had never covered in class or in the videos of the whole syllabus she had watched online. She did at least attempt everything and had time to go back and realise she'd done a question the wrong way round. She has no idea how she's done and was more upset at having to take her second dose of oral Cholera vaccine 🤮

Any reports back @Shimy @Heifer

Gosh @Shimy - that sounds a nightmare. Will they have to resit?

Thanks Crazy - it was okay apparently. Her least favourite topic came up for a 20 marker, which freaked her out, but its seems to have been okay in the end.

With the AI - DD says that they changed the Geo AI without making any announcement. They realised when the teacher was discussing the AI with one of the students in class and they didn't agree on what was included. The teacher checked, and it had changed. Apparently the teacher was furious. I wonder if that's what happened with Sociology? Both AQA.

WJEC are getting an absolute trouncing from parents on their FB page, after yesterday’s maths exam. Complaints about questions that no-one had been taught.
Theyve put out a statement today, saying that if papers are slightly harder than usual, this will be reflected in the grade boundaries etc.

Whilst I agree with the need to have a go at things you’re not sure you can do, it’s still pretty harsh to test this cohort’s resilience, given what they’ve had to deal with just to get to the point of being in an exam room for the first time.