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

@Heifer, yes, her sore throat has gone now, thankfully. Hope you get to the cinema - Top Gun is really good. So good, in fact, that ds saw it 4 times last week (he has a cinema pass at the moment)!

If ds chooses history A Level, he'll get to do early 20th century Russia - from the revolution through to 1953. I did my A Level sixth form coursework on the Partition of India too! But I've always found British history most engaging, even though I did some French and Italian stuff at uni.

I was thinking that Monkey. Looks like today's AQA A level physics has done something similar today on the paper.

Am hoping others found WJEC hard.

DD was asking about grade boundaries this morning and made an interesting point. She knows grade boundaries are supposed to be pegged between 2019 & 2021 levels, but what if the actual marks given this year are lower than those? So if it works out that to get an A you need over 70%, but no-one gets that? Will they look at the %age of kids who got grade As in those years and give As to those who exceed the average?

Not that she is worried about yesterday's exams or anything.....

@Seeline i don’t think they’re pegging the grade boundaries between 2019 and 2021. I think it’s more that if say 15% got an A* last year and 7% the year before, this year it will be 11%.

To clarify - they’re pegging the percentage of students who get each grade between 2019 and 2021.

Thanks @Piggywaspushed
do we know if this is for the separate sciences physics exam or for the combined version?
I sent a screenshot to DS but he didn’t know.
He did mention about the AI yesterday though after the exam

It's higher physics. Not combined science.

Well done to all that sat papers today! ⭐️
DD reports that the Greek prose composition and comprehension was: GOOD!!!
TFFT as I’d lost hope of her feeling that way given her papers to date.
@ealingwestmum the problem with the Classical language papers that DD has sat to date is that the vocab and grammar has been more complex than in previous papers - 2019 in particular - and I was wondering if the MFL gang have felt the same?

Oh @shimy I hope you and DS OK. My DN had a panic attack before a GCSE the other week and didn't go in. He will be submitting some kind of a Circumstances form.

The physics GCSE problem, I know not what the answer is, but I agree with Monkey : But what about the kids who wasted time trying to answer that 9 mark question?

@Shimy i totally sympathise, this whole thing is a massive battle, I can see DS is getting so anxious. It is horrendous to watch them. It might be worth talking to the teacher to see if there is special consideration? I do think this cohort is having a hard time because they haven’t had the benefit of taking GCSE’s-they prepare you for the stress. Our DC will be ok in the end, and they may take a different path (mine didn’t get anywhere with medicine), but getting them through this is tough. Huge hugs.

That makes sense @crazycrofter - I think that was probably where I was heading, but couldn't describe it so succinctly 😆. I shall pass that back to DD.

The physics GCSE - I don't understand. Was the AI different for GCSEs? Because AQA AI for A level clearly said that questions could be on any part of the spec. It sounds as though it was only part of a question, so exactly as they'd described.

The AI for GCSE actually has a list of what would specifically not be assessed. 9 marks was a full question, I believe.

@Shimy Sorry to read your update. I hope your DS can get perspective that he is still knowledgeable about politics, it just didn't come out that one day. UnMN hug x

So sorry to read your update Shimy

DD was happy with History (OCR) today - such a relief!

Just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who has posted such supportive messages. I know it's not the end of the world but just very sad for my DS as it's such a shock. The sad irony of it all being I just received an email from school informing us that he has won the prize for best Politics student in his year! He is soldering on and focussing on the remainder of his exams. Not much else he can do.

Well done to him @Shimy that’s a brilliant achievement! Has he still got the second paper to do? I really hope he gets what he deserves in his other 2 subjects and can pull back Politics to a decent grade on the second paper if it’s still to come.

He still has the second paper to do, but don't know if he could possibly pull it up to an A overall. Same for the other papers, he ran out of time. It's all been fraught with problems.

Exam results are often surprising. And he may still get one of his uni places without the A in Politics. We’ll all have our fingers crossed for him!

I’ve come late in the day but sorry to hear about your DS @Shimy it’s so hard when they deserve things to go well but they don’t actually go so well.
glad he is getting the awards at school and I hope his paper wasn’t as bad as he thinks.

I fully understand why you may dip out a bit. At times when everyone’s DC were working really hard and DS wasn’t, it was difficult to read and I was here less often too.

DS found physics today fine and is now playing football and drinking in the park, having a well deserved night off before 5 exams in 4 days next week. Eek.

Sorry to hear your update @Shimy
I hope he's just reacting to not doing as well as he hoped and has actually done better than he thinks, iyswim. DS is resigned to retakes too, after his pure maths paper. He's absolutely gutted still. So I'm sure there will be several of our DC missing offers and in clearing come August, or deciding to regroup. It's so awful to watch when they have worked so hard and overcome so much to get to this point. But eventually it will be much less important than it feels right now.

@Volterra DS thought WJEC physics was "ok" today but all his friends (who do better than him) found it "way worse". I think they are more likely to be right as he has never been good at predicting how well he has done 🙈

I’m sorry for your DS @shimy - I think this is all so hard on our DC. And any one of our DC could be in the same position.

i don’t think DS has done any revision today but he’ll be back on it tomorrow (hopefully). His girlfriend is here at the moment and earlier on they went to see some of DSs friends as one of them is 18 today.

i think DS is maturing a little - he drove there and they only stayed a couple of hours rather than getting DH or me to drive them there and drinking (too) much alcohol. Although he couldn’t manage to peel back the film on a packet of salami earlier and got me to do it…

@MirandaWest

Lurker here, but just wanted to pop on and say I think you might have my DS😂 All your posts sound like him, though mine is doing Maths, Econ, RE.
Has finally firmed Economics at Newcastle (AAB) insurance Liverpool(AAB as well🤔) 2023 entry.