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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

Sign in here if your child is in Yr11 - taking GCSE's this Summer.

527 replies

Milliways · 18/01/2011 18:48

Hi
Apologies if this has been done this year, but I found a similar thread very supportive when DD started the exam treadmill (not at Uni) and we are about to start again with DS.

Milliboy is 15, late Summer baby so cannot get a job until the end of the Summer hols, when they will have all gone. Good news is - this gives him more revision time Grin

He is at a boys selective Grammar school, so the pressure is on to achieve. He also wants to aim for a decent Uni so understands that good GCSE grades are vital.

Still doesn't make the whole process any easier for him or me :)

Who else has boarded the 2011 Exam Express?

OP posts:
mumblechum1 · 20/05/2011 12:42

I heard that about Chemistry. DS says the Chem teacher told them that anything over 70% is an A* which seems ridiculous.

emmspemms · 20/05/2011 14:00

Biology yesterday was OK, apparently. English next (which he doesn't like) then DT and chemistry on Wednesday .
He's gone down to school today (at lunchtime ) to collect some past papers and I imagine to socialise with friends ,
I was horrified to read earlier that a teacher said " a B is unacceptable and C is failure ! " I think my son will get mostly B & C , as long as he tries hard and reaches his full potential I will be pleased. ( if he gets a couple of As even better)

mumblechum1 · 20/05/2011 14:12

Emmspemms, that was ds's head of year.

In the Jan modules, he got A*, A and B. When the head of year passed ds in the corridor, he asked whether he'd yet booked the resits for the A and B Hmm. That's why dh and I don't put pressure on him, the school do quite enough of that (grammar, paranoid about losing their ranking)

Cupawoman · 20/05/2011 14:28

DS2 was asked to resit 2 of the science modules taken in Jan, despite getting As for both. He refused and I backed him up.

Cupawoman · 20/05/2011 15:06

AND he has friends who achieved A*s in modules but who have done resits because they didn't think their actual marks were high enough first time around Confused

emmspemms · 20/05/2011 16:48

Shakes head in shock and disbelief.....

MABS · 20/05/2011 16:51

terrible :(

Original poster
Milliways · 20/05/2011 18:32

DS had a teacher say "Well, if you don't get an A*, then you can forget a lot of Top Uni's"!. For ONE subject - and an obscure one at that! DS thought it was quite funny really.

MABS - for you, and really hope you have a stress free weekend. Wine

OP posts:
slartybartfast · 20/05/2011 20:51

ds found biology haaard as well Sad

having a big social tonight as school officially finished Shock

back to exams next weds

Loshad · 20/05/2011 22:08

have just played the very dangerous game of going through the biology paper with ds2 and him telling me what he put, me second guessing the mark scheme and then working out what he got Shock he seems to have done fine on that one - he has got good marks in all the previous units so can score lower on this and still get an A* - fingers crossed!
He's off out tomorrow night as well but has been working really hard (unlike DS1 who is in midst of As's and took today because he was tired Hmm

NotaMopsa · 20/05/2011 23:33

DD done v little today
from what i gather here AQA biology was hard and OCR not too bad - anyone concur?

on a lighter note dds v close friend is tonight in labour!!

Loshad · 21/05/2011 00:01

notamopsa - a 16 yo Shock poor wee thing
AQA wasn't too bad - have unit 2 and 3 papers on the table next to me, think even my set 8 should have done ok on unit 2

duchesse · 21/05/2011 00:13

Joining this thread rather late as she's already started exams, but we are mired in exam hell this year, with one doing GCSEs and one doing A levels. And in two years we have it all over again. Yeay us!

So far she's been exemplary- we've kept a revision log to try to keep the A level child's nose to the grindstone. Long day of exams yesterday resulted in a sofa day in front of an entire Gilmore Girls series though. Maybe a couple of hours revision today and she's off to the county show tomorrow so not much then either. Next exams Wednesday.

NotaMopsa · 21/05/2011 00:25

loshad yes! a delightful girl as well

re AQA (if i have it the right way round) i think there was some 12 point question on fermentation that did not go down well?

Loshad · 21/05/2011 00:28

ah yes - the last question - parts of it were a bit of a bugger, though imo half the marks on that were easily obtained, and the rest of the paper was fine so they are talking about 6 hard marks out of 45.

Docbunches · 21/05/2011 09:37

Feedback from my DS so far is:

Edexcel French Listening - really hard!
Edexcel French Reading - quite easy (so he's hoping to make up marks dropped in the listening test)
AQA Biology - quite hard and was very pushed for time
AQA English papers 1 and 2 - both OK (which is a relief as DS does not particularly enjoy English, he's dreading Eng Lit on Tuesday)

All above were Higher papers.

He also did Edexcel ICT Double award on Tuesday and found that OK.

So, a mixed bag so far. Next week is English Lit, Physics and Chemistry - the only one DS will not be too worried about is Physics.

Hope all your DCs have a good week next week - at least they've got half term to look forward to after that Smile.

alice15 · 21/05/2011 14:06

First week down and less nerve-wracking than I feared... English Language OCR, AQA French and AQA Biology unit 2 here. That's 3 out of 10 GSCEs over (Eng Lang, French and core Science, which she did in January, thank God.

I'm horrified at the idea of being encouraged to resit a low A. DD is at a selective and high-on-the-league-tables girls' school, and an A is an A* there - no talk of resitting them that I've ever heard of. Some of the girls who got Bs and As in core science in January are resitting, though.

NotaMopsa · 21/05/2011 20:42

dd VERY grumpy.

Hassled · 21/05/2011 20:50

An invigilator here - the English paper on Wed for some reason prompted more trips to the loo from the Yr11s than I've ever known :o. But they work so hard (mostly) and look so young and scared - I do feel for them.

MABS · 22/05/2011 09:43

just great, raging sore throat,temp and glands up, very stressed and tearful (and she is due on) this doesn't bode well. None tomorrow thank goodness. Dd liked the English paper Wed Hassled, maybe she messed it all up tho :(

jgbmum · 22/05/2011 11:28

MABS - I hope your dd is soon feeling better, perhaps a quiet day today will help her recover quickly.

MABS · 22/05/2011 11:44

thanks jgbmum, she out of bed now and asked me to test her on PE for Tues, oh joy. How are yours doing?

jgbmum · 22/05/2011 12:03

DS2 is supposed to be revising, but yesterday I found him asleep on his bed, so I'm not overly confident!

DS1 went out with friends last night & stayed over. He was supposed to phone at 11.30 - but I havent heard anything yet.
I'm sure it would be much less stressful to just sit the exams for them

MABS · 22/05/2011 13:00

oh yes, definitely, except that my maths is worse than dd's !

slartybartfast · 22/05/2011 21:12

keep threatening in vain to ground ds.
but he conveniently forgets. and is off out again - all night.
has agreed to be grounded for the rest of the week.
am i too harsh?

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