GCSEs 2012 support thread

[Kez100]

Here we go........hold on tight!

empirestateofmind DD ate a spoon full of peanut butter washed down with black coffee for breakfast. Hopefully she'll be back to normal eating after the exams or her prom dress will be falling of her.

Mice and Men and an Inspector calls today.

OMAM and a short story anthology here.

A real toughie for my daughter.

Pain au chocolat here and Tescos freshly squeezed orange juice.

Biology was fine according to DS .
OMAM and An Inspector calls here today. DS has had his nose in Cardi's revision guide for the last three days.

Early bacon baps sounds good. The year 11's are allowed toasties at morning break from the canteen but when they have exams all morning there isn't time. I have slipped a Mars bar into his bag.

Just heard from dd. English lit went really well and she was really pleased with what she did. This is cause for celebration in our house even without the actual result! Am so relieved.

Year 10 DD - 1st real GCSE exam today. Has been very stressy over the last couple of days. Scrambled egg and her disgusting mixture of coffee and hot chocolate for breakfast! Exam was Eng Lit - Of Mice and Men and unseen poetry. Had a text saying "It was actually okay" - fingers crossed then! Eng Lang next week; 3 science modules and 2 maths papers after half term. I will be grey haired by the end of it .....and I'm not even sitting the exams :)

My DD thought short stories went well and part a) of OMAM was OK too. She thinks she fell over a bit in part b) OMAM. I know it is too early to say but she tends to have a preference for poetry, so is looking forward to Thursday.

Had a spooky start when the students were called into the room and she was left standing! Someone sorted it and found her at the bottom of a list - she had simply been glanced over by the 'name-caller'.

Hope everyne's DS has had a good day. Day off of exams here tomorrow - although they are still at school in revision classes - it is starting to get a bit disruptive now, with so much of the timetable collapsed.

DD happy with the exam and her answers. She reckons the exam is worth 75% of the exam, are controlled assessments 25% of the total?

Yes, ours is:
exam 1 today - 40%
exam 2 - thursday - 35%
controlled assessments - 25%

Thanks Kez. That adds up. She's now just told me that controlled assessments for English Language are 60% of the grade. I can't keep up with what's what anymore.

That's the same as my daughter's language.

40% in one exam (next week sometime for AQA)
60% controlled assessment.

This thread just popped up on most active and I just had a quick scan- as a secondary teacher, I wish all parents were as supportive as you lot! Good luck to all your DC, hope they get the results they need come August :)

English Lit went well here. The main question on M+M was about Curly's wife and they have done lots of work on that character. He thinks he did quite well but is most worried about Thursday's paper which involves comparing 2 poems (36 marks) and an unseen poem (18 marks).
Thinks he's definitely done enough for an A, taking into account the controlled assessments. If Thursday goes really well he could scrape A* but he won't be disappointed if he doesn't.
PE theory tomorrow.
Has requested chips for dinner tonight.

Good reports from DD on Eng Lit here too. Glad we got over our little wobble last night and she let me go through a quick revision of M&M! She said that something we talked about last night she used and was happy about that.

Tomorrow night, we'll do the same for anthology and hopeful she'll get at least a C.

Seems strange that I'll never have to discuss Of Mice and Men again at home. It's been part of my life for 2 years! Such a great book.

I felt like that Maureen when my daughter fininshed her Drama production, albeit that was more like three months. I played all the parts except hers and became quite attached to my characters!

Another one done this Mice and Men. Apparently it all went OK

Spanish listening a complete disaster. Hall acoustics & media player dreadful. All the students put in formal complaint & teacher says will speak to exam board. DD hoped to get A/A* but even if exam board make allowances that's her grade out of the window.

DS had Eng lit today - An Inspector Calls - pleased with the questions on that, and To Kill a Mockingbird, said that was "more obscure - about context" but thinks he "did OK-ish."
Who knows what that translates as?

You lot are making me very happy being all appreciative of my revision guide. Seriously, it's no problem. Glad it was useful.
DD had her OMAM and unseen poetry exam today. Seems like she has done well based on what she is saying.

Dd did the poetry module last summer and got a B. Quite good for her! She found it pretty straight forward and English is not a subject she enjoys. She prefers short answer questions that are either right or wrong like maths and science. Will be glad when English and history are out of the way.

DD also thought the Mockingbird question was unusual - hope she does well - she wants to do A level...

WebWiz, for English lit DD will have done 60% as they've done the CA and one unit of exams. With Language I think it's similar or less percentage wise.

Todays Lit exam went well she had 5 mins to spare at the end which is fantastic for DD she followed the timings to the letter I told her if she was running out of time to bullet point stuff in the hopes it would get a mark or two. Her OMAM questions were stuff she had revised and she found disecting the unseen poems a little harder but felt she did well. Heres hoping for a B grade. Glad it went well for everyone else's DC's.

DS said Eng lit today went better than expected which was good as all I usually get is "it went fine". He is more science orientated but on target for an A so all being well he will get that. Says as long as he gets at least a B he will be happy. No exams tomorrow and can hear music blasting away so probably not much revision being done! Two exams on Thursday, chemistry and english lit again. Suppose that one must be Animal Farm and Much ado about nothing? Dreading testing on the chemistry as I don't even understand the questions let alone the answers!

Have cut him some slack about the revision. DH says if he doesn't know it by now he never will which I suppose is right. He has worked out all his UMS scores for science and pretty much thinks he can get an A for biology and chemistry and A* for physics if the exams go as well as the modules.

Glad everyone else's DC found the english pretty good. DS said he it was okay but everyone put different things to him Not sure he quite gets that that is the point of english literature! Giving him a bit of slack today but tomorrow he's got to put the work in to guarantee a good english grade.

Best of luck to anyone's DC with an exam tomorrow :)

dd has had a headache all day, whether that's due to the infection or nerves or a reaction to the antibiotics I don't know. First exam went 'OK', but she regretted one question choice, and the second exam went 'Well'. Very glad they are over.

Anyone else for PE tomorrow? Dd is hoping for an A* in that.

glaurung how is her arm? Did she manage okay?
PE theory here.

webwizz My ds had to take both his Eng Lang and Eng Lit in Yr10. They've made him take Eng Lang AS this year, then sent a letter out about half way through the year that it would be "really good" if they managed to achieve a C, and that a D was perfectly acceptable for Yr 11s doing an AS . Not really what we were hoping to hear, as Eng is one of ds's strongest subjects. He got an A and a B last year, without doing any homework all year and no revising I could see but they would have been one of few hopes for A*s had he taken them this year, and not at 14.
The school have decided it wasn't such a good plan after all, and have changed back to normal for future years, which is good, but doesn't help our dcs.
Lyftiduft Thank you for that
Maureen - I've never read Mice and Men - it's often mentioned on here as being an exam text. Is it a good book just 'for a read' ? I feel I've missed out of a tiny little bit of culture there.
ds's teachers have now told them they don't need to be in school for lessons that they've finished with. This is a scarey move as far as I'm concerned. Yes, I can wake him up before I go out to work, but whilst in the house, there's no guarentee he won't go back to sleep, or will keep an eye on the time. Can I use this --> for "extremely worried" ?