year 11 exams/CAs

[olivia41]

Hi, can anyone tell me when exams (and controlled assessments) are taken in year 11? Thanks. (DD about to go back to do final year). Also, does anyone know what the official leaving date is in 2013 or does it differ between schools? Many thanks.

Leaving date varies by school. Ours says the final exam (usually end of June) is when they leave but, in reality, it ends up being earlier. My daughter had one weeks noice of actual leaving date this year! To be honest it didn't matter, she was revising anyway, it was just from that date she stayed home revising and didn't have to go in.

CA's depend on the subjects being taught in year 11 and the school. For example, although my daughter and her peers had completed all English Language CAs in year 10, many retook another CA (different questions I believe) in year 11 to hopefully improve their score. This may happen even more this year as schools grapple with the higher CA grade boundries which students were hit with in the June session.

Thanks, Kez - very helpful reply - can't believe your DD had one week's notice!! Hope everything went okay for her this year. Looking forward to this time next year!! Lots of encouragement (not pressure) coming up for DC over these last months at school......

Kez, do you know if exams are taken in November, then January? Thanks for help!

Again, it depends on school.

My daughter did History, English Language and four Science exam papers in year 10.

In year 11 - Maths in November, three Science papers in January and in June all the rest.

CAs were done throughout year 10 and 11 as quite a few subjects have them now.

Year 11 was, for my daughter, never ending assessments or revision of some sort. She achieved her potential, so the work and organisation paid off, but it was relentless for her. One piece of advice she gives - if you do Maths early, work like billy-oh to get it early, it makes June much easier for revision to not have a huge core subject to revise for.

And, as a parent, year 11 flies....

The reason for lack of notice regarding leaving dates is to ensure that they have less time to plan anything!

As Kez has already stated CA is school dependent, e.g. I do mine at the end of year 10, but there is the possibility of re-doing the CA in year 11 if needed (I don't make this known to students ).

In terms of examinations in November/January it depends on what she has been entered for, again, school dependant.

For every exam series every candidate receives an official statement of entry which details exactly what paper and when closer to the series itself, but your DD will be aware when her exams are to take place and shouldn't be a surprise to her.

In terms of the summer; I would basically forget life until July, then ensure you are about results day to sort out post 16

As others have said, everything is dependent on the schools and what your DC has been entered for. I think that November may only be for English/Maths re-sits but I'm not sure. Have you looked on the school website to see if there's a CA timetable? In my experience the DC are awful at relaying this type of info home and just turn up one evening saying they have a CA the next day!

With the 'official' leaving date, I believe the national one is the last friday of June but schools could send them off earlier or later.

Edexcel offer a November, march and June exam series. AQA and OCR January and June. So it depends which exam boards she is doing for which subjects. And yes, CAs are done as and when. We have ours timetabled for this year, but that's because we are a core subject, so have loads of students doing them, and also need to organise practicals. Other departments are slightly more ad hoc.

Thanks for the recent posts - all helpful - thanks. Yes, Kez , I'm sure this last year will fly!!!