Year 11 GCSE Exam Support Thread 2

[HSMMaCM]

New thread ..... (DD not sure about the prom dress she has bought!!!!)

Oh, I'm sure she does (though surely the word count ought to be less in German than other languages, given their pechant for concatenating things into a whopping great big portmanteau word!). She's done OK on the written CAs despite her teacher always wanting her to write more so I think I'll stay out of it!

I am rubbish at gardening

DD is working up in her room. Science, maybe? And has finally drawn up a timetable with DH's help!

Waves at fellow exaministas!

I'm almost done here in sunny LA. Glad to have come but also glad to go home.

Make the most of it TheWordFactory. Hope you have had a good time.

This is exhausting. Sob.

DD1 packing to go back to university / picking up last minute items.

DD2 handing in A Level coursework tomorrow. Panic stations.
DD3 revising for GCSE French oral tomorrow. Double panic stations.
DS landed his drone in a neighbour's tree. Triple panic stations.
Me - packing to go away with friends this weekend. Probably shouldn't be going at all, but am running away anyway.
House - utter chaos.

I should also buy shares in a print cartridge factory.

Littleham OMG!

Littleham, you win the stress prize - don't blame you for running away!

Dd (who is doing A levels) came home from school with some useful advice today:

Look after your hippo!

The hippocampus is a part of the brain connected to memory, learning and emotions.

One of her teachers advised the students that part of preparing for exams is to make sure that their hippo is well looked after. Enough sleep, good food, exercise and entertainment.

I thought this was a rather sweet way of looking at it.

Very nice!
And a good reminder of what our little hippos need.

Dd has named hers Humphrey and ds's is called Horatio

Horatio has just got home from school and is having a snack. Humphrey is watching tv.

Flipping heck Littleham, that is full on 'DS landed his drone in a neighbour's tree' is definitely one of the more unusual ones I have seen on here ! Have some

Like the Hippo thing. Read it to DD, she has named hers Hiccup. She's a bit happier today as turned out her English Mock was a B not a C. Rumour has it exam timetable will be coming next Monday. Two whole weeks to go until first exam then, who needs notice

Love that hippo idea!

DD phoned earlier, in tears as she has to stay late to redo some ICT for the CA - despite having asked and asked and asked for weeks the Head? of ICT if all was OK, he only told her today FFS

SugarPlum, that's great news for your DD
Is the timetable the actual exams? Surely that should have been given out a while ago?

Your poor DD BTM There seems to be so much variation amongst teachers - some go the extra mile and others seem to make things more difficult.

It is her individual exam timetable. They have what they call a summer exam timetable we have been given but it lists all GCSEs, AS and A2 lumped together. It is unclear and doesn't always say what subject it is (eg. Tye English Language doesn't say it is actually English Language) and isn't fully comprehensive, her Japanese isn't on there for example and I have no idea when her Photography exam is from it. Friend with children doing AS is not any clearer.

Ah that's poor planning on behalf of the teacher Tilly but at least she will have it done by the time she gets home. Get a nice plate of biscuits ready for her.

She's now come home, furious, having spent a couple of hours redoing a spreadsheet, only to be told there's other stuff to do as well. Trying to get in touch with someone now, but it is Friday evening...

Ah, OK SugarPlum - at least DD came home with an individual one a while ago, clearly not drawn up by the ICT teacher

Oh for goodness sake BTM, am cross on behalf of you and your DD

It's not me being unreasonable about the individual timetable then? I just don't think 2 weeks before the first exam is acceptable,

Definitely crap re the timetable, SugarPlum. You are obviously very intelligent and can't work it out, heaven help some of the families!

SugarPlum do you know exam boards and subjects/dates? We might be able to help you out.

Ds has AQA English Literature Unit 1 on 18th May, Unit 2 on 22nd May and AQA English Lang Unit 1 on 2nd June if that's any help to you.

Oh BTM your poor dd that's ridiculous on behalf of the teacher. Can't believe people haven't had an individual exam Plan, we had ours before Easter. So I know it's about 27 days to first exam on 11th May.

Hey guys, am back home.

Had such a great trip (don't know if the project will come off though), and have arrived back to a lovely tidy house (housekeeper's work not DC) and everyone reasonably calm and organised.

My niece has been a star and says she's managed to get loads of revision done too. So win, win.

Can't believe you still don't have a time table sugar. That's absurd!!!!

Thanks Fairenuff. She's doing the AQA English lit and you've confirmed the dates I thought for that but seem to have 15 May too so will scrub that.. That wasn't very clear as they put English Lit on the A level one above it but didn't label the GCSE. I found the IGCSE on the Cambridge board website eventually and someone else has confirmed those are the right dates ie. 5 and 8 May. Japanese I have found on Edexcel site.

Photography I now feel a bit of a doughnut with as have just read the course description properly and there is a final practical assessment rather than an exam, which she has been doing. So I have scrabbled together a timetable I think. Actually can I check AQQ additional science please ? I think Biology 12 May, Chemistry 14 May and Physics 20 May?

Geography DD doesn't know which board but I think it is AQA -19 May and 3 June ? Ethics and Philosohy (don't know board) 11 May and 11 June ?

Thanks so much for this.

Good to see you back Word, glad you had a good trip. Great outcome for everyone, result !

Ds has Biology 1 12th May, Biology 2 5th June and Biology 3 15th June

Chemistry 1 14th May, Chemistry 2 9th June, Chemistry 3 17 June

Physics 1 20th May, Physics 2 12th June, Physics 3 19th June

But they are all Excel, not AQQ

Ds doesn't do Geography.

He has OCR Ethics on 11th June and Philosophy on 11th.

So it sounds like you have most of them worked out

Philosophy on 11th June, that should say.

Thanks so much Fairenuff. That has confirmed Philosphy and Ethics. Just had a look on school website and it does seem to be AQA science (thought I might be wrong).

I have to try and focus on the fact that until stressed recently by the exams DD has been happy and they have supported her Japanese. But I am very cross about late timetable, change of English teacher in year 11 to two new to the School, 5 science teachers in year 11, Maths being an issue not flagged up sooner, putting her in for Additional Science instead of resitting Core she got a D in last year. I was sadly very busy with Mum and her Dementia etc and took eye off the ball.

It is very depressing that I have another child to get through Upper School yet. We've about a year and a half until we need to apply for him. Starting to regret not having pushed him more towards Grammar now but he really didn't want to even consider it till last minute then didn't want us to appeal. I did see today that our local Independent has a bit in the paper today promoting the fact they have received several bequests recently and have up to 100% bursaries available plus a Scholarship of up to 120% of fees. I'm starting to wonder if we should go to the open day and have just have a look.