Year 11 GCSE support thread 4 - more exams

[HSMMaCM]

Anyone got English tomorrow ?

English Lit. here as well. No iGCSEs, just GCSE. What are iGCSEs?

DD is just about to leave, DH is driving her there. She says having to do Eng Lit hasn't made her hate all poetry. Her favourite remains:

To amuse emus
On warm summer nights
Kiwis do weewees
From spectacular heights.

Somehow I doubt that's going to be the 'unseen'. Shame.

DD has English Lit, no poetry though. Good luck on the last day before half term. Yay!

Ds has gone off to school with a real spring in his step (I wish). English lit is his least favourite subject by a very long way. He walked out of the door as if he was heading to his own execution.

Autumn, I have no idea! But they must count the same as GCSEs?

Just dropped DD (7.30 meet to revise with pals!) then came back to see her anthology on the table, but she says she doesn't need it

Yes, Eng Lit here too. ds2 will then have done 9/22 exams :)
After half term we have two very heavy weeks of GCSEs (ds2) and A Levels (ds1)... Counting the days!

Yep English. .blumming poetry

Had to take.dd to the ooh Dr last night as her eczema had flared up and no Dr's in Kent yesterday afternoon as some training thing. Argh!
The ooh Dr spent longer with her than our gp ever has so the 10 hrs it took get an appointment was worth it!

Poetry here too. Dd not a happy bunny - hates it - just wants to read and enjoy rather than endlessly analyse. Oh well 7 GCSEs completely finished today, 3 paper 1s done. So 3 paper 2s to go plus Maths and Eng Lang.

The week after half term is crammed full of exams so half term is going to be busy. Good luck to everyone sitting exams today.

I'm still reeling over how many exams they have.

I've googled iGCSEs, I think they are more coursework and less exam stuff.
No pressure for Eng. Lit. here today, it's only an A level choice after all...

IGCSEs are international GCSEs.

They were originally introduced for ex pat DC who wanted to retain a home education abroad.

They've been adopted by many private schools.

I have one twin doing IGCSEs and one going GCSEs. So I get the comparison.

Eng lit for both today.

Half way through here - 13/24 done or maybe it's 14/23.

autmumn it's the opposite .

No controlled assessments , no course work, no modules. Just terminal exams ( mostly).

Why the difference TheWordFactory ? Who chooses which one they do?

Ah, clearly I need more sleep before trying to understand the finer points of our exam system -thank fuck I'm not taking them--

The schools.

DS school is far more selective so IGCSEs work well.

They were considered a bit harder ( as no modules, resists, CAs etc and the A* boundary is high). And a lot less faff for teachers; just crack on.
It also suits boys.

DDs school is mixed ability and they always did very well with modules etc. this suits girls ( I'm generalising of course).

Interestingly it's easier to get a pass at IGCSE so some state schools introduced them for their borderline students. But Hove stopped that!

Gove not Hove!

The new GCSEs are examined very much in line with IGCSEs by the way.

It will be interesting to see if private schools swap back.

I don't think DD's IGCSE has been much coursework - just 10% for Speaking AFAIK

Just dropped DD off for English Literature, with the unusual parting injunction "If you think it's about sex then make sure you say so!" - sometimes I think I spend too much time on Mumsnet

Dd had to do the normal gcse AND the igcse ... stupid competitive grammar

Nooooooo! QOD, that's ridiculous!

One of the quirks of igcses was that originally they weren't 'accredited' so league tables would show private schools as failing to get any kids through maths (which was the one most adopted by them early on). Nowadays a lot are, those are the ones that state schools may now choose to do. The only one my DD did was chemistry - it's assessed on just two exams so no practical, that suits her (just exams suit a lot of girls too! ) but - I don't know what the non-igces courses are like nowadays but it seemed like it could do with updating, lots of quite boring stuff some of which is utterly irrelevant to modern chemistry and not actually promoting understanding. It's totally turned her off, which is a bit sad for parents with 4 chemistry degrees between them.

Another one on the long journey to the guillotine this morning. My car felt like a tumbril.

QOD - your dd doesn't have to do iGCSE and GCSE for EVERY subject does she?

Eng Lit here today. I overslept so first thing I knew was DS popping his head it to say he was off. Woops.