Year 11 GCSE support thread 4 - more exams

[HSMMaCM]

Anyone got English tomorrow ?

They don't tell you in NCT classes that in a few years time one of your functions may be teen's emotional punchbag.

You have helped me decide NOT to wake DD this morning

She has been worrying about biology today, as she wants to do it at a level and pretty much had cover teachers for years 7/8/9 and is therefore not confident about core biology.

I have porridge and blueberries on my shopping list now. Amy other essentials.

Guess those for whom Maths come more naturally were able to quickly unpick what was being asked, others had quite a shock.

Not necessarily. My dd is good at maths and she thinks she got the cylinder/cone question wrong. She still hopes to get a few marks for her working out.

Biology this afternoon, though she is only just getting out of bed now.

Errol, you are spot-on there!

Biology and Music for DS1 today.

Just had a kind of stressy but also exciting time with dd getting two tickets for her and a friend for the autumn Night Vale tour. Tickets went on sale at 9.00, we got through and completed about 5 mins later (after making sure we were ready to pay with PayPal, setting up new password etc) - luckily there were 2 tickets for us so all happy about that

I feel for you Tilly, we had the same thing after AQA Biology in week 1 - simply couldn't get him to move on and revise for the next thing. And in my experience saying 'is the world going to end if you get a C in Biology' is not the road to go down unless you want to inflame things!

Errol I often wonder why I bothered with the NCT classes - my word the birth and baby thing was by far the easiest bit of the whole parenting journey.

But we must all count our blessings - a 16 year old in another school in the city hung himself before the exams even started meanwhile another one in a different part of the city has been caught running a cannabis factory.

DD said Maths was "tricky". It seems to be her word for anything that she couldn't do but doesn't want to admit it was horrendous!

I saw this this morning and thought some of you and your children might like it:

GCSE made meme [[http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2015/06/04/gcse-students-cope-trauma-maths-exams-turning-meme/]]

Damn fluffed the link.

Try again:

GCSE Maths made meme

Anyway it's funny!

DD has Music and Biology today. She says Music (Listening) is stupid as she can't now listen to the radio without deconstructing it...

GCSE maths made the Today programme headlines today and they even described the difficult problem. Apparently they added it to stretch the really good people.

My apparently calm peaceful teenage boys went happily, but silently, to music today. The end is in sight for them. In fact I think they said some of their friends finished yesterday.

Believe me I'm all for keeping a sense of perspective and awareness raising about suicide. We need to talk about these things.
But can we do so with great sensitivity as these tragedies do happen to real families?
It's all too close to home here x

Given that some are reaching the end now, do we keep these threads rolling with induction days etc ? Hopefully we'll reconvene for results and moving into yr 12 anyway. I really want to know how it turns out for these kids - whether you're celebrating or needing support.

We still have two more weeks here. I insist you all keep me company!

Then there's the freaking results day .

The cone and cylinder question was only 5 marks ( out of 100) so its still very possible to get A*'s without answering ( this is what dd told me ).

Why are some exams being made harder in this very last year of GCSE's?It all seems a bit pointless.

Business studies and Biology today - let's hope Biology goes OK as this is one of her A level subjects.Dd amazed me yesterday when she asked me what abundant meant.It was on a past biology paper.Given she is pretty bright ( but English definitely not her forte) I was a bit shocked.She needs to start reading some decent books/newspapers.I'm blaming it on a useless American international school she went to for years .

DD was telling me about the cone and cylinder one and realised part way through that she'd emptied the grain out of the cone before the cylinder, in addition to dividing by a ninth rather than nine somewhere. But she cheerfully enough said that she'd shown her working so should get a couple of marks.

I think that's another problem with these wordy questions, if they bamboozle kids too much so they can't even make a start on them.

Anyway, she had a bit of a lie in and shes just left with DH. Suspect when she gets there it'll be maths post mortem rather than reading through biology notes. Her pissy teacher has put her off the subject, she doesn't care if she gets her target grade on this one (already fluffed the ISA and wouldn't redo as the teacher would have made it all stressy.)

At least she's comfortable asking about the meaning of unfamiliar words canny? I think there are many people who never do that
I'm sure she'll soon have an abundant vocabulary
dd asked me about a word the other day but I can't remember what it was now

The problem with throwing in some really challenging questions is that they really knock the confidence of the stressed kids sitting the exam. DD had done as many past papers as she could find and was doing really well, despite not being a natural mathematician. The really odd questions just made her feel that she couldn't do any of it. She could hear several people crying in Maths yesterday :(

I go to 17th.

Biology today, more maths, chemistry and physics next week , then graphics on the 17th!

Jeez, and then they wonder why lots of kids get put off maths and won't do it for A level. But there's so many professions which need good maths skills without being an actual mathematician.

They should make the normal maths non-tricky and make FM available to all the A/A* potential kids. One paper for 'maths everyone should know how to do' and another for those who need to do more. Similar deal to a- levels.

Word, I think there's a few of us going to the 19th. Anyone later? Product design and one or two others are the week after that.

I agree Errol.

DD finishes on the 19th. It can't come soon enough!

My ds has his last exam (DT) on 22nd June, although nothing between 12th June and then.

I agree too - I want to keep this thread going! And DD doesn't finish till the 16th.

The problem with throwing in some really challenging questions is that they really knock the confidence of the stressed kids sitting the exam. DD had done as many past papers as she could find and was doing really well, despite not being a natural mathematician. The really odd questions just made her feel that she couldn't do any of I this

Dd had the Edexcel maths and just texted me 'WTF' and a link to Twitter! She's hoping for a lower grade boundary now!

Music this morning (hoping for Handel) and Maths 2 (Revenge of Hannah) Monday then that's it!

She's hoping she finds out whether Raksha made it to Horton

Tilly That is true, re harder questions knocking confidence.

My DD doesn't expect to be able to do all the questions. Definitely not the end ones, but also some earlier ones depending on the topic. She knows to just miss them out if she can't immediately see how to do them, and only come back to them at the end if time. I have 'taught' her not to worry about them.

Trying to motivate DD re Biology this afternoon, she's really not in the mood.