Parents of Year 11DC support thread. The final term.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Eep.

School timings are weird. A fb friend posted pics of her DS in his prom outfit. They've had it already! How can they enjoy it with exams hanging over them?

And we are used to awards in the autumn for the previous year's achievements.

Mind you, the Easter holidays seemed to spread over 6 weeks.

When do your chosen sixth forms start? DD's starts on 31st August which seems very early to me.

Really odd to have prom before the exams! It should be a chance to completely let your hair down after making it through. dd's school do awards close to the end of the autumn term for the previous year, so the new Year 12's and 1st year uni students have to schlep back to school for it.

I think its at the beginning of September - though there is nothing on their website about when they start back. As dd will miss the induction, I really hope they tell her before school breaks up!

DS is moving schools for the 6th form and starts on 9th August. He finishes on 7th July (although this last exam is 15th June) so short break this year.

blimey - 9th August! That's before the results come out.

Yep - his results are out on 11th August I think for CIE and 18th August for his AS with Edexcel.

That seems very early shanghai - aren't the GCSE results mostly not out til the 25th August? Is that a boarding school or something? Doesn't give you much of a holiday!

One of DS's possible sixth forms doesnt' start the lower sixth til the 12th September I think, I'm not sure about the other one but think they both take a week or two to sort out the chaos of who they're going to take. DSD's sixth form is attached to her school and mostly the kids just carry on from Y11 so they go back at the start of September.

It was our awards ceremony this week, I know because DS has a friend who was up for something and another who has perfect attendance. It's not publicised anywhere so unless you have a child in the running you wouldn't know that the thing existed.

Sixth form enrolment for us is 30th August - 1st September and teaching starts on 12th September. The college's documentation is first rate, he came out of his interview with a little booklet containing entry requirements, holiday dates and all sorts of useful stuff. I know DS well enough to have immediately confiscated it and put it in a safe place.

I was anticipating some fallout from declining the offer of a Saturday revision session but there's been nothing so far. DS is under instruction not to discuss what it is that he's doing that day and refer anyone who asks to me. I have promised not to do a full on Jansmom if they do ring (name changed to protect the terminally embarrassed) but even after taking the time to think about it I do still think that they could have found the hours within school time.

DD has been invited to lunch with the head of sixth form next week, as she is on the undecided list for her current school.

She had a bit of a wobble about moving schools when she discovered that the friends who she thought would be going to the same one seem to have bottled it. But I think the money may have swayed her . The parents of one of her friends who said she was leaving are being hounded by school. I think they have practically been offered a full scholarship if she will stay - she is very, very clever and her probable A level results would mean enough to the school to cover the cost of keeping her.

Strangely we have heard nothing from school

Bluelilies - ds attends an international school in China. He is moving schools for the 6th form and new school finishes on 17th June and goes back in August, but he does not finish at his current school until 7th July. Not sure what they are doing after his last exam (15th June) but he does have the school trip from 24th June for a week and does not want to miss that. He could leave early but would prefer to be with his friends as some are returning to their home countries this summer.
Better he is at school than mooching around at home!
International results seem to be out earlier that UK results and I think exams start earlier too. Ds started his on Tuesday.

ICT practical number 2 done - all fine, although had to redo the spreadsheet as when printed the last two letters were missing. He should be fine as I get him to do all my spreadsheets so he has plenty of practice - no that I can't do them myself, oh no !
Written exams next week - CIE - Geography paper one and map skills and Biology alternative to practical. Anyone else for those?

How exotic! Where is he going for his school trip? The best we managed was Malham Cove

He is going cycling in Laos :)

Best I managed at school was a trip to Dawlish Warren to look at the groynes and discuss long shore drift - those were the days!

DSD has the altenrative to practical biology on Wednsday next week - the IGCSE, so the same as yours I assume diva. She doesn't seem to stressed about that one though, says it's easy (though she also says that about subjects that are hard for her as a mechanism to boost her confidence I think, so who knows?)

Yes - Bluelilies - DS thinks that exam is okay too :)
Good luck to both of them.

Is it ok if I just stagger in here and throw myself sobbing into your collective arms.

DD did her GCSE assessed drama performance yesterday. To say it came with weeks of its own special kind of drama is an understatement. But it's done now. Right?

Yes - it's done (disclaimer I know nothing about Drama - well not GCSE drama).

Did you go to watch? DD watched her friends last week and said they were all brilliant.

How did it go?

International results seem to be out earlier that UK results
Not quite correct. The results day for iGCSE exams is 11th August for UK pupils too see link ask.cie.org.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/205696021-When-will-June-2016-results-be-released-. Am not sure how schools will inform pupils though if they are taking a mixture of GCSE and iGCSE. It could be worth asking for those of you in this situation.
Interesting to get an international perspective "diva. My understanding is that iGCSE papers are time-zoned so that pupils in say China, UK, US and Australia take slightly different papers, so it may not be exactly the same paper blue*. There are also several different exam boards that offer iGCSE as well.

Yes catslife they are zoned - DS's paper will not be the same as the one taken in the UK. CIE uses zones, but Edexcel does not for the international exams so some exams are taken in the evening. DS took his mandarin and german papers at 7pm at night (so when you finish in Asia the exam has started in the UK and you cannot tell anyone what was on the paper ) and his AS Maths this year with edexcel is also in the evening.
The advantage of the zones is that there are always masses of past papers for revision as each paper has three variations.

Bitoutofpractice - yay - you survived :) well done!!!

Exit lunch with head of sixth form is very nice even though not in the same league as massive scholarships. Do you think it's a "please reconsider" lunch or an "all the best for your future" lunch?

BitOutOfPractice did it go off all right on the night? The drama often seems to arise from one or more of the group not pulling their weight, it's always a problem with group work. I am grateful that for music it was recorded months in advance so we could forget about it.

Lunch with the Head Exit? Blimey, I'd be dreading that if I were your dd, wondering what sort of strong arm tactics they are going to use!

It went fine apparently. We watched a rehearsal last week that they did in front of a drama teacher from another school and DD took the feedback very very personally and sobbed for hours so we were all rather fraught by the time yesterday came round.

And yy to the pp who said its more stressful because of the relying on other kids. DD is very conscientious and finds it very frustrating when others aren't.

Anyway, onwards! English next.

So glad I found you all

I think it is a 'please reconsider' lunch. It's quite a small school and DD isn't in the least intimidated by the prospect. And she has been on a ski trip with him so knows him quite well, although he did refer to her as Princess all the way through the trip.

There is nothing they can offer her really. She is keen on the idea of change (been at current school since Reception) and her chosen sixth form gets better results. Plus she will have to pay for herself if she stays.