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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

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

997 replies

OhYouBadBadKitten · 30/03/2016 14:53

Eep.

OP posts:
needastrongone · 16/05/2016 08:59

Good luck today, exam folk.

Hope the poorly people manage ok.

Icouldbeknitting · 16/05/2016 09:11

Bonjour et bonne chance. That's all you get I'm afraid.

catslife · 16/05/2016 09:16

After some revision last night, I am now very familiar with the Edexcel RS revision Guide. First paper today. They weill have started by now!
The main challenge for dd on this paper is finishing it on time.
After her exam she will stay in school to revise French which is tomorrow morning knitting.

Original poster
OhYouBadBadKitten · 16/05/2016 09:59

Good luck everyone!

OP posts:
Icouldbeknitting · 16/05/2016 10:43

I knew that French was first up and it was "a" morning but DS is a german speaker (ha - I wish) so it's not that high on my radar. Tomorrow it is then.

TheDrsDocMartens · 16/05/2016 11:05

RS this morning , Law this afternoon. Law second one this week too so that's a big chunk of revision gone quickly. French & Biology tomorrow.

Mysillydog · 16/05/2016 11:06

Did anyone else sigh when they read that universities will be able to charge higher fees from Autumn 2017? I think British students pay even more than US students when bursaries are taken into account, because only a minority actually pay the advertised full cost.

derektheladyhamster · 16/05/2016 11:08

I have my head in the sand about fees. It's unlikely in ds's case he'll ever earn enough to pay them all back.

Mysillydog · 16/05/2016 11:17

Dd is not an A*/A student, so I am concerned that she will want to go to university but perhaps will not get into a good red brick refuse to use Russell Group because there are many good uni's that are not in it. I think I will try to persuade her that uni is not the only way to go if her results are not amazing.

catslife · 16/05/2016 11:20

No problems knitting it's hard to keep track of everyone else's exams especially when your dc isn't taking that subject or the school doesn't even teach that subject at GCSE. I guess GCSE Law will be a content heavy subject, but not possible until A level at dds school.
I am not even thinking about uni fees at the moment as dd isn't sure whether university is for her (or not). The fact that they will be able to charge more fees doesn't necessarily mean they will all choose to do so though.

BitOutOfPractice · 16/05/2016 11:38

Hello folks. Just had a text from DD to say RE went really well. I know she was worried because she felt she'd left revision too late. We did some work together yesterday and I think that helped

Good luck to everyone. It's really real now Shock

Icouldbeknitting · 16/05/2016 11:43

I'll worry about fees after I've done worrying about GCSEs and then A levels. I should make a list "things that I will fret about even though they are not my problem". When I left work I put a lump of money aside for university, at the time it seemed a generous enough sum but now I'm very glad that my husband and my mother both did the same thing.

Today's main concern is where the see through pencil case has gone. I wouldn't mind but I bought a spare, presumably they are both together in a Very Special Place. It looks like he'll be using a zip lock bag tomorrow.

Original poster
OhYouBadBadKitten · 16/05/2016 11:45

I didn't see that about fees. Oh well, dd can just add it to the pile of debt that she will be unlikely to ever start to pay off if she goes down her chosen career path. I do worry about their living expenses, with the basic loan not even covering accommodation costs at some unis.

Will be good to have Law done Doc!

OP posts:
FantasyAndHope · 16/05/2016 11:58

DD has just finished R.S said it was fine just one question she didn't like.

BitOutOfPractice · 16/05/2016 12:03

Fantasy she should have just answered:

  1. It's part of God's plan
  2. It does / doesn't say it in the bible
  3. God gave us free will

That seemed to cover most questions Wink

BitOutOfPractice · 16/05/2016 12:04

We need a new thread soon!

FantasyAndHope · 16/05/2016 12:34

BitOut
It was just one question about race that she didn't like they just refer to the 10 commandments constantly

UhtredRagnorsson · 16/05/2016 12:54

I haven't been in this thread because I thought it would depress me - DS is not a high achiever, the best case scenario we are looking at is lots of Bs and maybe 2 or 3 As but that's an outside chance really, and not very realistic. Not because he isn't bright, and not because he doesn't work, but because his SpLDs are a huge handicap to him - he's come on in leaps and bounds in the last year or so and I reckon if he had another year of being basically able to function with approaching the same speed and efficiency as his peers, he'd be looking at getting a decent spread of results - but he doesn't. He has his first exam tomorrow - Biology. He got a C in his mock (his worst result) but has been getting As in recent tests - but I have a suspicion that those tests have been designed as confidence boosters rather than realistic evaluations. However, he is a confidence player so maybe the test success will have done the trick...his school certainly seems to approach the science of revision with a military precision. And his biology teacher actually noticed him and his issues after the mock, and has endeavoured to help him in a way that he can benefit from rather than expecting him to process in the same way as his non SpLD encumbered classmates do. So there's that. We may have isues this evening though since it's GOT day, also Fear the walking Dead. I might be able to persuade him that Fear can wait till tomorrow. But I can't see him not watching GOT as soon as he comes through the door after school (NOW TV is such a boon). It's slightly an AS thing - he gets antsy if he doesn't do things the way he always does them, changes to routine distress him disproportionately and his routine very firmly is through the door - GOT on days when there is GOT (obviously he doesn't expect to be watching new episodes every day). Still. I suppose 50 mins or so of relaxation isn't the worst thing in the world. It might de-stress him.

UhtredRagnorsson · 16/05/2016 12:57

OYBBK DD1 will be starting college in London in September and the money she will get for her mainenance loan won't cover the accomodation costs. Which means we will be making up that shortfall, paying her living expenses and on top of that, we will have to shell out for at least one new instrument possibly more. Nightmare. Luckily DS is extremely unlikely to set his sights on anything further away from home than Falmouth or Bournemouth. Ideally he'd want to stay here I think but the sort of course he wants to do (and would get the results for) isn't available here.

Original poster
OhYouBadBadKitten · 16/05/2016 13:09

Welcome uhtred :) I hope we haven't been too depressing, we have a parents of wide range of different kids on here. It's about us parents keeping our sanity rather than a high achievers club.
I think watching GOT when he gets in is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, especially if he will settle after having watched it. Keeping them on an emotional even keel is probably more important than last minute cramming.

Hopefully the tests recently do reflect his progress :) Sounds like an expensive time coming up for you though.

OP posts:
littledrummergirl · 16/05/2016 14:20

Ds1 and I spent some time in the stationary dept in wilko today. He is now fully kitted out for the next few weeks! Grin

Icouldbeknitting · 16/05/2016 14:28

BitoutofPractice when we were looking through the paper yesterday DS assured me that you don't get any points for mentioning religion until you get to the four point questions. Part of me is glad that he's aware of the marking scheme, part of me wants to check that this is right. I am stepping away - it's not my exam.

It will be GoT here tonight, straight after his music lesson. I thought about it and decided that sticking to a normal routine would be better for avoiding a last minute panic. I cancelled next week's music lesson though, after two exams on one day I think it will be GoT, pizza and an early night.

TheDrsDocMartens · 16/05/2016 14:41

uhtred surely GOT and routine is better than stress over changes. School will be disrupted enough at the moment.
Welcome to the thread btw.

navylily · 16/05/2016 15:04

Grin at the idea of GOT keeping them on a emotional even keel kitten - DD was so excited by the episode last week she couldn't sleep all night! But does provide a good distraction from studying, which they do all need a bit of.

Uhtred - those don't sound bad predictions at all - there's a lot of kids at DS's school who won't have a hope in hell of a mix of A-Cs. And neither DS nor DSD are likely to be getting solid A/A*s for a whole mix of reasons (patchy teaching, wrong subject choices, lack of revision, inate ability....). Doesn't mean they won't have many options open to them to go far in life, I'm sure.

ShanghaiDiva · 16/05/2016 15:24

Uhtred - Welcome :)
I think it's really important to have some down time. Ds was playing rugby most of Saturday and was too tired to do anything when he came home, but did some revision on sunday so it was a balanced weekend.