Parents of Year 11's - in the midst of exams!

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

roll up roll up, for our new support thread for all parents of year 11 kids. Whether your kids work hard or not, what ever their goals (or not!) this is our place to de-stress :)

Oh my goodness hysteria I would have killed him too!
I actually couldn't breathe til I got to the end of your post! What a little monkey!

DD has been revising English Lit ready for the exams next week.

She's watched all the Mr Bruff videos and a couple of others on YouTube - just wondered if anybody has any other recommendations?
She's studying An Inspector Calls and Of Mice and Men.

Will get DD to look at these over the weekend.

DD also said AQA Chemistry was good today after the rocky Biology, so she's feeling more positive thanks Ohyoubadbadkitten . Got Spanish tomorrow, then English Lit, Geog, Physics, Maths & English Lit next week so buying in more supplies this weekend
Liney your poor son and all that stress! I'd be really 'bothered' too!! Really hope tomorrow is a better day for him and you

To 228 and Shanghai and anyone else whose DC did CIE Chemistry iGCSE today:

DS1 has just told me that all the atomic numbers and mass numbers in the periodic table CIE provided were the wrong way round (i.e. the opposite way round from accepted convention and from the example given in one of the questions). Did anyone else notice this?

Thanks, all. The DS is not my DS, but my OH's DS. OH is a lone parent (as am I) and we don't live together but live close by and support each other a lot.

The last three years have opened my eyes to just how crap special school provision can be for youngsters with ASD.

These schools know that anxiety is part of the package. But they contribute to the anxiety on crucial exam days ... you honestly couldn't make it up.

TheSecond not seen that but I'll have a google.

AQA here, so I hope they got it right.

Some students would have taken it in their stride, but DS1 was really confused by it, and it affected 10 marks worth of questions.

Have PMd you knitting

I think

From Twitter...

So did they do it on purpose then?

thick

Nickname, ds1 does leave his either with us or if he needs to take it for emergencies it stays in his bag from when he leaves the house until the exam is over.
I still worry he will slip it in his pocket by accident.
There are plenty of reminders though so I've told him to check even when he knows it's already in his bag.
Paranoid, me? Much.

DS2 has left his phone at home, just in case.

He has Eng lit, geog and maths next week. His worst week is the one straight after half term with 6 exams. Luckily for him his school let them take their core science in Y10 so that's 3 exams less this year. This affects the school's results but not DS's as the achievement/progress 8 measure is only for exams taken in the same block.

DS has 8 exams the week after half term. It's the week from hell.

the second
Just asked DS and he says the layout was the opposite way around.
Students are generally anxious when going into the exams so any change in format is frustrating :(

DS has an exam free day today.
Good luck to all those who do have exams today!

peace of wild things that isn't true for all subjects. DD is doing OCR B for sciences, she hadn't started yet. Biology next week and the rest after half term.

DD has Spanish today and you can tell she is listening to corny Spanish music which has woke me up at stupid o'clock! Also PE this afternoon I believe.
These are her 2 best subjects so it should be a good day!

Latin this afternoon here - next week is the heaviest with 7 exams, one every morning including English Lit and Maths.
Good luck everyone.

I hadn't realised that there were so many exam boards. DD's school have AQA for everything except maths and Citizenship which are Edexcel.

I am so glad that she did IGCSE maths in January. Also, because they do 2 short and fat GCSEs in year 10 she now only has 7 subjects this summer. It has worked out at 4 exams a week until 17th June.

PE in the afternoon here too. Hope it goes ok as DD was told she could take as an extra GCSE only at start of this year (despite asking if she could do so at end of Year 9 and told no!), and so has had to study for it independently. She did ok on her mock though, but she says there was a lot to revise for it.

No exams today, but it's the last official day of school as revision leave starts next week!
Feeling a bit emotional - end of an era and all that! Told DD and she looked at me like I'm mad - she's going back in September for 6th form!
Good luck for today's exams!

Good luck for anyone with exams today.

DS has 7 next week, then it's half term, then 8 the week after. It tails off somewhat after this.

DS's school used mixed exam boards too, there's a lot of AQA next week, but looks like for the sciences, they use OCR. I wonder how they chose which to use?!

Spanish this morning for us and then weekend spent revising for next week's chocca week of exams! The Crucible & TKAMB on Monday, so quote cramming joys!

Liney how is today going? Thinking of you. SEN & the exams is a whole different ball game for those students concerned. So many hoops to jump through just to get any support - not for the faint-hearted at all & like you say, stress inducing enough without all the pressure of the exams on them too!

I hadn't realised before this week that the different exam boards used the same time slots. I had an absolute panic with biology where I managed to convince myself that DS was taking AQA but had revised the Edexcel syllabus. I felt sick, then I walked into the kitchen, checked his exam board and felt stupid.

I'm assuming that I will spend the weekend refereeing the usual DH/DS argument over free time and revision. I don't know if I can face it again and I may see if I can avoid it entirely getting by everyone together and agreeing plans for the weekend (also known as "threats and bribes")