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 :)

😳😳dear lord ds was late for his exam however there was a bus that crashed outside the school so the surrounding traffic basically ground to a hault loads of kids were late including some of the invigilators so phew he was fine double checked with the exam officer at the school but for 15 minutes I was a bit hysterical tbh

Aaargh that would be awful - at least he wasn't the only one! DD insists on catching the school bus despite me offering to take her. I suppose if the bus broke down there would be several late, whereas if it was just me we would have a right panic on!

DS reports that he wrote '3 hours of structured bullshit', so all is fine

AQA English, so Of Mice and Men and Woman in Black. DS reports the extracts and questions we very straightforward, the former in particular. He feels he did well in the paper.

RE he says was very easy indeed, although he finds RE in general an easy subject, said he could use religious teaching that he learned to apply to all the questions.

He feels really positive about the day, good stuff.

AQA Systems and Control tomorrow.

DC says that the English paper was actually OK. 100% perfect girl questions were a bit weird but in all fairness she read the short story to me and I thought it was very weird and not at all what gcse's were about.

This is the big week of 7 exams so just a tiny bit stressy here at the moment. cant wait until a levels kick off as well.

Catvs being up to 30 mins late is absolutely fine and shouldn't be a problem. If they are later than 1 hour though a report needs to go to the exam board (although papers will be marked in the usual way).
We are WJEC for English Lit and language (for some strange reason - we are in England) it's similar texts i.e. Of Mice and Men and an Inspector Calls. Doubt whether anyone else on here is doing this specification though.

Same here Maladicta. DD has AQA GCSE Geography tomorrow, Physics unit 1(AQA) on Wednesday and English lit poetry (AQA) on Friday. She already has maths.

Her school only does IGCSE for maths in the January and only for the top set. All the rest are just GCSEs.

Ds said that eng. lit 'was better than expected' (an inspector calls/of mice and men).

A work colleague said her brother thought his exam was terrible (Romeo and Juliet) as the question covered a theme they hadn't prepared for.

Is anyone else finding their dc getting more tired than normal?

That's good to know about being up to 30mins late.
I have a recurring nightmare at the moment that we all sleep in and DD misses an exam! Stressed, Me?!

DD did English Lit AQA, An Inspector Calls and Of Mice and Men today.
She thinks it went ok, she didn't run out of time which was her main concern. They weren't the questions she'd have chosen apparently, but they weren't awful.

Next up is WJEC Drama tomorrow morning. Anybody else? (We are in England too so odd choice of board again!)

He finished in both Lit and RS and it was "as I expected" and "fine". No exams tomorrow, one each day after that. As of now exams here are 35% complete.

(Yes, I did used to be an accountant)

Wow that was some good maths Knitting!
DD is nowhere near that - 3 down and 17 to go!
Is that 15%? I am NOT so good at maths!

She did do core science in yr 10 so I suppose technically that's another 3 down.

Feedback from DS re English today - "Part 1 was good and part 2 was OK"

He isn't one for giving up much information. About anything. Ever.

He's now on Latin and geography revision for tomorrow. I might go and ask him a few more questions about today's exam to see if I get the rolling of eyes and some huffing.....!

We're 12 down and 8 to go - so I make that 60% of the way through.

Wish she had started later though, as would have meant longer to revise...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3604898/Bomb-threats-close-12-schools-UK-GCSE-exam-day.html

Just saw this. How awful, especially for the hundreds of dcs in the middle of exams!
Puts all the other worries into perspective I think.
Hope all your dcs are safe and not affected

starfleet - that's verbose compared to my dd!

English was "OK".

Thanks - I'm much wiser now. :)

DD has being revising physics,maths and geography today catching up on the work she didn't do over the weekend. Still feels ill and terrible but is plodding on.
anyone else dc's igcse aqa geography tomorrow? or does anyone have some useful geography revision sites?
and hes dd school do wjec drama dd doesn't do it but have friends who do.

BBC Bitesize is really useful. Unfortunately they are updating it and most of the new stuff is on videos which DD and I don't find very helpful.

In Kent, one school was a senior school, and the other one a junior school. They're not in the same town or linked in any obvious way.

We have geog tomorrow. Physical geography hopefully, as that's what he's been revising. Not sure which exam board.

My Ds had aqa English lit of mice and men and inspector calls. Appears happy with today's exam. Said they were the questions he wanted. He had prepared quotes and was able to use them. So hopping it's a good sign.

Tomorrow is aqa GCSE geography.

Wednesday aqa physics

Thursday edexcell maths and wjec Latin

Friday aqa GCSE literature.

A busy week so pleased it started positively.

5 down, 16 to go.

% complete - how did you get this far without it? I did consider whether to stick with straight numbers of exams or adjust for the difference in length Some are an hour, some an hour and a half and the MFL ones are very short. I told myself to get a grip and went with the easiest solution.

After he's left for school in the morning I wipe out the current figure and update it. He doesn't take a blind bit of notice but I feel that I am making a contribution other than sausage sandwiches.

Evening all

Awful cold (dd)

Didn't get much more than eng lit was ok, she reckons she has no idea how she did ggrrrr. I have to bite my tongue, I just would like to know more...did you know what they were asking (always helps to understand the damn ques) but I reverted to silence.
Geography tom
Physics
Maths
Eng lit 2
Then we have graduation Friday afternoon, how exhausted are they going to be - guess no drinking after - except me

Was telling a very shocked friend how they must get a B to study that topic in A levels. Times must have changed! I grew up in oz so the UK system is new weird to me.

Good luck and keep up the good work - mummies I am talking to!

to you superstars - thankless tasks of keeping our babies sane

DS2 says English lit, (AQA iGCSE, Curious Incident and unseen poetry) was 'fine!' The Curious Incident question was about Christopher's mother and the passage was one of her letters. He's doing foundation so the best he can get is a C. Finger's crossed! 3 down, 11 to go. That's about 20%!

Terrible, those bomb threats. I always worry that some dickhead will set off a fire alarm or something at DS's school but it hasn't happened.

Argh! Fingers crossed!

eatingtoomuchchocolate I'm glad to see that DS1 isn't the only one doing WJEC Latin. He did the Core language paper in Y10 so only has the Additional language paper to do, on 6th June.

6 exams completed, 9 left that's 40% completed. Better than I thought!
maxtrue the need a B to take a subject at A level isn't completely new, I seem to remember that was the case when I was at school. For some subjects e.g. Maths a grade A is usually needed.