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 :)

Not sure what board ds but maths was okay apart from two queations. So he seemed pleased with most of the paper except for the two,questions, but one was only a two pointer.

He needs an A as he wants to,do it for A level. He is more stressed about his a level choices then other subjects.

DD school have revealed new uniform had a look at the costs and its £86.00 for a blazer for dd! I could buy a bespoke designer brand thats nicer for the same price, dd is waiting to see if it has a logo on and is going to ask as dd said by the sounds of it, the blazer is the same as the school I work in and we have a second hand uni shop so will get one from there as DD's bust is constantly growing and the sizes only go up to a 42 and dd is bigger across the bust than that and broad :o couldn't believe the cost and its £22.50 per shirt, but there white so off to marks and sparks for them.

Oddly DS2 claims that he "really enjoyed" Maths (AQA I think) this morning. Genuinely not a hint of sarcasm and seemed very bouyant. English Lit poetry tomorrow morning. He is also looking forward to seeing his older brother who is popping home over the weekend.

I think DD is AQA Maths. She wasn't happy, but that probably isn't a good guide to performance!

DD did triple as one option, they have finished the syllabuses (syllabi?) for all 3. She would much rather have done double I think. School has now changed it to two options. She also has Further Maths.

Last day for DD tomorrow, but she isn't going in as she revises better at home.

DD's friends have reported back and have said it went well (Edexcel GCSE)

the appreciation of the unseen poem

DS1 can appreciate a poem he's never seen before, he just has trouble analysing it or writing more than a short paragraph about it.

DS2 said Edexcel maths was 'alright' but he knows he made a mistake on the last question, finding the area of a triangle (which was harder than it sounds, apparently) using trig and roots etc. He forgot to divide by 2! D'oh!

DS said the last question on maths (Edexcel) wasn't the hardest on the paper. That's the most I've got out of him about any of the exams so far. He's a maths geek though and is doing additional maths (OCR FSMQ) and plans to do maths and FM A levels.

His triple science takes up one option slot and they finished the syllabus but it was a bit of a rush at the end.

They have revision sessions all morning tomorrow then leavers celebrations as study leave after half term. 9 exams the week after...

I'm pretty sure DS1 doesn't appreciate poems whether he's seen them before or not. His English isn't until 7 June though so he can practice pretending to appreciate them during half term.

He seemed happy enough with maths. Didn't have much to say, but he wasn't complaining.

His last day of school is the 24th. There's no study leave at his school so your last day is when your last exam is. Both his dad and I were a bit shocked because we're Scottish and in our experience you'd generally just sit your exams and then start 5th year at the start of June (all the year groups in secondary moved up at that point). So we were not expecting him to be done with school (potentially forever). We find the applying for sixth form at your own school a bit ludicrous too (actually we find everything about the system down here perplexing and irritating, but you just have to put up with it).

" 9 exams the week after.."

That's heavy going. DD has 4 exams the week after half term and 4 exams the following week. She has had 4 exams a week for all of her subjects.

Exit, so glad that your DD enjoyed the latin. Mine wasn't too happy and thinks she might have scraped a C overall. She's made a pile of all her Latin work by the back door, as that's the last of Latin, she's probably looking forward to throwing them on a bonfire over half term!
Maths went ok. She's down for Maths A level, and takes after her father in finding maths relatively easy.

I have finished my stint being educated in the poetry anthology and two year's past papers and examiner's comments. I have no problem with the unseen poem but seeing as I don't know the anthology inside out and sideways I had to be tutored in the first half of the paper (AQA). It wasn't what you'd call an uplifting experience - one unseen was about death, the other may or may not have been an abusive relationship (very Ambridge) and the poems I looked at were big on death.

We're now on phase 3 of the great maths drama (1 - I've failed horribly. 2 - I might have got a C. 3 - I've kissed goodbye to the A but I'll probably end up with a B). I was really worried at lunchtime by his reaction but it has (hopefully) turned out to be just a storm in a teacup.

DS has 10 the week after half term, 2 a day, every day. It does seem a lot in a week, though he's aware it's coming and has half term to revise.

9 for DS the week after half term too, 3 in one day!

DS has also checked his marks for maths today, he thinks he dropped 5 overall, his boffin friend is sure he got 100%

10!!!!!!!.....thud...hits floor...

Nine and ten exams in a week sounds brutal.

We only have five exams left after half term, and counting...

We've got into the habit of all relaxing in front of BGT this week.

Ds definantly is not one of this people who are swotting until 11pm. Infacr he does an hour or so in the afternoon, and maybe an hour at most in the evening, for the exam the next day.

i find myself thinking that everyone else has the key to making their child succeed, and we somehow missed that lecture.

DS2 has 6 that week, and that's his toughest week. 9 or 10 sounds hard going.

By the way, am I the only one to read needastrongone's name in an Italian accent to rhyme with minestrone?

DS1's timetable has 12 exams the week after half term. 4 in one day (but 3 of them are English). Then a bit of a gap, and then 2 more exams.

Dd motivates herself. From the moment she was born I realised she was totally her own person. Which is why I am always a bit taken aback when she repeats back anything I have said to her.

step I think you win horrendous timetable award!

Don't know off hand for dd1 but she's a few follow ons coming up. I count them as one , she counts them as two.

DS1 is not happy about the big gap between everything else and further maths. His school don't do study leave so he's supposed to go in and, well, study further maths. He's tried the 'well I could be ill for 3 or 4 days' and 'the teachers said they can't do anything if we don't come in', both of which have received The Look. He'll study a lot more at school than he will at home on his own, so he can do what he's supposed to and go to school.

"DS1's timetable has 12 exams the week after half term"

That is crap timetabling. How do they expect a student to perform well under those conditions?

Is this a mixture of exam boards? Maybe this is why DD's school stick to AQA for everything except Edexcel for maths and Citizenship.