Year 11 support thread

[pasanda]

I can't find a new thread, moving on from the old full one, so I thought I would create one (please tell me if I'm wrong!)

Last night ds stayed up till 4.30am doing his biology coursework

This time the tsunami affect didn't work and he left it far too late to do a reasonable job. Which is a bloody shame because he wants to do biology A level and he has done so well in his other controlled assessments.

I wait with bated breath to find out his mark

Oh well, thank God for half term!!

Hi yes she was asked to go to see the vice principal and principal in which they said "you are one of our brightest pupils, but your mock exam results were very low, why do you think that is?" To which she replied "I really suffer with exam stress", they said it was the first they have heard about it, she told them I had been discussing it with her tutor, they offered to send her to someone, as yet that's hasn't happened, that meeting was before February half term.

I have spoke with gp, who referred to camhs who have said they won't see her so I'm now waiting for the gp to ring and discuss what our options are now.

Ask school again - it might be that they've putt her on a waiting list to see a counsellor (all three of my kids' schools have counsellors) but haven't told you, so it would be good to know. Alternatively, they've done nothing, and thus need a prod!

I would guess your GP can only suggest contacting Talking Therapies or paying privately.

Do Google locally though rather than just relying on the GP - I found a local counselling service offering six free sessions to teenagers, which I hadn't heard of before - so there might be things available.

My sympathies, it's so horrible seeing your children struggling.

Hi well I have spoke with camhs today who have said they are going to find out if they have anyone going into to her school and if they do they will ask them to bring DD up in next meeting.
Her school do have someone that goes in but there is at least a 6th month wait, so even if she is on the list it will not come through before her exams.
I have also rang a few people today but none of them have done work with teenagers for exam stress, will make some more calls tomorrow.
Hopefully will get something sorted.

6 month wait Shows how widespread mental health problems are.

Hope you can find something helpful soon.

(Btw, reported your post to get the name redacted.)

Just pointing out you've got your DD's name in your last post, so might want to ask the moderators to remove it.

x-post

We've nipped in and removed the name now - do give us a shout if you have any problems, Feeeeee.

Draylon - yes, I can see that you are very happy to share all sorts of identifying information about yourself and your DCs. The OP may not be, so I was just pointing it out.

It's conventional here not to use names. Feeee doesn't usually do it, so I assumed it was an accident. No paranoia.

I think I could probably get quite far investigating you with just advanced search, without needing spooks tbh.

Well, we have the exam timetable and yes, there is a clash. DD1 is supposed to do French reading and listening simultaneously. Same exam board. Surely this is a bit special? I'm sure they'll sort it out though, it is so glaringly obvious.

I'm a bit more worried about the day she has Biology and then 5 minutes later has Physics. They need to change that one too.

I think the reading and listening might be done one after the other as they are short exams?

I hope so, noble. But then there is still a typo in the timetable. I'ms ure they'll sort it.

For DS it's the listening and the writing that are done one after the other, so so for both his languages they show as the same date and time. But there will be something like a 20 minute break between the papers. It's not a clash, it's a deliberate timetabling choice as the papers are both very short.

Hello, checking in here, glad to find this thread. This year is so incredibly stressful. Interesting reading of all your experiences. DD is driving herself mad worrying about maths and English lit. She's just done another load of mocks we weren't expecting :(
Maths seems to have got very very difficult. DD doing higher paper and said a lot were crying over it the other day.

Atiao Yes, something like this depending on lengths of the exams, and how the school arranges things. Who does your son think is going to stay overnight at school with them??? grin and Pointy, I know all schools handle exam clashes differently, but at the school where DC teaches, staff have already drawn up a 'supervision timetable'. When there is a clash which means exams cannot be taken on the same day, two members of staff (one male, one female) stay in school overnight to supervise the affected student (so far it's only ever been one at a time) who is given a bed in the medical room for the night. Student's parents are usually invited to stay as well, but often cannot due to family circumstances. Mobile phones etc are not allowed and no internet access. Last year there was just one clash that needed the plan to be invoked.

In years gone by another family member who was a teacher, actually had an a level student and their parent stay at her house overnight in a similar situation.

Whileweareonthesubject it was my DS who mooted the idea that they might need to stay in 'exam quarantine' in school overnight. Obviously not such a far-fetched idea as one might think, given your comments!

I have four kids at three different schools and have never heard of anyone staying overnight! Does it happen often? You'd have to be having at least four exams on one day to not fit it into the day?

(My dd's medical room doesn't even have a bed )

And where do the teachers and the rest of the family sleep? I'm fascinated by this.

But where do the teachers sleep? And where would the rest of the family sleep if they were invited in? And how do they eat? And where do they wash?

It sounds a little extreme and I guess it doesn't happen very often. You can do up to 5.5 hours of GCSEs on the same day so you'd probably have to have 3 two hour papers which would be unlikely (though I'm sure not impossible) as most GCSE papers are shorter than this or 4 shorter papers.

You can do more hours than that and apply for special consideration. Dd1 was fifteen minutes off one day (three exams, including a clash) and was disappointed not to be able to apply

I just got it off a GCSE website!

I suppose it's possible it's changed in the four years since dd1 was doing GCSEs (Everything else has!)

Hmm - just looked at the JCQ 16/17 special considerations guidelines -
"2% The most common category of allowance - the majority of cases will fall within
this category:
[includes]
• allowance on last paper taken in a day when a candidate has been entered for
three or more examinations timetabled for the same day and the total duration
of those papers is more than 5 hours 30 minutes (GCSE examinations) or
more than 6 hours (GCE examinations)."

Which would seem to imply that over 5.5 hours was possible? What does your link say?

It was the same thing about the 5.5 hours which seemed to suggest overnight seclusion if over that.