GCSE 2018 no. 6: stress, struggles and success (hopefully) *Title Edited by MNHQ*

[mmzz]

New thread for GCSEs 2018

DD has had a very productive day, she seems very on top of her revision plan - her room is becoming slowly encased in wall to wall revision posters!
I'm not keeping tabs on exact hours spent on each subject though - I trust her to organise her time as she sees fit.

Although she needed a chocolate fix earlier after realising she'd spent an hour on Biology paper 2 instead of paper 1!
I reminded her that no revision will be wasted time, and as paper 2 is the trickier one she might be glad of a few extra hours spent on it when she gets to it!

DD was revising chemistry earlier, covering topics which overlap between the 2 papers. Perhaps biology is the same.

Quick reminder that there is a National Theatre screening on Macbeth on 10 May. DD is worrying about whether she knows enough quotes from all the texts yet. She knows lots, but wants to learn more as she desperately wants a grade 8.

DS has just started to compile a list of quotes he thinks he'll learn for Eng Lit........he's predicted an 8......realistically I think he'll be lucky to get a 7!

mmzz It is Edexcel. I didn’t know that whole sections were only in the 2nd ‘extension’ paper - I thought that each section had a couple of extension points on the specification (in bold on the list). DS certainly thinks that it’s too time consuming to split his notes on each topic into Main and Extension points, so is just revising everything for the first exam.

Laura Kuenssberg has obviously bungled a big coat on top of her Sunday night gear and run outside with a camera. I love the fact that the BBC had pre-recorded the resignation film yesterday.

Bundled!

Who is going to replace her as hòme secretary? The cabinet is / was very finely balanced between brexit and remain. It's going to take the wisdom of Solomon to find someone who won't tip the balance and cause a split.

Well they could always combine the Foreign Office with the Home Office & give Boris a combined brief. What could possibly go wrong with that? The other obvious choice is Ken Clarke!

Kingscote assuming its triple science, have a look at page 12 of this document

It says which topics relate to which paper for Biology. It is whole sections, with no overlap.
https://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/GCSE/Science/2016/Specification/GCSEBiologyy_Spec.pdf#page9

Savid Javid's name is being talked about. Boring, but I guess TM would consider that highly desirable at the moment!

Betting is on Sajid Javid at the moment. Interesting choice as the child of commonwealth immigrants from 1960. Not sure of his politics, will have to read up. While Amber Rudd had to go I wouldn't want a less moderate Tory to take her place.

Cross post, mmzz!

Nicky Morgan?

I’ll check that document in the morning, mmzz - thank you for that.

TM and Nicky Morgan are enemies, so it would be surprising.
Michael Gove? Very effective, loyal but leading brexiteer.

Interesting times ... rumors flying around about David Davis not being happy in his position (who would?)...think Karen Bradley may be a strong candidate...but think Javid will tick the boxes because of the Windrush...

Kingscote if your DS is doing the same Science syllabus as mine (Edexcel igcse A*-G) the topics don't split out neatly between the papers sadly, and the paper 2s are the extension questions on the same topics. Hopefully for your DS it's the syllabus mmzz linked to though, which would be much easier to split out.

We're in the same boat re post-half term exams; only sciences and second maths paper afterwards so no revision can really be left till then. Although it does mean that it's an opportunity to absolutely blitz past papers!

DS has got all of history and eng Lang after half term as well as second half of sciences and maths. There’s too much history to leave completely but he s hoping to spend most of half term on it because as you’ve all found with 10 subjects there’s normally only time for a couple of sessions a subject in a normal week which doesn’t cover much in the high volume ones. He s struggling to get up to two hours a night and four ish on a weekend day but not sure he d cope with more. And really needs to spend time in rs and computing which are first exams in which his knowledge is still patchy. Just got to keep plodding on at this stage though.

On a more positive note maths and physics marks creeping up on past papers so still on with the mission to get those up as high as possible and secure a pass in English even if it sacrifices the others sciences to lower grades than they should be.

Oratory that is positive and shows the practice papers really help at this stage. I'm sure English will be OK, too.
Well, we are almost free of art GCSE. Project 1 done. Project 2 very nice but needs a bit more writing. DS wants to do 'just one more drawing' as a final piece. I'd have printed out a couple more photos and called them 'final piece' personally, but if he MUST do a drawing...! It's so hard to tick all the boxes. I've no idea what the final grade will be but anything above a 4 will be met with mad, wild cheering at this stage!
I don't feel too guilty about our extended deadline because I know for a fact another school is only finishing the art exam today!

Well hopefully by now DD would have completed her French Oral...she wasn't too nervous ...although that probably changed when she got into the room...

Practice papers do really help, especially in sciences. DS did a Biology paper yesterday and said he's finding them much easier now because he knows what the mark scheme is looking for on a lot of the questions. He said to begin with he had a lot of the knowledge but just wasn't putting it down in a way that would get him the marks.

Teenmum60 Hope it went well for her.

Good luck to her, Teenmum! I'm sure she was great!

teen I'm sure she's done splendidly.
Re sciences same hers, he has to revise the whole topic for paper 1. You'd think they could split it having two papers...
He's gone to school in the midst of a blizzard today. Just hoping he won't catch something for Wednesday History. Am I the only one that's becoming a bit hypochondriac about DCS falling ill in the next months?

Same here not same hers.