GCSE 2018 (7) [wine][wine][wine][wine]

[mmzz]

A new thread to take us through the exams
Link to old thread

callitwhatyouwill absolutely agree 100%

Gosh so many typos there - mean DDs general feedback. Must remember to read before posting

Good luck to the RS lot today and impossible - hope your daughter feels better.

Biology AQA trilogy seemed to go OK for my son. He seemed happy when he came out. He’s struggled a lot with Science so I’m hoping he’s done enough for a decent grade (a 5/6 would be great)

PE today. Only an hour long as he’s done 40% coursework already and had a good boost as his practicals went well so 26% out of a possible 30% in the bag already. 😅

Chemistry tomorrow will be tough. He’s got a Chemistry tutor session tonight.

I’m particularly worried about his English but we’ll need to leave that for now.

PE will be finished this week (he wishes it was English Lit out of the way!)

Good luck everyone. I feel a lot calmer now the exams are underway. My son was always calm

Dd has PE today

Really hoping its a good paper as her confidence was really knocked yesterday

I showed her that twitter thread about the biology paper and she seems happier

Apparently she was in the loo with two freinds who told her how easy they found it...she lay on the floor and refused to get up...all the little year 7s had to step over her

She is a drama queen

Can I join in please? I'm hoping the thread can help me smile through this and stay sane although I fear it might be too late already
Ds is doing his GCSEs and is giving me untold worries! He is bright and has always been in top sets at his comp. His attendance was around 99% until October of Y11 when he started with a series of illnesses which resulted in around 2 months off school (in several separate spells) and related fatigue. He had an operation just before Easter, tonsillitis 3 weeks ago & we spent Sunday night in Urgent Care getting him seen & treated for another eye infection . Prior to all his illnesses he had coasted and so as a result has found it impossible to catch up on the work he has missed and so we're expecting significantly lower grades than his predicted 7s & 8s.
It's so hard as he keeps everything to himself, not really talking to us until he is at crisis point (at times I just want to shake him!). School have been supportive and are going to apply for special consideration but I'm not holding out much hope as what I've read is that illnesses prior to the exams aren't taken into account.

Anyway that's our background, he's gone off today to do his first PE paper which I don't feel over optimistic about but he did well in his course work (eventually, school gave him lots of extra time) so hopefully that will help. Reading the comments on here last night after Biology made me smile & ds had been following things on Twitter and feeling relieved he did the Edexel paper I think.

north

Welcome northender to our thread. There are many on here who have DC with health issues who, I am sure, will help and support you and your D's through this stressful period. Feel free to comment or ask any of the lovely people on here for help and advise. Good luck to your D's who will do his best I'm sure

I can't believe I've only just found you all, I now feel I have a chance to retain my sanity over the next 5weeks

DS did OCR Biology yesterday (which I don't think has been mentioned here?) which he said was 'weird and tricky' very obscure questions, although he didn't mention carrots or eggs! Didn't want to ask too many questions as he seemed pretty chilled.

Gone in to school to revise for chemistry for tomorrow. (They did RE last year)

Hope all goes well for everyone today.

On the biology AQA exam, I think in science in particular you wouldn't make much of a scientist if you can't apply your knowledge to new and novel scenarios - that's how scientific advancement is made....and I agree that this is what the paper was trying to test. Perhaps they overdid it though as it seemed to have floored a good few students?

For us it was quite nice to see an exam paper that played to my dd's strengths for a bloody change! (yes this is a bugbear for me). As a bright kid with dyslexia (and the associated working memory to long term memory issues) she is continually disadvantaged by exams that are inherently unfair, require near eidetic memory and the recollection of trillions of facts - all of which is totally pointless in the modern era (when the internet is there to refresh your memory whenever required). I am with Camilla Cavendish on exams and the need to modernise them
Camilla Cavendish on exams

I could be eating me words if dd bombs the exam but whilst she baulked at some of the questions initially she managed to make a good stab at them and from what others have said, got the CF question right. Also, I hope all dc everywhere who were deflated by the exam are able to pick themselves up and go on to smash paper 2. We've been there - dd didn't do so well (we think) on paper 1 for history IGCSE CIE - but that seems ages ago now. How time flies when you are enjoying yourself

Theimpossiblegirl - really hoping that your dd feels better for the exam - what an awful night for her to endure. Keep us posted

Good luck to everyone taking exams today. DD has PE. Feels like we are on an exam production line at the moment

sandybayley there are always crossovers from one subject to another I.e deforestation in biology which comes under ecology both in geography/ biology. Yes exams are changing you are right but not for the better. High achievers expect to be challenged. Hence why triple sciencers have to answer questions in such detail more than combined sciencers. But when you have had to learn 10 practicals thoroughly then get asked to make one up in the middle of an exam time plays a big factor. A 6 mark question should take 6 minutes to answer properly to get the full 6 marks. If you can make up your own experiment in that time and get the full marks then well done!!!! in exam conditions I don't think I could do it.

hmcaswas glad your DC had a good biology experience my dgd said paper was OK just deflated in all study hours wasted.

HMC you have to know all the facts of a subject in order to get a firm grounding before you take it to higher level. Admittedly the internet is there but not available during exams. Only my opinion though.

Luckily biology didn;t seem to phase dd too much she just thoought it was ridiculous but as a very clever girl but with an asd different formats/wordiness etc can throw her. She has a literal way of looking at things and can go off at a tangent if she gets an idea about something.

Agree (as does DS) on balance harder papers and more application rather than rote learning to the mark scheme is a good thing - but what we need is for teachers and schools to recognise that and prepare them for it ie going back to teaching an understanding of the subject rather than regurgitating mark schemes. Also need to accept that results will be more volatile as markers will need to interpret a wider range of answers. I have said before that DD2 loved IB as it was broader and not focused just on mark scheme answers but had to accept that results were harder to predict and there was more objectivity in marking - but overall preferable. When anything can be googled surely learning facts is useless - it is the understanding and application that matters

I'm full of admiration for the dcs who are persevering despite illness. It's important that they do enough to get where they want to go next but predictions can't take into account real life and are pretty useless as soon as something doesn't go to plan.

Agree about understanding and application oratory and about harder exams. But in order to do harder exams you do have to know the facts for a secure grounding in order to understand and apply to different scenarios. Internet is not available in exams. Understanding and application cannot take place without knowing the facts. They go hand in hand. And in biology there are masses of facts. Dgd school dies not teach by rote. They are taught to apply their knowledge very widely. But you still cannot rely on the internet but on the knowledge you have learned yourself in an exam situation. Which us what we are talking about ...exam conditions.

Any rate dgd secure in the knowledge that if she never becomes a neuroscientist/nuero surgeon she will be able to work in catering as she knows what cleaning agents to use and she knows an awful lit about eggs and chicken!

Sorry about rants. No offence meant, hope none taken its just frustration at such crappy exam papers! My apologies to all

It's an interesting discussion re recall/regurgitation vs application of knowledge. My DC are at opposite ends of the scale.

DD has a near eidetic memory and revised for all her science exams pretty last minute (well, in the 3 weeks before). Her strengths/interest lie in arts/humanities but she still got 3 A*s in the sciences at near enough full UMS. She reckons she's forgotten the lot now and I'm pretty sure her real understanding of it all at the time was tenuous.

DS is dyslexic and simply doesn't have the same facility to cram/rote learn. But his grasp of the principles involved is much better than hers ever was and like many dyslexics he can see the 'bigger picture' much more clearly. Out of the two of them he is the better scientist but would lose out to her in a test of straight recall of detail.

I think the exams should allow both types of learner to show their strengths. Previously they were much more geared towards DC like my DD to the detriment of DC like my DS. I do think it's time that the balance was redressed.

Having said all of that, I still think that the grade boundaries will be low for the new GCSEs while the changes bed in.

Sostenueto but dgd will become a neuroscientist!
I am also sure that science teachers try hard to instil enthusiasm for science while battling to cover the enormous syllabus and teenage indifference. It's a thankless task.
The exam boards can't have it both ways - be more creative, absolutely, but in that case slim down the content or limit the need to memorise so much stuff. I would never expect an exam paper to include questions on all the topics but I'd expect a nod to most of them - and if they were having to invent an experiment in 6 minutes instead of using one of ten they'd learned that's definitely unfair!

Loose DS didn't sit that paper so I certainly don't know for sure, but I would imagine that the experiment they had to invent would be based on the principles they had learnt for the other 10. If you have a good memory, learning 10 experiments isn't that difficult and doesn't prove much other than that you have a good memory. Applying the principles of those experiments to a new situation proves you have a proper grasp of them, surely?

Sostenueto My DD felt the same about AQA Biology Double Science, they were told to learn heart, respitration etc but it hardly came up and like you say they needed to use common sense which a lot of teenagers just don't have yet. DD said it was very confusing.

She went on Student Room last night and reckons she got about 35 out of 70 when in the mock she got 50 which got her a 7. I've been telling her just move on don't dwell and try to get as many marks as possible in the next exam to even it out. Surely both exams can't be bizarre???!!

RE today, no exam this morning thank goodness and 2 tomorrow and nothing until next Tuesday.

My DD sits in a small room for her exams (because of her additional needs), there were 10 of them. One student went on his mobile phone and was instantly disqualified, one left before the minimum time was up was told to stay or he would be disqualified but left anyway.

Exactly loose! Its not that dgd could not do it. After all the processes of experiments say for example on different food would be very similar but in exam conditions and the time restraint hope of getting full marks for that question not very likely whereas if it was an experiment she had already done and knew about in detail ( there was a choice if 10) she would have got the full 6 marks. She had a shot at it but spent too much time on it and it threw her a bit for that reason. I'm sure others coped. I'm also sure a lit did not cope with new format of exam. And maybe it was not as bad as dgd thinks being naturally under confident.. If the exam boards want the children to 'think' outside the box then don't bother with a clear mark scheme IMO.

Cripes Catherine.