Page 30 | GCSEs 2018 (9) Will we get to half term, for never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and who is Banquo

TheSecondOfHerName · 25/05/2018 12:42

mmzz bless him.

mmzz · 25/05/2018 12:42

I don't know what to say. I was just speaking to DH about it last night. We'd both trade a fair chunk of his maths ability for a little bit of a social life.
I don't think he is disliked. Just not on anyone's radar.
Maybe next year will be better. But that's his secondary school time over now and it never got to be ok. I sat and cried in the HOY's office when he wasn't making friends a few weeks in because I was afraid this would happen. She told me that it would all sort itself out and that this never happens. Unfortunately, i was right.

Nettleskeins · 25/05/2018 12:42

mmzz you can tell your ds that my ds2 has come straight home after having extra time (no doubt everyone has gone off without him) but he is just glad to be home and is asking a few of them by text what they thought...so he is not taking it as an "exclusion" just a chance for some reflection and quiet. He says he is incredibly tired and not even hungry. Your ds sounds like my dd felt after the last exam really angry and frustrated by it all, and sick at heart. It takes a while for the frustrated feeling to wear off, but also remind him that Singh Song was not easy for a lot of people and he will get marks for the other poem he compared it with, which he presumably knew better.

Ds2 on the plus side, (and as he is glad to just get 5's and the occasional 6) is thrilled that he could think of something to say on the subject of Romantic Love and found even a few words to analyse in Singh Song. But he left out the pun in the title!!!!! I'm really impressed by everything he said, I don't obviously know how it looked on the page but it sounded good when he said it to me. He compared it to Sonnet 29 the one by Elizabeth Barrett Browning because it was "happy" love.

no news from dd, she must be frantically revising for the Textiles paper.

CatherineCawood · 25/05/2018 12:43

oh no mmzz mind you every exam I've ever thought went well didn't and what seemed awful I did ok in. You just don't know, it's all guess work as to how anyone feels they have done.

Roll on 23 August and the waiting is over then we can all move on.

Nettleskeins · 25/05/2018 12:47

ds has just a few friends at school and they are really acquaintances not soul mates. But he is happy with that relationship and it has blossomed in its own way, in that they are there to hang about with at lunchtime or exchange a few texts with. He never meets them outside school until one very unusually asked all the group round to his house and I think him mum organised that...(nerf guns and computers) In his old school he had no friends. It has taken time but it is getting better all the time. Ds1 equally "unsociable" but also slowly developing respect and warm relationships with his classmates.

As they say, you can't hurry love.

hmcAsWas · 25/05/2018 12:48

Does he like his own company mmzz? Is he an introvert? Or would he rather be in the thick of it and socialising?

Oratory1 · 25/05/2018 12:49

mmzz is your DS unhappy that he doesn't have friends. Sorry if I'm stating the obvious but some aren't unhappy that way ? If he is then rooting for him in these exams and hoping he gets what he deserves next year. He (and you) have worked hard.

CatherineCawood · 25/05/2018 12:51

DD finally has a small circle of friends, this has come about in the last year or so. She is very unsociable generally, prefers her own company.

A lot of our DC sound similar.

Eve · 25/05/2018 12:55

DS had a bad day at maths yesterday - he thinks he has made silly mistakes and on comparing answers realised hes got some incorrect.

Poor chap was really despondent last night and this morning, but had a positive text on English this morning.

Nettleskeins · 25/05/2018 12:56

everyone needs friends/a friend. I suppose it is just how you frame it to yourself, they might not be a really really close friend, but they still can give a bit of what you need, chat, exchange views, someone to ask what they thought, say hello to in the street. Comparisons are very invidious, it is when you start thinking that everyone else is so much better finding fun things to do or has an enormous group of friends (and Facebook is criminal in that respect, I stay off it ) Teenagers are not very good at confessing their fears and insecurities to each other, and so the myth of happy sociable other people is perpetuated.

LARLARLAND · 25/05/2018 12:59

mmzz My DS has extra time too and came straight home. He is exhausted and in bed enjoying the Dominos I ordered for him. Is your DS staying at school for Sixth Form?

hmcAsWas · 25/05/2018 13:02

"and on comparing answers realised hes got some incorrect" - its fatal to compare answers. Never makes you feel good. Glad his English went better Eve

brainmelt · 25/05/2018 13:10

mmzz bless him. Ironically those boys probably have a huge respect for him and envy his brains, it's just that they will never say so and it's not your mind that gets you invited to parties etc. But he will go on to do great things and when they remember him in 20 years time they will say "remember so and so, he was so smart" rather than "remember so and so, that day he threw up on miss so and so". Frankly I know how I'd like to be remembered.

Nettleskeins · 25/05/2018 13:11

ds is listening to Supertramp now and preparing for the Champions League Final tomorrow

brainmelt · 25/05/2018 13:12

nettle l love Supertramp!
It's Deadpool for DS tonight...

pretendingtobechilled · 25/05/2018 13:13

DD was thrilled with Engl Lit paper along with half of England! (Twitter memes very amusing.)

One person who won't be finding this amusing though is the person responsible for using the identical specimen question everyone used in the mock as the actual question. I work in assessment and am 100% sure that was a major cock up, and not a cunning attempt to fox people who hadn't bothered to revise it because it wouldn't come up.

Someone is going to be losing their job over this.

Hard for the half of candidates who did the Love option as grade boundaries will be so high this year. And here is no mechanism for allowing for that.

cubscout · 25/05/2018 13:25

mmzz hugs to your ds. Hopefully he will come into his own at 6th form.

pretending was it exactly the same question? What effect will that have do you think? i know that after a major cock up last year with one board's Romeo and Juliet question, they had to disregard every Shakespeare answer to level the playing field.

Nettleskeins · 25/05/2018 13:26

OMGoodness chilled I didn't realise it was a cockup, and that there would be no differentiation between the two categories..now I'm worried, but I won't mention it to ds. However, I think his school will probably make allowance for it with the A level specific admissions criteria into Sixth Form, as he is such a borderline 6, if they know the grade boundaries are so much higher. Much more difficult if your child is trying to get into another Sixth Form or have a straight run of 7's and above Still, if half the students are affected by this, surely it cannot not affect the grade boundaries in some way and make them lower overall than they would have been. And Ozymandias is not exactly the easiest poem even if the class did go over it after the specimen paper.

Sostenueto · 25/05/2018 13:28

cherrybun yes she has English language after half term. In mock she did really well on paper 2 but not so well in paper 1 think she got an overall 6 and was not far off a 7. But a lot more pressure on language to get that grade for 6th form.

Sostenueto · 25/05/2018 13:30

mmzz

LooseAtTheSeams · 25/05/2018 13:31

Pretending - I agree. I think I saw a tweet that suggested the intended question had been leaked? I don't know if that's right, but it doesn't make sense if they used exactly the same question from a specimen paper as a replacement.

DoNotBringLulu · 25/05/2018 13:32

It's good to know we are not alone in worrying about them mmzz and oratory re lack of social life/friends...I know my ds has social anxiety; I suggested asking a boy he's been hanging about with at break since year 9 to the cinema, I said "what have you got to lose?" ds then said there's no way he could do that as he would feel dreadful if he said no. I try to keep positive, so many more opportunities for him coming up.

Nettleskeins · 25/05/2018 13:32

My suspicion is that Ds1's school which is a boys' school, will have done Power and Conflict and this will reflect very well in their Gsce results - I hope this makes those same English teachers struggling with ds1's A level revision happier in the leadup!

I wonder whether different sets in Ds2s school did different poem groups, as I know the higher sets did different novels (ie Jekyll instead of Christmas Carol for the higher sets) it would make sense for them to mix and match because then a bad question on one book would not be reflected in the whole school's Gsce results. Still, I don't know. I am now doing, what Dh calls, "obsessing" have to stop!!!

mmzz · 25/05/2018 13:32

hmcAsWas He seems ok with own company, but he was really happy the few times he had invitations to something over the years. He's shy and won't initiate conversation. Worse, he doesn't meet new people halfway when they try to talk to him.
He's his own worst enemy on that.

He's going to a new sixth form, we hope. He wants to stay at the current one because he knows people there. i've got the summer to get him to try to open up a bit. It will be his birthday this summer. Hopefully when he turns 17, he'll have people to celebrate it with.

Sostenueto · 25/05/2018 13:34

Well if its a cockup they might disregard that question for everyone