GCSEs 2018 (11) Big week coming up

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old thread

DD's school will be lucky if it gets 20% EBACC as they weren't encouraged to take MFL. Your had to take history or geography or French or Spanish or Computer Science as at least one of your options. I think around 20% of the year group took either French or Spanish, with no opportunity to take a second language. DD was one of the few to take history, geography and Spanish.

Here's how to do it:
www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/71720.6773.html (NB Nat 5s are equivalent to GCSEs)

It is a Quango.

My family back in Scotland can't believe it when i describe the situation down here in England with multiple exam boards all claiming to offer equivalent qualifications for national exams!

Dgd doing Spanish, geography, biology,chemistry, physics, maths,English,R.e and art is that an EBacc?

Yes that's an ebacc

Ebacc is a C or better in 5 things all at the same time:
English
Maths
Science
History or Geography
MFL

slinky DD1 did music. At her school she was the most advanced in terms of classical music training, with a Grade 5 in piano. She would have been accepted onto the course with Grade 3. They had a class of six students, with a wide ability range and a mad hotch potch of classical and band instruments, but they seem to have had a good time working together. I'm happy that it's lived up to her expectation of being a "fun" subject, unlike those who picked Art and really regretted it.

On the other hand, one of DD's friends is at a very traditional boarding school with music scholars, oodles of fancy choirs and orchestras and lots of extremely able musicians. She seems to have found the whole GCSE experience more of a struggle, despite the fact she's actually much more advanced that DD1 in terms of grades and range of instruments.

At the end of the day, the exam they are sitting is the same, but the dynamics of the group are quite important because there is ensemble work etc. It would be well worth speaking to your school's music dept, to get a feel for the range of ability that they are likely to have on the course.

Can I throw into the music mix that I went to a boys school (I am officially an Old Boy) which had it's own organ scholar. It was deemed to be a sure fire way to get a place at Oxbridge if you were the organ scholar at age 11.

@hmmwhatatodo - that was me! DS1 missed an A star in French last year. He did very little revision and could easily have got the A star if he had done just a bit more. That's why I was a bit (not very) annoyed. But it's OK because he now understands why the revision is needed.

I make no apologies for being annoyed. He could have done better but no harm done.

Hi Music sounds fun. DS chose not to do music or drama GCSE partly so as not to risk spoiling his enjoyment of those things outside of lessons and it was probably wise choice for him (plays sax in various bands to around grade 5/6 level) but I'm really glad to hear its been fun for a range of ability levels.

DS is doing AQA further maths too. Had no additional teaching but those that did well in the gcse mocks were given the AQA FM papers to do as a better practise for the harder questions on the 'normal' gcse (and to stop them getting bored) and I think its been helpful. He has only recently started doing well in maths so won't be one of the complacent ones and was allowed to consider doing it only on condition that it took no time from his other GCSEs. so will not start revising for it until next weekend. I think he'll do some past papers and sit the exam if he does ok. May have a problem with the non calculator element (igcse maths is all calculator !!!)

TeenMum Those papers have been an absolute godsend this evening. Thank you so much!

Feedback from music from Dd. It was ok but she didn’t sound enthusiastic. She said the Beatles question was strange as it wanted to know how With a Little Help from my friends was innovative whereas as Dd said it’s about the least innovative song on the album. I’m concerned she may have missed the point.

Aaaarrghh! Dd has just gone through the maths papers kindly supplied by Teenmum60. She got 79/110 for Paper A....more than happy with that. Then she could hardly answer a question on Paper B. I think a lot of it is down to her confidence so if she starts to struggle on a couple of questions she just gives up.

EBacc like SATS are a measurement fir the school and not an actual qualification dor the student.

79 is brilliant - must be confidence - or tiredness ? Hope she can focus on the 79 tomorrow

Maybe she was mentally spent by Paper B

Remind her (I am sure that you will) if she can't do a question to take a breath - leave it - go and do another one and return to it later.

79 is indeed very good - alas my dd can only dream of such heady heights - in maths at least (still as long as we get a grade 6 its all good)

The two papers were very different - Paper A was easier that Paper B ...Paper B had quite a lot of harder questions...tell your DD not to be disheartened... DD found Paper A easier.

I meant to add you will find that the real paper may start with Paper A questions then go onto Paper B so your DD's confidence will be fine tomorrow....

Re: Ozy and Singh Song - students are expected to know all 15 poems and be able to write about them. They should have revised them all - I did, even with my very weak ones.

Remember that the question is about two poems - one of their choice plus the named one - and is a 30 marker (I think - brain now on the Lit I'm marking for another better board). Even if they didn't do well on named poem they can do well on chosen poem and it won't limit them at all.

And it is one question out of five Lit questions overall.

All questions have to give candidates an equal chance. There are always substitute papers in reserve in case of a leak. Just because one of the poems was on a sample paper, does that mean it should never be used again? In ten years it'll be easy to guess the poem then...

AQA are shite anyway.

Evening. DD on a full revision day at home today. Left her at 8am asleep but she replied instantly to my text at 9.45am! Possibly still in her bed, but who knows! Maths revision for tomorrow and a bit of chemistry done as well as some history, ready for Friday. Just reminded her to have her calculator!!

Took her dress to alterations shop today, with the shoes, and just hem to be altered - £30 probably - yet another cost to the prom day!

No leavers hoodies here too. But she has an NCS one which she wear - its a bright turquoise.

bluebelle same thurs / fri exam combo here

I do really hope a satisfactory solution is found for the ozy poem debacle - but cant see a simple solution. Nightmare and hope my DD isn't penalised, as she is one who had seen this question before and had spent time with their teacher discussing this poem in depth. I too cant see how it wasn't spotted easily during some checking process before publishing - it does make you wonder about the validity of these GCSE's. DD did that question as a homework not an exam, so not sure where that puts her, as it was in year 10!

Aragog - wow that is a trio of poor luck - hopefully she hasn't been fazed by it at all and sails through the remaining exams

Oh well, bed now and see what tomorrow brings!

Thanks for all the votes of confidence. I have sent her to bed as I think she's done all she can now. Fingers crossed for some lucky questions. Good luck to everyones dc' s tomorrow.

Well this evening we had the meltdown. None of it involved the GCSE candidate, who wisely went to his room and stayed out of it.

DS3 (Y9) has had three days of back-to-back end-of-year exams (which feel important to him as they will be used for setting and decision about triple science) and was looking forward to an evening watching TV on the sofa.

DS1 (Y13) was already comfortable on aforementioned sofa, watching aforementioned TV in the background whilst attempting some revision for tomorrow afternoon's A-level exam. The exam tomorrow is in his weakest subject, he knows very little, he will probably get an E and he is feeling quite low.

Battle 1 ensued.

DS1 agreed to go up to his room, taking a blanket (we have half a dozen). DS3 clearly wanting to pick a fight then decided that was the only blanket that would meet his needs.

Battle 2 ensued.

DS1 went to his room and cried, which I haven't seen him do for months.

I told DS3 he was being selfish and told him to stop being such an arse. Not my finest parenting moment.

Poor DS2 is the only one in the house who actually has an exam tomorrow morning. Due to his ASD and auditory hypersensitivity, he needs a quiet, calm environment. This evening I have not been able to provide that.

farangatang An Invigilator here, your child should have had her extra time on each question go the exam and yes they do have to pause the CD for those on extra time (not allowed to pause at all in normal exam). The same with music, the extra time is on each question. If that hasn't happened then I would be speaking to the school as a matter of urgency before the exam is marked.

Sostenuto (Invigilator here again) the speech on the spanish listening really isn't that fast but Im sure that it feels that way when they are nervous!

Third Hats off to you having 3 sons and getting them through life alive to this age!!! My two fight endlessly, argue about ridiculous things and are very very different. My Y9 DS couldn't be arsed to go his physics he network tonight despite being offered help from DH, then when he did try to do it he couldn't and was too embarrassed to ask for help. I was out and got home to grumpy DH, grumpy DS2 and DS1 just winding everyone up. Gah! Sent them to bed and now have a cuppa and tv.

Good luck to all for the maths! Don't forget those calculators

The third to you. It's not easy when you have al 3 going through an exam of some type or another. Maybe DS1 just needed to let out some steam and therefore tears not necessarily a bad thing. It will have relieved some pressure/emotion.

Don't take it all on yourself - we are all human and these things happen and in the scheme of things it wasn't really that bad. A good nights rest will help all. And this phase will be over soon.