GCSEs 2019 - support thread part 2

[AtiaoftheJulii]

Here we are again

They must just about be opening their French papers now, I think. First one for DS (other than orals and art). is there anybody who isn't starting today (except of course those who started earlier)? ie anybody not now into the exam period proper?

Oh I feel sick silly I know

pointy hope yesterday went as well as these things can x

DD has Biology today, but her second paper, different board.

She is better today, hooray. We won't need special arrangements.

Sad I can't join in discussion of papers, as all of ours are different :-(

English Lit tomorrow too for DD (although again, different board), but her best subject, she just loves it, even the poetry ! It will be her first early morning exam though, so that may be challenging.

Have a lovely day everyone. I think, and DD concurs, that the build up is always worse than the actual exams, and once they start, the DC's are actually quite cool about it all. It's definitely us Mums who are more stressy at this point .

Glad to hear it silent

Ds1s exam starts at 1.15pm

Definitely completely stressed, sitting here chewing my fingers waiting for news. I went to Zumba this morning, and have just come out, just about the time they should be out ...
Oh yay, a text .. "it was good. Listening was great, reading was OK".

Interesting your biology starts at 1.15 lambuffy Ours is 1.30. .But maybe the difference is queueing or something

Iambuffy it was a good ceremony. A lot more people turned up than we thought would be there, and I seem to have a knack for saying the right things at funerals for some reason. We went out for a drink afterwards with my cousins, who are being amazing. Dsis and I also managed to go through most of the house in the course of Sunday night/Monday morning so we know exactly what we will need to collect - the rest can be left to a house clearing company and our cousin knows who to bring in - he has lots of contacts.

The aquarium has been rescued too, so the fish will have a safe new home and someone will get a decent tank for not much money. Mum's cleaner has said she will come weekly and air the place out, water the plants and so on, she'll be paid out of the estate. It's as good as it can be.

And I actually really enjoyed spending serious time with my Dsis. We don't see each other enough given we live about an hour apart, but she works crazy hours.

Am waiting for a lunchtime text from DD2 telling me she has 'utterly bombed' her French. She won't have, her instincts for how well she has done are always way, way off in a negative sense.

Funny, I typed "yood" which is what he wrote, but autotext correct ed it automatically. It was actually yood

pointy oh, I'm glad it went well. What a difficult experience at such a stressful time for you all.

It all sounds really organised and in hand - well done.

The paperwork alone when my dad died took my 2 weeks!

Ds1 will not phone or text (never does) but will tell me how badly it's gone no doubt.

I'm picking him up at 3.30pm and am going to take his lead. If he looks unhappy I'm keeping quiet!

He will have PE and eng lit to revise later...

What books is your DD doing, silentsister? Last year's thread had loads of DC doing IGCSEs, but there don't seem so many this year, although maybe lurking. I don't know if that is because some of the private schools have switched away from IGCSES, or because we happen to be a more state school bunch this year.

I'm so relieved ds1 got animal farm (his is the only class doing it)
He likes the historical aspects and the links to the ussr/revolution/nkvd etc

My worry is the poetry. He has a few he prefers and knows but I'd he gets a question on the least favoured....eek!

Having a parenting fail panic here. Forgot to remind dc this morning about making sure 'phone not taken into exam (Biology which starts at 1.00pm).

School will remind them won't they ???

Having a panic about disqualification from all exams.

They will remind them!

DD texting me, French went as well as can be expected and she didn't fall asleep, so I'm calling that a win 🤦🏻‍♀️

Currently doing some last minute biology. They go in at 1. Think I'm more nervous than she is.

Cat I'd say they'll definitely tell them.

I'm the same iloveyou

DD did art last week,computer science yesterday and went in at 8am today for a biology booster class..We have college openevenings to go to today and tomorrow so she panicking a bit about how she can fit revision for English lit.chemistry and computer science in.

First time posting though have been following the thread. Silentsister I think our DDs are doing the same boards/exams...

Biology is the first here.
DD has special arrangements.
I'm just worried she will write her actual full name which she refuses to use as she only uses a nick name variety of it.

So does ds, beans, an extra 25% time. I've told him to make good use of it!

No extra time here. DS's weird, spells like a dyslexic and can't read unfamiliar words but doesn't trigger other dyslexic markers doesn't have enough of a label to even consider it. Besides which, extra time is not what he needs, he couldn't spell no matter how much time he has (unless they let him take a dictionary or spellcheck into the exam!). According to his timetable, the biology exam is 105 minutes long. If they started at 1.30, by my calculation that should mean those without extra time will be finishing by 3.15. I think I might go crawl into bed, not sure if I can manage doing anything useful.

DD2 said French went surprisingly well - even listening. I don't know whether to be worried or relived, but to be fair she has been listening to a lot of French language music over the past 3 months and I think she's developed a feel for the language now.

Iambuffy I know how hard things can be. My husband died last year and the paperwork was horrendous. I'm still not done with it all.
In Holland they're a lot more efficient though - for example, a death certificate doesn't need to list cause of death. As long as ID is straightforward, you can have one ready to use within 2 or 3 days of death. The funeral must take place within 7 days unless there is an investigation. All very sensible. The time consuming thing will be the house sale, but it should all be wound up and disbursed before Christmas.

Bimkom afternoon GCSEs start at 1pm.

DS has / had AQA French this morning and Edexcel Biology (single science) - this afternoon- neither are his best subjects! Eng Lit tomorrow is much more his thing (Macbeth and J&H which he doesn’t mind as he finds it relatively straightforward to write about) he needs a minimum APS of 6.5 to stay for 6th form so fingers crossed!

Hi there - room for a late joiner? This and next week are the biggest ones for my DS, with 9 exams in each week. Mix of igcses and gcses, more of the former, 11 subjects.

He's in bio right now which I don't think he was madly confident about. So much to learn and he doesn't find it very interesting. He'll have to be lucky.

I was a bit concerned about his first english language paper - "it was really easy - everyone had finished in about 40 minutes". I can't see that as a good thing..

I don't envy him the next 10 days - he worked very hard in Easter but I suspect may not have put in enough long term work so is heading to peak about 2 weeks after the exams.

Hey ho - good to hear so many similar worries on here!