GCSEs 2019 Support thread 3

[myrtleWilson]

Welcome all - just went to post on thread 2 and saw it was at 999 so quickly did this

Phew - that was all a bit rushed...

Am sorry if I've breached protocol in starting thread 3 as haven't been a prolific poster - I just went to post on 2 and saw we were at 999 so created a link between the two threads.

Here is thread 2 for anyone still catching up on todays exams
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3492770-GCSEs-2019-support-thread-part-2?watched=1&msgid=87089935#87089935

For those that have said their DC found English Lit hard and were dismayed by general reaction... I saw on twitter the tide turning a bit on Macbeth when more than a few realised they hadn't read the question properly so don't read too much into initial happiness.

Hello!
Such a shame that these new gcses seem to totally destroy kids love of learning:(

Noclue that’s awful I really feel for your dd, poor girl. I hope you can help her pick herself up for tomo, so sorry she’s had her confidence knocked when she’s been working hard.

Noclue sorry to hear your DD so upset, hope Paper 2 is better and she does well in eng lang. It is so stressful for them all. I particularly don't like "the student room" and the dissection after the exam. DS had no clue when he did his 3 years ago, but DD knows all about it. She's staying clear for now, but there were tons of memes about eng lit on her instagram!

Thanks for new thread myrtle.
And thanks for your post ready, her eng lit was with ocr and she did Jekyll and hyde, and never let me go. She says Macbeth will be on paper 2 with the poetry. So I'm very confused reading the other posts about how other pupils found it.
But even I know if you only answer 1 of 3 questions your results aren't going to be great.

She says the quotes they had been told to learn were not applicable to the questions asked. But I haven't spoken to others to find out if that's true or her inability to analyse.
She doesn't need to pass for her plans for next year, but she's gutted that she might have failed something. I've tried to buy her up as much as possible...'it wont matter in a year', you can't be good at everything' etc but she's very subdued and has spent far more time in her room than usual. :-(

Looking on Twitter I can't decide what to make of the AQA Macbeth question. I'm beginning to lower my expectations for her. We have back up plans in place which my daughter can live with.

Thanks for new thread myrtle

I haven't listened to this yet but was alerted to it on twitter by a friend of mine - podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-rich-roll-podcast/id582272991?i=1000436851127

Parenting teens under pressure is the theme I think. One of the points made on the podcast is how if as adults you were off to work 5 days a week and had rolling one hour meetings about wildly different topics and with varying degrees of interest and/or ability... it would be laughable. And yet this is school.

Am not trying to make a direct comparison and I appreciate that we're in the eye of the storm with GCSEs but the notion of the intensity of GCSEs whereby you come out of a chemistry exam in the morning, have an hours break and then do a Latin exam is clearly bonkers - the potential for pressure and stress is incredible.

In so many ways GCSEs become irrelevant shortly after taking them, but at the same time they seem to be a unique bottleneck of potential pressure and almost seem designed to cause or at least create the environment for a drop in performance.

We moved DD to foundation science about a month before her GCSEs - she was so erratic in marks and found it so stressful. On a good day she could land a 7, on a bad day she could fail higher. Our worry was less about science (she's not that way inclined ) but more about how her stress levels could then impact negatively on the subjects she's doing really well in.

Of course now she's moaning that grade boundaries will be low and she could have managed - but actually she's relieved by the reduction in stress. So if she has a spiky GCSE profile but less stress I tend to think we're doing well at parenting and thats all we can do, and relieving the stress, pre, during and post is what we're all doing really so to all.

Chemistry tomorrow - which will be the worst paper for DD. It's not the end of the world if she doesn't get Science, so just hope she doesn't get too stressed with it. Then it will be one week down, 3 to go.

I'm concerned about chemistry.

Ds got s 4 in the mocks and his was one of the higher Marks...

Just had our first tears about chemistry and computer science tomorrow. DD feels that nothing is going in. It's the worst week for her so just trying to get through to Friday evening.

Going to take her a sleepy tea soon and get her to stop. She is tired and stressed.

Hi all, ds is in a state over drama on Friday which is baffling me a little bit.

He is going into the exam on a grade 8 which was his combined score for the devising log and his 2 set pieces and he knows Blood Brothers inside out and upside down as he also had it for his English lit which he sat in year 10.

His problem is with the landlord/landlady essay as he has struggled with it from the start. Ds has Aspergers and is a real worrier.

I've just had the chat with him that again reiterates that all I ask is he does his best and there is absolutely no pressure from us at all. His college place isn't even asking for drama GCSE to do drama A level and he's on target to do bloody brilliantly. He's by no means a straight A kid, far from it, but he is a trier and puts his all into what he does.

I just wish I could fast forward to the end. This is only the first week for us.

I am sure that he's not the only one panicking, sadly.

marmite we have a 'sleepy tea' too! Ours is the Nighttime one by Pukka.

Hope she can relax a bit.. I've been trying to encourage DD to do the Davina McCall yoga work out (available online) as a way to relax body and mind before bed (she's ignoring me though)

DD's in bed, she's shattered, but is always in bed by this time, her friends always tease her about her being the first to say goodnight in group chat every day.

She still seems relaxed. I wish I was. June 14th can't come soon enough.

DS isn't expecting much from chemistry tomorrow, definitely a weakness of his. He is quite fatigued today and currently watching the free science lessons. He looks quite defeated so I doubt anything is going in.

I feel so sorry for our DC. They have put so many hours of revision into these exams so to get a real curveball of a question, is just unfair.

As parents of teens, can I ask you to pop over here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/3586773-Please-dont-get-rid-of-the-Teenagers-board and make your thoughts known if you agree. Mnet HQ want to merge teens into general parenting. Personally I think parenting teens is a completely different thing to parenting pre-teens and needs a separate (safe to rant) space!

Thanks myrtle

doublechoc hope he gets a rest after chemistry?

I think it takes a couple of days for reality to hit, so they're probably all feeling a bit bruised tonight - by next week it will be feeling normal-ish, and then they get a week's break, thank goodness. My older kids had one week before half term and three afterwards, I prefer this schedule with the exams more evenly shared out.

Dd3 has been back down and had a bit of a cry this evening. Things are a bit tough for her atm - after chemistry tomorrow she's off to the hospital for a couple of hours - and it's getting to her tonight.

Sending soothing thoughts to all our stressed dcs and all us stressed parents!

Re Macbeth - I think the Edexcel one on the Porter sounds really tough, DS definitely couldn't have done that one at all. What he liked about the AQA is that it was on a main character - ie Macbeth, for which he had (and presumably most DC had) learnt quotes. And he had (and I would have thought most DCwould have) learnt at least some quotes that relate to violence because after all, the key narrative of the play is that Macbeth kills Duncan which is a violent act (I don't know which quotes DS used - but having tested him on some quotes, I know that he had quotes talking to the dagger - which after all is an instrument of violence). Seems a lot easier to me that an extract on a completely obscure character like the Porter!

A bit of a tricky evening here, DD got messages from a friend in a mental health crisis having intrusive suicidal the thoughts so DD was on the phone with her talking with her until her friend's parents got home. I am so proud of how well DD dealt with it but it was an hour on the phone then another hour of DD shaking and crying once the friend was safe so no revision has been done and she has gone to bed blotchy eyed.

So if she has a spiky GCSE profile but less stress I tend to think we're doing well at parenting and thats all we can do

Completely agree with this (and all the rest of your post, myrtle). I honestly don't care anymore as long as ds gets the grades he needs to do what he wants to do next - and you know what, even if he doesn't its not the end of the world.

He dropped Theology & Philosophy at the start of this year due to highly erratic grades, and is only doing Double Science. So in terms of his peer group he is doing quite a limited number of subjects and won't be getting a string of the highest marks. I worried about this for a while but have come to realise that in the big scheme of things it's really not a big deal.

And he is happy. He's not stressed or anxious like he was this time last year (when he walked out of several of his end-of-year exams and ended up in counselling). He's probably not working quite as hard as he could be but I'm not going to push it because, as you say, look at what they have been managing every day at school as it is!

Maybe it's the wrong attitude. Maybe I should be pushing more (and I have had plenty of my own moments of panic!) But I'd rather have a smiling, relaxed child with a spiky GCSE profile than the anxious, sobbing one I had for most of last year.

Hi all, I'm new to this thread. Just wanted to pop in and say hi to you all, and good luck for all DCs Chem tomorrow. Not one of DDs strongest subject but hoping the hours of revision she has put in will pay off!

I'm proud that my usually anxious school- hating child is making it in to sit exam after exam. Regardless of the results, she's doing amazingly well. Chemistry tomorrow morning, then French on friday and then it's the weekend. Hooray!

Ds had lit aqa today. He was looking forward to it as it's his subject. He wants to do it at a level. He loved Romeo and Juliet and Frankenstein. He came out of the exam really upset. He said the questions so wide that he completely over thought them and thought the exam board were trying to trick him. This resulted in him writing out a messy convoluted essay. I'm gutted for him because he loved both books and had really really revised for the exam. He was told so many times by teachers that they had to discuss complex themes and specific quotes but the question so easy it completely threw a lot of them. He's revising for chemistry now but he's really miserable. He definitely does not want to do English a level.

It's hard to know how to support him. I've told him to just keep moving on and forget about the exams done otherwise he will drive himself mad.

DD found Eng lit not too bad,Macbeth andJeckle and Hyde.
No chance to revise due to college open evening(DD rethinking her options).
Hope they all do well in chemistry,she has computer science then in the afternoon and I worry that a bad chemistry paper will knockher for the afternoon.
ASA parent it feels like an ongoing damage limitation exercise.

Your heart breaks for them when you know how hard they have worked and then to see them so dispirited.

We keep reiterating that once you’ve sat an exam, put it behind you.
Hard though.

Lots of luck to all for tomorrow