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

Week 3 is the nightmare one for us in terms of intensity- 8 in 5 days. 😱 Am going to stock up on caffeine and treats!

Thanks gree & glee!
Lambuffy you are absolutely right with your attitude, I’ve been through this once with a (not at all studious) ds & gcse results were very quickly a distant memory. They have years of being told how important it all is & beyond the initial interest in marks, the only ones that mattered were the ones necessary to get him to the next stage. Very quickly it became apparent that his chosen next stage was not suiting him & he’s now flourishing down a different route. It is not the be all & end all🙂

Good luck everyone. We have Chemistry this morning and then the second History paper tomorrow which means that History will be done and dusted. Struggled with Chemistry a bit mostly due to lack of confidence and lack of regular teacher.

Next week is Maths, geography and physics then a 10 day break.

Chemistry and Computing here today

DS hardly revised, and has wandered off to school all relaxed.

He says: " it's only gcse's, nothing to get stressed about"

I admire his composure, but fear the outcome without revision (mocks ranged from 3-9 so the results could be anything!)

I am doing the stressing for him , well, someone has to do it.

'. I can’t think of anything worse than have to sit there for that long and not be able to access the paper. Must be terrifying.'

For me as a child not being tiered was a Godsend. I changed secondary schools and as my old school wouldn't send through my work or ability info I was put in middle sets.
In many classes I got frustrated as basically if you were below set 2 they didn't enter you for the higher paper.
Because of the lack of tier in English however I was able to get a B.

SEN DD forever spent most of yesterday stating at the ceiling.

DS seemed very tired this morning as well. Chemistry is his strongest subject, and a definite A level choice, so I do hope he is not too tired and misses questions (that is the biggest worry, he really knows the subject inside and outside and backwards and forwards, but he could missread, or forget units, or just not see a question altogether). It is a completely different situation to the English Lit yesterday, where he knows he is going in on the back foot. But being tired could really mess it up for him.

*staring

Actually you've just reminded me that DD was meant to have a reader and she hasn't mentioned one.

I guess we must all have gone through this but I still look at my ds’s timetable with some horror - chemstry and Latin prose today, history source paper and french reading tomorrow. I wouldn't fancy that line up.

He seems pretty chilled though - announced yesterday that he thought english poetry and prose would be fine because at least he’s read the book a few times, averting that many boys hadn’t. Not sure I found that very comforting..

Plus he did a really weird book - My Antonia - only class in the school to do so, so no general materials or Mr Bruff or whatever.

Hey ho - done now.

knew he was going in on the back foot (or knows for the subject in general). It does sound to me like the AQA Macbeth was better for the weaker students, and not so good for the stronger ones. For chemistry, DS would probably appreciate a harder paper, where he can show what he knows, rather than an easier one. For English Lit, that was definitely not the case, as a harder paper would have left him floundering

What exam board is history tomorrow?
I haven't got that on my list and DD has history exams.

Cambridge (CIE) History for ds tomorrow beans

Think everyone is a bit downbeat.

Chemistry is DDs strongest subject, wants an 8 but absolutely needs a 7 to do it at A Level. Her confidence has been damaged though and she’s convinced this exam is going to be exceptionally hard.

I just hope she needs the stuff she’s revised as she’s spent months working hard. So far she feels that she hasn’t needed half the stuff she’s revised, especially biology.

This is DD's busiest week, she has 9 exams (or 10 if you count French Reading and French Listening as 2) this week. She only has 4 next week so it feels relatively quiet, as she only has 1 a day Mon-Thurs and a whole day off (the half term) Friday.

She has 6 the week after half term but only 4 the final week, I think it suits her for it to be front loaded, she will feel she is over the worst of it by the weekend.

I think the volume of the curriculum means they can't be tested on all that they know but it does mean they can be tested on anything, however small, within the curriculum and that can make them come unstuck. I think at least with continuous assessment they got to demonstrate more of what they'd been studying and it wasn't a complete memory game. For dc with poor working memories, this system is incredibly tough and unfair
Taking over 11 GCSEs in one sitting should not be the sum total of 11 years of education. Dd is still 15 - in many ways she's still a little girl...

ilove I think ds1 has a similar timetable.
Only my 3 next week

Same for my dd maddieella
I’m hopeful that all the work she’s put in will get her the result she needs I’ll or not, she is strong in the subject & there’s another paper with a chance to boost the mark.

Interested by the comment upthread about whether eng lit answers are grade set separately, to capture different difficulties of book or question. It is an appealing idea but I wonder ifnitis practical?

I notice that for several sittings, the examiners report for the questions on DS’s obscure novel just says that not enough entries were submitted to be able to comment, which would suggest that separate banding would be impossible.

Interesting about "The Porter". DD not doing Macbeth until next week, but she would have loved this question. I mentioned to her about this character, and she said he is one of the main ones they focused on. He is the one who does the speech about erections, and so they found it really funny, and quote it often. I wonder are some schools reluctant to focus on him because of this....... surely not in this day and age.

Chemistry here too today, along with many of you, not DD's favourite. She could get anything from a 5 upwards, depending on the day/questions. She realised late last night that all the stuff she was stressing about doesn't come up in paper 1, so that helped a bit, but then she will have to confront paper 2 after half term anyway. Something to look forward to.

DD just texted, she's out of chemistry and "it was easy" so 🤞🏼 especially as chemistry is the weakest of the sciences for her.

Which exam did she take?

Mine took triple AQA and I’m not sure the comments I’m reading on Twitter are for her exam.

Maddie OCR, combined.

Yup triple AQA here too. Dd has text it was ok ish with a really tricky " maths like" 6 marker!.

Yes DD just rang. AQA triple paper okay, everything she revised came up but the last page 6 marker was horrific. She thinks she's maybe got 2 or 3 marks out of it.

AQA here too but not heard yet how she found it