Current Year 11 2021/2022 support thread pt III

[StColumbofNavron]

Thread for the parents of DC sitting their GCSEs in about 4 weeks time - eek.

@Kaftankween if your DC did foundation AQA then yeh

DS2 did OCR Paper 5 (higher) today. Curious if anyone else's child thought the format was very different to the past papers. Maybe he didn't do the last few papers. He thought there weren't as many early easy ones and instead lots of 5 mark "show your working" types ones.

DD2 has come home from doing Edexcel Higher and said it was ok. There were a couple she struggled with but is feeling a lot more confident & happier than after paper 1.

Phew!

But he may have been imagining it!

DD said she struggled with Edexcel Higher paper 2 and everyone else thought it was okay. But I don’t think she’s ever come out of an exam and thought she did well and given that her mock grades say otherwise I’m firmly not listening to a word she says.

Now just Geography this afternoon.

DD doing Foundation maths and said it was 'okay' but that there were some hard questions. The exam boards certainly don't seem to be being particularly kind with the papers, do they?

Ds is home and said paper 2 Edexcel was much better.

DD texted to find out how long DS's exam is this afternoon (to presumably work out if they can come back together) but no response to my "how was maths?" question.

Will find out later I suppose

Also Edexcel higher here. It was better than paper 1 apparently. Thank goodness.

AQA higher here and fine. English Lit tomorrow I think.

@Revengeofthepangolins my son has messaged me to say the exam was awful. Not sure in what way yet but he isn't happy. This is the first exam where he has expressed frustration and is normally a very competent mathematician.

Chewing the carpet here - don't pick DC up until later and there's no response to my 'how was Maths?' text.

Same here, ds did Edexcel igcse said paper 2 was much harder than paper 1(although his friends all said opposite). He missed 4 questions (20 marks in total) as ran out of time, needed toilet during the exam which wasted him 10 or 15 minutes. 😩😩 He is hoping paper 1 was good enough to get him a 8 in combined. 😫

DD said maths went well and she answered all questions. She's AQA Higher.

Mine did igcse Edexcel Maths P2 this morning - said it went much better than the first paper which was surprisingly shocking for her. She much prefers the content of P2 so was relieved that it might pull it back on track.

However she is also delighted that she can kiss goodbye to maths 4EVA !

Geog P2 (Human) this afternoon which she loves although not doing for A level. Fingers crossed it’s a good experience. Tough week after half term break where she seemed to loose momentum - although she was tired and needed to rest and restore in order to refocus.

Are you done with maths @DFOD? We've got a Paper 3 next week.

English and English Lit however will be finished this week and DD couldn't be happier about that.

One more paper for Geography after this as well but she reliably informs me paper 3 is easy...

@CornishGem1975
I got the same report from DD, she said good (looks like the last min youtube helped)

DS told my DH edexcel higher maths was OK. Better than paper 1 I think. He's also got geography this afternoon and next week. I hope it goes ok but given the dreadful teaching he's had anything could happen.
He's another one who will be glad to get English out of the way this week.
3 exams next week then 4 in his final week.

DS did edexcel igcse paper 2, said it was easy (what he means by that is that he could answer most of it and that it wasn't awful not that it was actually easy). He said that about paper 1 but he did say the last 9 questions he couldn't answer of that one but wasn't worried as he is happy with 7. Just glad he doesn't have to worry about that one anymore.

Anyone remember what the usual (average) GCSE exams period covered? I seem to recall it was no more than a month for DS (a few years ago now), hence the ten papers in one week issue! I recall his last exam (again it was physics) was on either 10th or 11th June.

In 2019 as I recall DS1 finished one week earlier so around June 16. His exams were more heavily weighted to the before half term period though, so it felt a little different - two "hell weeks" with 8 or so papers before half term and two weeks with very little thereafter.

In 2015, so pre-reform DD1 had 2 weeks before half term and 2 weeks after. Those doing triple science had 3 weeks after half term.

My DS did Edexcel higher igcse maths and found it alright apart from the second to last question which he couldn't do at all.
He has further maths tomorrow and then physics on Thursday.

He's still spending most of his time gaming but I honestly cba anymore as he said I'm a shit mum and it's all my fault that he's unable to motivate himself! Charming. This is all because he wouldn't put his phone on charge and go to bed last night.

This is my 4th doing GCSEs in 7 years and the scheduling is different due to COVID. Exams more spaced out - apparently 10 days between papers in case candidate misses one paper. Initially looked easier pace - but it’s loooooong and drawn out.

Yesterday I randomly found a copy of the timetable for the 2020 GCSEs that obviously didn't happen. They were due to start 11 May and end on 12th June (although there was Polish on 17th June but a very small amount at their school would have done that). Plus contingency day 24th June.

DD would have had 12 exams before half term and 12 after for that - there must be one of her subjects that has an extra paper now.