missing year 10 exam advice

[Larsson11]

Hello

My husband has got our school holiday dates mixed up and we have just realised our son will miss the first day back of school in June when his year 10 exams start. We have tried to change our holiday dates but there are no early flights avail. Any advice???????? I would imagine the school will be understandably angry if we call to say we are away and are unlikely to reschedule exams.

What does your y10 think about it?
Won't flying and being on holiday impact revision anyway?
I know some would disagree, but I think y10 exams are important as the DC gets to practice revision technique and exams technique. Plus anything revised properly for y10 exams will be easier to learn for the final y11 exams.

I think get your DH to write a grovelling email saying he screwed up, and your DS will have to miss those exams. If your DS has a gap the sometime they might let him sit the missing ones, but won't take the result seriously. It would still be good for your DS to sit them, and not talk to others about them until he has done so.

(Or my preferred which is don't go away. But as it is booked & paid for that probably isn't an option any more.)

Will he only miss one day? However, will he be able to revise whilst on holiday?

Are they actual exams or mocks?

For internal Y10 exams i.e. those marked by his teachers, absent pupils complete the papers missed as soon as possible after their return to school.

Ah just call in sick on the day. Don’t worry about them, gcse don’t count for anything really anyways. Enjoy your family time - that is way more important ☀️

I'd forget about just noticing now, and just notice the wrong date when you are already away & it's too late. He can do the exams missed on day 1 throughout the rest of the week. Oops! Mistakes do happen.. to err is but human and all that.

Grovel about the mistake, it will go down as unauthorised absence. He'll catch the exams up in the same way as someone who was ill that day.

Apart from the fact that this isn't GCSEs as only y10, I think that statement is elitist and misleading.
a) Elitist. They only don't count for anything later in life if you have gone on to do higher level academic qualifications. For those that go on to do vocational courses GCSEs are the highest level well understood qualification they will get.
b) Misleading. You need certain grades at GCSE to get on to you next course at 16. Whether that is high grades to do eg Maths, FM, Chemistry, or a collection of passes to do a Level 3 qualification.
c) Misleading. If you don't pass your Maths & English you have to retake over the next couple of years in education.
d) Misleading. Employers often require passes in Maths & English as part of employment criteria.

GCSEs may not matter much when you are 30, but they impact quite a lot for post-school activities.

Year 10 exams are pretty important. I am surprised you are going away on holiday - most year 10 students will be revising…

@Notcontent

In my school most year 10’students would defo not be revising. Maybe 30 out of 280!!

OP-
its booked now I would go and enjoy!

Thanks all for your advice. He is going to be missing just one day so hopefully he can do the exams later in this week.

It was a genuine mistake which can't be rectified. I'd let the school know in advance. Unlikely they'll let him sit them later in the week as he'd be able to get all the questions from the other kids?

and to be honest if he has just spent a week on holiday rather than revising then the exams are going to be an interesting experiment anyway?

I really can't see how one day matters if they are internal exams. This year's Y11s have missed a lot more than that and are still taking their exams this year.

I definitely don't think most Y10s would be revising either. I wouldn't have expected my DCs to be revising in the May of Y10. We messed up dates and DS who is Y11 missed a day of school in April this year, we haven't lost any sleep over it and him having 4 days break was probably good for him.