GCSE supporting - to half term, and beyond!

[SheilaFentiman]

Making a new thread to support half term revision and the set of GCSEs afterwards!

@Hersetta427 & @Nowfeeltheneedtopost can you give us a clue? It's a small world, isn't it?

DS has spent most weekends since the GCSEs began training for his (really really small, but still Olympic) sport, which possibly isn't ideal, but it's got to be about balance, right? He's off to the Youth World Championships in the summer, so... 🤔

@Jowak1 which exam board was your DS? My DD was Edexcel and found it very tough.

Looking back on this thread, Computing/Computer Science Paper 2 was seen to be tough by people who did OCR, Edexcel, and AQA!

Ha ha! Small world indeed. Totally agree about need to balance academics with sport - I had a few reservations at first but we loved the 6th form event and teachers at the academy so I was v reassured. All the best to your DD.

Sorry, don’t want to derail thread and I think I’ve probably given enough away already 😂

@LighthouseCat and @StandUpForYourRights the grade boundaries were slightly higher for AQA in 2022 at 81. Link is in my post below. Hopefully it doesn't increase again!

Sorry, 81 for a 9 from 78 but they all ticked up

@CornishCoast hi it was OCR exam board.

Joining in from the other thread.
DD seems happy and relaxed.
It almost feels like the exams are over.
Her busy weeks are the 2 weeks after half term.
Hope she can stay cheerful and plod along.
Enjoy the respite from the worrying everyone!

We've decided on relaxing till Monday here but every now and then she has come up to me just to randomly blurt a topic she should know off my heart to make sure it's still there in her memory. She prefers that to having to sit down with a bunch of notes and books, at least for now.

Thanks for the new thread @SheilaFentiman and I hope everyone has had a relaxing start to half term.

Such a shame that Art still has such a heavy work load. Dd initially chose one of the art options at her school (textiles) with some encouragement from me but changed to Class Civ before the start of year 10 as she was worried about the amount of work. Her art teacher at primary school used to rave about her talents, it’s a shame she felt she couldn’t take art any further.

Can I ask a question about prom dresses to those who have proms coming up? Do your DDs have their dresses yet? Had awful row with dd last night over this (will explain more tomorrow).

DD starting on Monday with the revision for the next lot apparently. She has done a fair bit already though and so far no major disasters. She was disappointed with History but it's her best subject and she may have been able to get a 9 but she doesn't think she's got anywhere near that.

Yes we have her prom dress...

Yes we have a prom dress here, got it off eBay, worth tracking a few as one went for silly money but we got one about a third of new cost. Still sorting out shoes as what she would like and what suits her feet two different things..

@bendmeoverbackwards maybe it’s better not to study textiles and get really turned off it at 15/16 when she’s got a whole lifetime to enjoy it. I did art at gcse never really drew again afterwards but I still sew 30yrs later make all sorts of random stuff from sofa covers to bags and dresses for fun. I hope you can get the prom dress sorted.

We've had our dress a couple of months. Paid less than £200 for it. Got it online and then altered.
She's going to look stunning and deserves to after all this!

@bendmeoverbackwards That's a shame. Art is very strange at GCSE/A-level in that it is more about following instructions and producing huge amounts of documented work than about artistic talent. I hope that she can keep going with it as a hobby!

With Art I don't understand why so many DC seem to be getting raw scores which (probably) equate to a grade which is less than that they have been predicted all along.

Hurrah for half term! DD had a full day off yesterday - beach at lunchtime with friends then lay on the sofa all afternoon. I think she'll be back on it today, but she is very organised and self motivated so I am staying out of it. (It will be a different story here in a couple of years when younger kids do their exams - one will need lots of chivvying, and the other will be very stressed/perfectionist about it I think.)

First week back is packed with six exams and she is doing a couple of extra shifts at work to cover other people who've taken the exam period off in the evenings, so that is going to be a slog that needs resting up for!

Not a great deal of interest in prom clothes here - ordered a dress off Amazon, which is surprisingly nice and which my talented sister is altering for us. Needs shoes still - hoping that might be a half-term job.

Hope everyone manages to find the sweet spot of enough rest and revision this week.

There wasn't much on eBay when we started looking for dresses. We bought our Prom dress from JJ's House, which took about 10 days to arrive. DD loves it.

She bought heels from Primark for £14 some time ago (and I've bought her some folding flats on eBay).

DS is not quite half way yet. All has gone well (he thinks) so far apart from the ocr computer science, but after reading here I'm not too bothered about that. Another day off before back to revision tomorrow.

DD bought a dress from Urban Outfitters over the Easter holidays (for £35). It looked nothing like a prom dress like you might see in traditional prom photos. But she was happy with it. Then she started to see photos of dresses other girls in her year group had bought which were more ‘prom-like’ and lost her nerve to wear the dress she had bought. So then we bought one from Etsy for about £40. At the moment she is planning on wearing it with her DMs. But I guess she might change her mind on that too.

DS seemed to really struggle mentally with the 2nd week and I can see it causing more upset if I try to encourage revision over half term, although he does need to do some. If I'm honest, I'm surprised at the lack of stamina and resilience - he was quite upbeat for the first week but a very grumpy angry teen by the second. Wondering if his age has something to do with it, not quite 16 and maybe immature- not that he'd agree! I'm not looking forward to a further 2 weeks & walking on eggshells.

DD is quite alternative in style so I was v surprised when she wanted a traditional dress. She bought one from JJs and it is lovely. No revision yet this half term but I'm not mentioning it yet. She looked so tired after the second week. So far she's been v chilled (at least on the outside) but I think the second half is going to be trickier for her

So impressed by all these focused sportspeople! 12 down 13 to go on the exams here. We are in France at the girls’s
grandma’s so revision is happening in the sunshine in between swims… I’m only slightly nervous about potential eurostar disasters on Saturday when we return but we have a day in hand…

prom dress here was bought from a charity shop, but we’ve had it altered for her by the very talented chap who runs the local dry cleaners. She looks brilliant and is so happy. but she will need silver heels apparently.