If your dc at grammar school-what do their end of year exams look like?

[IAm1OfTheManyUsers]

Coming to the end of year 7, and DS has 4 exams a day. Parents were told this is to help the boys get into gear for GCSEs (the layout/intensity).
I appreciate good exam training will help, but wondering whether this is the sort of style most grammar schools have or do some take a slower/easier approach?
I recall end of year exams being more spaced out (but I was at a private and not grammar school).

We're at a private school (non academically selective) and exactly the same - 4 days of exams (13 exams in total) followed by sports day on Friday.

Ah it must be the norm everywhere now.
I'm thinking about my experience, but that was over 25 years ago

I don't think either of my 2 DS had 4 in one day but some days they had 3 and yes this did happen in GCSE's. I think DS1 had something like 23 papers in total when he took the actual GCSE's last year so I can see why they do it.

Neither of my DCs had end of year exams in Year 7. Both at (different) selective London Independent schools.

There is also an issue with fitting exams in around the formal GCSE and A levels with only so much space in one school for them to be taken. DS1 (L6th had his end of year exams straight after half term and DS2 (yr10) 2 weeks later to get them out of the way in time.

I think DS has 3 a day and 2 on the Friday.

DD is in Y7 at a grammar, and they had 'exam week' just before half term. Two or three exams per day, but they were all short (30-45 minutes), with revision time in between. They were all carried out in their form room, apart from art. On the Friday afternoon there was a choice of fun activities.

It didn't seem pressured - DD did very little revision, saying that they had done lots of revision in lessons the week before. Time will tell whether that was a good decision!

DD in a high flying state grammar. Yr 7, no exam week at all. They constantly give them little assessments throughout the year though.

My son is in y7 in a comprehensive and this is standard and happens twice a year.

DS was in a superselective yesterday exams in the hall under exam conditions from yr 7.

Inner London comp. Full set of exams at the end of each term since Y7. She's in Y10 and calls it 'light work' now.

Ds is in Y7 grammar. He is doing 9 hour long exams this week. 3 a day. Plus language listening test.

If they have 4 exams a day they can't be very long.

In KS3 they have formal exams at christmas and end of year. Usually 3 a day

Mine was like this 25yrs ago. It was intense.m but I did feel well trained and prepared for GCSEs when they happened. Much more so than friends at other schools.

Yup, it’s to prep them for the rigmarole of formal exams and mostly I do think it works (dd doing a-levels and at super selective Kent grammar).

Thank you all, to the poster that asked; yes they're not very long, 45 minutes per exam.

They've had mini assessments along the way too, so realistically the info should be there.

DS has taken to actually trying this time, which is a nice change

However, it seems it's a lot more common in a schools to assess at the end in this way than not.
Also cannot believe we are coming to the end of year 7 already.

DD has three a day in her high achieving state school (non-selective). Given the way they have constantly tested and assessed through year 7, it’s now very clear how they get their top grades.

I don’t recall doing a single test at secondary until year 10, apart from a fake one which was implemented by a science teacher to prove we didn’t pay attention to instructions. He was right.

@SellFridges dh has said the same, didn't have any sort of tests until GCSEs.
DS has put a lot of pressure on himself. He is a bit of a perfectionist, so possibly making this more stressful than it needs to be (but he hasn't reacted this way to any other exams so far; so not sure what's going on there 🫤)

We had similar here and Exam Week was definitely a thing for all year groups from Y6.

Good for most DC to get used to being in the hall, that slightly strange exam atmosphere, planning ahead to revise subjects in the right order and cover all of the content, and also preparing work to revise between sessions.

It was a tiring week but usually finished with a BBQ lunch on the Friday and an afternoon of fun activities.

Our private, selective school has exam week for all years after half term (apart from GCSE and A level years of course) with an afternoon off in the middle. Very intense, but it is good practice. I think about 13 exams in all.

My Y7 son had two or three exams every day the week before half-term, all one hour long apart from one which was 1.5 hours.

I went to a comp and we had exam weeks which were back to back exams all week. That was in the 80s.

Son went to a grammar, and they had very similar but more, exam week at end of each term, mid Dec, mid Mar (depending on Easter dates) and finally end of June. In year 7 they were pretty basic, but in years 8 and 9 they were past questions from past GCSE papers and in years 10 and 11 they were doing past papers with proper "mocks" at middle and end of year 10 and middle of year 11.

As a result, DS was never stressed about his GCSEs nor A levels - he was used to doing them, exam room conditions, revision techniques etc. He's now doing his finals at Uni and is still pretty relaxed about them, however a couple of his flat mates are really struggling with stress as he says they didn't do much exam practice at school, missed their A levels due to covid and first 2 years of exams at uni were online, so the only "proper" exams they'd ever done were mock and real GCSEs.

I think lots of practice and exam experience is a very good thing. It worked for me in the 80s and it worked for DS. Perhaps the more old fashioned ideas were best after all!

@Kazzyhoward I definitely agree that the more practice the better they'll cope with exams later on.

I found it odd when dh claimed he never had to take an exam until GCSEs; - that would have been late 80s/early 90s. I suppose some schools weren't too concerned.

DS seems to have eased the pressure on himself after completing the two he was worried about (history and RS), which is a sigh of relief 😅

The school did inform parents (along with exam timetable), this is to ensure the boys feel confident when they get to GCSEs.

Let's hope the results are ok 🤞

I invigilated a mock A-level exam last year and it was the first time the students there had been under exam conditions in an exam hall, as they didn't get to sit GCSEs due to Covid. In that sense there is a lot to be said for starting exams early on so they are more used to it when the formal exams come round. At my comprehensive school we did a few internal exams in the hall, but not until year 9.