GCSE support - the final frontier!

[SheilaFentiman]

These are the voyages of the GCSE Enterprise. To support our DCs, bemoan exam boards and to boldly go through the last fortnight like no one has gone before!

There was a thread on mumsnet not long ago where someone said their dd had pretended to be pregnant! Awful. Glad things have improved for your son.
Dd has 5 more GCSEs. It feels like they've been going on forever. I felt the same when dd1 did her A levels last year

DS's last day is Tuesday, which works out great as it's his birthday on Wednesday! He'll need to do some revision for his history exam the next day but I've said he can go out with his friends.

He's got 5 exams left, the last one is Food Prep on Tuesday 20th.

Big exams this week. (No pressure!)

Tomorrow's English Language is massive for my DS. He hates the subject and out of the 2 papers, this is the worst one. His grades have fluctuated so much in the this subject, I just hope the paper is kind to him.

Same here @closethedrawer. I really just want DS2 to get over the line

@PennywisePoundFoolish fingers crossed for them both

Someone asked upthread about moderation. Every centre is moderated. The sample is selected based on the range of marks awarded, and the moderator looks at the sample, at the marks awarded, and how accurate those are.

I’m trying to not think about the whole leaving thing for DS. Just take things one exam (and sometimes two exams!) at a time. It’s overwhelming him already. He cried again last night that he will miss his maths teacher and a grade 8 would fail his teacher and he wished he was doing A-Levels at the school sixth form. And he cried when his geography teacher left a few months ago I had to go online and buy her an emergency gift from DS because she gave everyone a lovely card and a chocolate bar and he adored her. He thinks she had always looked out for him. The school sixth form don’t offer the subjects he wants, so has to leave. He really liked all his teachers and does impressions of them when explaining to me how they explained it and what characters they are and how funny they are and how they made it stick in his head. He will see most of his friends still at the sixth form he’s going to. But I think he’s feeling like he will let his teachers down if he gets anything less than a 9. But probably some of that is just he will miss school and his childhood in a way.

He is going to miss school so much. I really feel for him wish I could tell him it will be okay.

End of an era.

English Language is going to be the trickiest one. So hard to get all that writing down so fast. I don’t know why they don’t add in just a little more time. How is that testing their knowledge over the last two years

I agree @PicnicBunny . It's the same with History. What exactly about the subject does writing really fast test?

DD has 6 left to go and is seriously flagging now. A bit worried about this week to be totally honest. Still, five days and it's all over!

If it's AQA, the writing section is not about how much but about how well crafted. I tell my students to aim for two sides max (unless they have massive writing!)

@Hellocatshome that so much for him to have gone though and then managed to refocus on exams I am not surprised you are very proud of him.

DS has similar behavior from school - constant accusations which we've either through fluke or from our own background proved false only for it to flare up just before next thing of him course work deadline exam. He was luckier his friends rally round him and were supportive but I've had trouble believing how unprofessional the school has been and how unnecessarily hostile. DS was very angry and frustrated and getting him to refocus was hard but now he's just done with it all.

I think I'm going to leave DD1 and DS alone today as much as possible they know what they have on Monday.

Thanks for the new thread SheilaFentiman

DS2 just surfaced......
Dreaded English tomorrow.

A few days ago, someone posted a sort of crib sheet for English Language. I think it was from the website of a school????

If this rings a bell with anyone, please could you post it again?!

Getting complaints it’s too hot to study today. I’m on mocktails and slushy duty. Anyone fancy an iced latte?

This week is going to be too hot, too quick but also excruciatingly slow. I’m exhausted already.

@BaconAndAvocado

https://www.stokenewingtonschool.co.uk/asset/4333

It was posted by others but I did bookmark it for DS.

@PicnicBunny

My dd's English teacher left this Feb half term. I had floods of tears - he really brought back her love of reading after it dipping a bit in y8/9 (she had him from start of y10) she had a really great relationship with him as did all her friends. When he left people could not even get in his classroom to say goodbye it was so full and he had bags and bags of presents.

Luckily she also seems to get on ok with the new English teacher - I was a bit worried so close to exams how it would go.

English Language is going to be a tricky one for my DS tomorrow as well. He hates writing and struggles to get enough down, but he's been very resistant to actually practising at home. Ah well - it is what it is and he only needs a C. Then maths calculator paper on Wednesday and we are done!

Thanks loads TripleDaisySummer

❤️❤️

Well done to your son @Hellocatshome

DD is sitting decorating her school shirt for signing. She’s been at it for 2 hours - if only she was this focused when revising!

Ds has decided on order of questions in Eng Lang today
He's stating with 40 mark question (5)
Then going 4, 3, 2, 1 so backwards. He is going to try and not run out of time but if he does then he may only miss the 4 marker.

Letskeepgoing that sounds like a great plan. I'll suggest it to DS2.

He's revising Chemistry, needs a 7 for 6th form.

I've told him a squillion times that he also needs a 5 in English for practically everything 😭