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!

Any news on FMaths yet?

All done! DS home from FM, said he did all the Qs, couldn’t do the last one - so I guess nothing too unexpected. Now leavers day/prom next week, sixth form transition for a day the week after - and a long summer ahead. I’m just glad it’s all gone fairly smoothly.

DS finished his Further Maths and then had to head off to the Cathedral for his choir practice. Where I happened to be accompanying a school trip at the time... it's a small world. He has Sixth Form Days tomorrow and Friday.

Further maths apparently hard but mainly maneagable!
all done & a party for her tonight, good luck to anyone doing Additional maths that really is a slog to the end.

FM was 'decent' - I think she's past caring. Just deposited them at the beach for the evening, so glad it's over!

Ds said FM was awful 🥲 I think he is kicking himself but I think it was bad luck as he did revise hard for it. Oh well he has a leavers assembly next week, prom and then that’s it

Further Maths “decent” here too. More interrogation resulted in “hard because it’s further maths but not terrible”! Who knows?! All over now. Socialising already started at the weekend because most of her friends finished last Friday. This evening 5 of them are out for food and then a sleepover at a friends house. Tomorrow we’re shopping for dress for prom, I can’t believe we’ve left it this late (prom on 6 July) but she didn’t want to engage on it before! I’ve started a thread asking for suggestions in London in Style and Beauty section but all suggestions welcome! Wish us luck tomorrow in our search. Hope all the young people are adjusting into their free time.

And we are done. Ds said fm was tough. He answered all questions but certainly doesn't think he's done well. First paper he's really been negative about

DD still slogging on with Add Maths and not enjoying it much at all. Only a couple more days...

it’ll be over before you know it, @BonjourCrisette ! Good luck to your DD!

Yea another here saying fm was hard but manageable.

Anyone else getting stressed out by their dc at home all day now that exams have finished?
His problems, what if it’s not a grade 9??
We bumped into someone who mentioned their kid had finished the year before and got seven 9s. (Hard earned! They changed school and he was home schooled. Ds didn’t hear those parts)
Ds went to a failing state school and dragged his grades up from 2 and 4 his highest to mocks and predicted grade 9s by final mock exams. Exams went badly in all his predicted grade 9 subjects. Now it’s a constant flux of mood swings (why didn’t I push him, tell him)

He feels he might have got some 8s and maybe it would just be 7s. (I had said that’s okay and got him to a place where he would feel okay with that) but meeting a neighbour with all 9s just made him feel all emotional again.

Sometimes you give it all you’ve got and be happy with that. It’s better than the grade 2 and 4 he was predicted a few years ago but he is turning into an ungrateful whinging entitled !!
An 8 in Maths gets him to where he needs next. He’s come out of his exams feeling like a loser he says.

Maybe it’s more motivating to think that if he works harder at the next stage he still has room to improve, @PicnicBunny? It must be fairly common to improve your marks at A level etc once you’re only thinking about the subjects that really interest you. I know I did! No one is entitled to or ‘deserves’ - or even particularly needs - straight 9s. It’s a bit of a fantasy, but an unnecessary one.

We're finished now. Hallelujah. FM was 'banging' although I detect a note of irony there. Apparently ok, remembered how to do a couple of the harder ones then blank mind on something she usually finds straightforward. Busy week of social things ahead, camping at the weekend and family holiday to unwind after that.
Very best of luck to those last few still sitting papers and let's hang out again when the results are due!

I’ve tried that angle. Put all effort into A-Levels. (But also that’s setting him up again for frustration right?) People with ALL 9s in every GCSE subject are rare.

Again, you don’t need all As at A-level. You just need to do your best. Although I suppose by that stage you have uni offers resting on results. But it’s about resilience as well - how you adapt when something doesn’t go as expected.

They were very keen on the growth mindset at the kids’ primary school - and that’s what it was all about. How to keep going when things go wrong. Learning from failure and all that.

Though in my experience (from my own school/uni years) the people who spent most time worrying about their results before they came out had often done better than anyone else anyway.

DD has had a big event to plan for this week so has had rehearsals etc and now has some auditions to do for next term, and another smaller thing on Saturday. I think we will get the proper slump next week. Went to a party last night and there was a bit of angsty drama from some - I think it's like when you finally stop all the emotions come flooding out or you finally get ill.

Here's hoping they can adjust to a slower pace and recharge over the next few weeks without too much worrying about results.

As for me I'm now trying to organise and sort out all the things I have put to one side during GCSE support, so pressure still on for me! Fun.

Well done to everyone who’s finished (and kept their mental health intact!) 🙌☕️

@PicnicBunny I dug out some data for my DD when she was panicking about not-9s. Got some perspective on how rare 9s really are across the country, and especially students who get all 9s. Also they surely must be heavily concentrated in certain schools, which means they're rare-to-vanishing in the others.

I think if he's pulled himself up from 2-4 to 8-9s even in mocks, he has already succeeded and shown he's "got what it takes". For most of them there will be an element of luck in what came up on the paper on the day. Of course you make your own luck and can guard against it to an extent, but some people who get a 9 got lucky with the questions, and some people who got anything lower got unlucky. It doesn't define anyone. I still can't quite get my head round 2 years' work being reduced to 2 X 1h45m exams.

I'm hoping DD will find a job of some sort this summer. It might give her a bit of a wider perspective.

@Changes17 the neighbour mentioned you get money (bursary?) if you get all grade 9s or more than five or something. Ds was unaware (and so was I ) and that’s a lot of pressure to put on children anyway so I wouldn’t have pushed him any harder. Anyway, he’s having low mood since then because he had worked so hard for the exams and doesn’t know at this point what the grades will be. It’s a low mood hot summer.

I would like DS to get a job too but I am slightly struggling as to what that might be. He is doing a week of voluntary work at a local wildlife centre and two weeks in France on a language course. What sort of job could he do for the five remaining weeks I wonder

Applied for jobs for ds. Hopefully that gets his mind off studying and exams and results.

My local leisure centre hires 16 year olds for their holiday schemes, any help?

Finally got out of DS1 that FM was hard but they all found it hard. Anyway, it's done!

C’est une bonne idée! Merci!