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!

Day off today so collecting son from school. Sat here waiting for him 🙏 I guess they'll nearly be coming to the end of the exam now.

I hope my dd year 8 studies the same plays/books and poem anthology as I have loads of text books!

We've never been that lucky all different books and plays between DD1 and DS - and while we've not been told DD2 texts yet the one we have is already different from both.

I'm sure I've seen apps where you can sell books to them - I am for first time thinking maybe when we know we don't need them selling them on - it's harder to know what to do with DD1 as and a-level books as have no clue what A-levels DD2 is interested in - she only had three options two once she chose triples science and has chosen very different subjects to older two.

Waiting for the 'That was awful'/'That wasn't too bad' WhatsApp....

It's horrid isn't it. Seems to hang around for ages. I remember a girl in my year getting it and she was off school for months. Hope your DS is coping ok and today has gone well.

I can see all the children coming out now. Fingers crossed 🤞

So English language is over - and that's the last time DS will do English. I suggested to him this morning that he might have a last minute change of mind and do English A level and he laughed at me. He's fully set on his maths and physics route, so I won't be able to help him with anything in future (after having helped with French this time and English very slightly).

Which board was that, @Letskeepgoing ?

And also well done to your son, that must be really reassuring.

That great - DD was praying for a speech. She hasn't made it home yet so will be interesting to see if she is happy.

That's brilliant @Letskeepgoing, well done to DS for answering everything.

I'm sitting in reception waiting for DS2, there's a huge amount of shouting coming from a meeting room.
The school is chaos, Head seems to be AWOL and just had Ofsted. I can't imagine they'll get higher than RI, wouldn't faint if it got inadequate.

Sorry I just realised maybe insensitive to put up that it was a speech before some people have spoken to their children.

My son finds Eng Lang really hard and he thought it went well so I hope that's reassuring for everyone.

DS has got back from English language and apparently it was "easy, really good". This is a child who got 3 and 4 in mocks and never revised. I suspect a car crash come August results day 🙈.

Thanks for the new thread @SheilaFentiman . DD has three exams today so won’t hear until the end of the day as she will be too busy. Her main worry is having a very tired hand as they are all heavy writing - English/Business/Latin.

Any word on what the WJEC paper was like? Nothing from DS yet, which probably means that he's buggered off to the park with his mates and will leave me hanging!

@spiderlight nothing from ds re WJEC but god I am so glad it is done now!

DD is very happy. Delighted by a speech - She said she pulled in some examples of towns where they had upgraded public transport and the impact on the enviroment etc from her Geography revision so that at least wasn't wasted.

Which exam board is speech? Or do they all do the same?

WJEC was 'OK', apparently. No further details as yet.

@spiderlight gave me his standard it was fine - I asked any surprised and he said no.

He tends to look forward after the exams to next one or next thing- which TBH isn't a bad thing.

Despite worst ever hayfever / worst subject etc, it seemed to go ok. Not great, but ok. DS was disappointed it wasn't a speech, as that's the one he finds most difficult, but the subject matter came easily to him. Just like our daily chats round that dinner table. And train journeys for the extracts at least held his attention. He thinks he waffled a lot on the other question but a month ago he was freezing in front of a blank screen and writing nothing, so at least some words went down.

He's waiting until cooler weather and then will burn mock exam Eng Lang papers in the garden.

Hope everyone is ok. My heart goes out to all the others not well, stressed, struggling - it has been a long few weeks and these poor kids have had a tough time in their education.

CORRECTION
disappointed it WAS a speech.

my DD was happy with the eduqas paper - an article and a formal letter.

AQA was a speech - the other boards could be different.

I could throttle him! Utter panic for a few seconds! 😩