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!

Apparently the WJEC article was about social media.

@spiderlight - your nerves must be shredded. I can't bear it when my sons wind me up like that. Glad it was fine !

@spiderlight happy to provide an alibi if you throttle him!

🤣🤣🤣

Thanks, that's the one.
Don't know if speech is good or bad, but reckon surely better than a letter (if a letter is even a type).

@filfilchards - I went all tearful and shaky! He had to take a supervised fresh air break to avoid being sick in his last English paper and I thought that had happened again but worse.

According to DD it was the best paper 2 she had ever done for English Language.

I hear you! DS1 had a good Spanish speaking exam all those weeks back, but he has been known to freeze and say nothing, so I would definitely have taken a text like that at face value!

That’s great!

Spiderlight your poor blood pressure. Particularly when there's a history of exams not going smoothly.

DS2 said he answered all questions and thinks it went well. I never press for more.

DH had forgotten his wallet so asked me to meet him out the front which I did. He then reversed smack into my car! Very small damage but I guess no good deed goes unpunished! Its also my birthday and he helpfully pointed out I'm much closer to 50 than 40.
Nothing wrong with that BTW just a bizarre twist on "happy birthday"

DS didn't enjoy it but he is v glass half empty. Edexcel was about freedom or teamwork.

I got a very eloquent "way better than last language"! So I'm taking that as a win 😅

DS has declared English Language exam was easy. DS does not find English Language easy and cant actually spell (not dyslexic just never bpthers to learn actual spellings and goes with a best guess) so I'm putting this down as another where he thinks it was easy but more likely he has completely misunderstood what was required.

@spiderlight little devil, it’s great he hasn’t been ground down by it all though!

@spiderlight I'd have passed out, I think!

Well done to everyone for surviving another morning and English! Oh gosh, someone please reassure me! I feel safe posting this here……. I feel sick…… DS (who has word finding difficulties and language processing difficulties) couldn’t remember how on Earth to title his formal letter - so instead of ‘Dear Sir / Madam’ or ‘Dear Editor’ simply wrote Dear He/ Her and signed it with his first name - OMG, can someone please reassure me and stop me panicking that this isn’t going to cost him loads of marks. I’m honestly head in hands on hearing in the car what he wrote when he couldn’t remember how to title it! Having gone through this so many times yesterday I feel so deflated…… we just need to pass the darn thing so definitely not got high expectations - he joked “perhaps sometime will see it as trendy these days”…… which would be fine if it wasn’t meant to be a formal letter to a local newspaper! 😂🤦‍♀️ should have said at the outset btw that this is mummy panic mode and desperately trying not to let him see my horror!!! Offloading here

Wow positive here too! Ds who doesn’t like English, predicted grade 6 in English thinks he might have got a grade 9. Something about public transport (and me and him always talk about public transport Lol!) so he found it funny and familiar and wrote tons. Also just the confidence in him is astonishing here after two days of revising relentlessly in the heat. I’m so proud. I’ve said to not overestimate and bring it down a grade just to make space for disappointment. Here’s to hoping for at least a grade 7. Yes I’m bringing it down two grades ! Because his English teacher has surprised us in the past by saying he just misses linking it back or something or else it could have been an 8, or didn’t make the point clear and was too vague therefore 6 (!!) He goes off topic. Forgets what he’s waffling on about. But I think he has improved since. Well that’s the last time he will do an English exam and he gave it all he had.* big sighhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I have no idea on marking, my reflex reaction is he got the Dear. And he/her could be worse, Bruh/Fam.

And it sounds like he carried on and wrote the letter. DS2 would have just frozen, so your DS has done well to complete it

Thank you@PennywisePoundFoolish you're right - in the scheme of things it’s so minor! And he did complete it and didn’t freeze. I am finding the English is so hard for pupils with learning needs whether it be dyslexia or language, the examiners won’t ever know

Dear @kidstaxidriver

don't panic!

Love from an examiner

That’s so nice to have you on here @MrsHamlet ! Feels like we’re just unsure of so much as parents and all trying our best, so it is good to hear a voice of reason and experience just reassuringly spreading your calmness and light.

My students would laugh at my spreading of "calmness and light"... I tell them I am mainly fuelled by caffeine and rage 🤣

When you feel every possible mark is vital (it's same for DS2 with English) it must be hard to see "easy" ones go. But I'm sure he's picked up marks in unexpected areas.

Ds2s exam feedback is either "think it went well" or "no idea what the questions meant".

There's no way he'll go and collect his results so I'm guessing we'll have to wait until school goes back to get them. Ds1s school put them on their online thingy(!), but not sure if DS2s will (different school).

I knew I could post here! And I was sure someone had piped up before who is an examiner! Thank you! He’s definitely not phased but I was struggling to contain my own nerves about it! Much appreciated all of you! I feel bad posting as it’s so admirable to hear all of these kids who are struggling with their own needs to even get in at all (let alone on time -damn that traffic!!) but when every marks literally counts for a pass, it’s so worrying!