Year 11 2023-24

[Maxus]

Anyone else got kids starting year 11 in September?

DS had last mock today. Going to have weekend to chill then he wants to start studying again. He wasn't too happy with the last maths paper today hopefully he did OK.

Hope your son had a relaxed weekend @Tebheag. Will his school start feedback on their mocks in classes this week? DS always finds the feedback sessions very helpful.

DS's school is the same @Techno56 - paper 1's in November and paper 2's in Feb/March. Apart from maths and MFLs where they do all three papers both times.

Day 3 of mocks here. DS one yesterday morning (Eng Lit) which he said went "okay". He has three today. Apparently the school are trying to mimic what could happen in the actual GCSE timetable. So three today, two tomorrow, three Thursday, two Friday and a final one next Monday morning. Hopefully the actual exam timetable won't be quite as compressed as this.

We are mid mocks too. History yesterday was horrific, apparently, but everything seems OK otherwise.
We shall see when the results arrive!
The GCSE dates are on our school website and have been for ages. I have them printed and on the wall in the kitchen 🤣

@Waspie btw

We're also in the middle of mocks. it's the 3rd round of mocks for us! Summer of year 10, November yr 11 (mostly paper 1 subjects) and Feb yr 11 (mostly paper 2 subjects, except Maths, MFL, and English Lit - all papers).

Three more mock exams this week: English Lit 2, Maths 3, and History 2.

@Waspie exam timetables are available on AQA, Edexcel, OCR websites etc.

@gingercat02 we also have the timetable on the fridge. My DD says it's scary - there's about 24 of them 😁including the 10-hour supervised final art exam which is at end of April. And English and German speaking exams which should happen early May - those are non-exam assessments with their teachers.

First exam day for DD is 10th of May - she has Biology paper 1 in the morning and two German exams (listening and reading) in the afternoon. Apart from that there is only one double exam day on the 11th of June (Chemistry 2 and History 3). Rest of the exams are one each day, about 4 per week.

Last exam for DD is 18th of June, which is Additional Maths FSMQ (optional exam).

@anoukis I think the exam timetable scares me more than DS!

Little bugger told me last night, "we should have been revising sooner, Mum."
FFS, I believe I have been saying that for 2 blooming years. Anyway, we are where we are.

Biology was fine today, and they did Maths and English Lang revision in class (no afternoon one today), so he's upstairs doing Geography

We start with Biology on 10 May and finish with Physics on 14 May. I'm booking a holiday for the weekend after the contingency day 🏖🍸🍹💤

14 June lol. Wishful thinking there were only 4 days!

@Waspie he had a very chilled weekend thank you. He actually texted this morning from school as got his English language result as was so happy he got a G7 in paper 2. Not meant to get them till March before they break up for Easter but guessing teachers want to go through them in class!
Ouch 3 in one day is that language? They the same to DS.
His school also doing the same in P1 November P2 Feb.

@gingercat02 I'm trying to stay positive and not panic. My DD is motivated to study but not too organised and she is fine with me sorting out her revision timetable. Also needs occasional 'get off the phone' nudges... Luckily I work from home a lot and I'm happy to oblige😀

We booked holidays early July, as DD wants to go to prom and to the leavers assembly, both are on the last Friday in June.

@gingercat02 snap DS has the same start and finish dates subjects. Also got Geography on the 14th of June.

I've just checked DS's timetable, he has 26 exams. Art is on 18/19 April and then the main ones start on 10th May (biology) and finish on 14th June with geography and physics. It looks like a long slog when you see them all written down. DS did well in his mocks other than Biology but after parents evening I understand why and he should (in theory) do OK in the real thing.

Yes the 3 exams in one day (10th of May) are because of the German MFL exam but it's not too horrible as the German one is 1h 45 in total. These are all AQA higher tier papers. The foundation ones are a bit shorter.

Biology 1 - 1hour 45 min
German 1 Listening - 45 min
German 3 Reading - 1 hour

Oh aren't you people wonderful!? Thank you. I didn't realise the timetables would be published already. I dumbly assumed the school would tell us when they knew.

I've just cobbled together DS' timetable and it's positively relaxed compared to the mocks. Only three days with 2 exams in one day, and none with 3. Phew. The first full week is pretty full though - 7 exams.

We have a holiday booked for 1st July too. Looking forward to it already!

@Tebheag - that's great! Well done to him 😊 Yes, three in one day due to a language, so today was biology, mandarin then maths and Thursday is Chemistry, mandarin then maths.

Well done that child!!!! :)

@Waspie I also thought the school would tell us gave up 2 wks ago and typed up my own sheet coloured to make it look nice and highlighted the days he had more than one exam then printed 1 for me and 1 for DS 😂

Schools will let you know exams officially when they have done the entries.
They will give you / your DC a formal copy of the exam entry to check. It should be this side of Easter I think.

When checking pay attention to:
. the name (which needs to be the same as birth certificate)
. tier of entry for maths / science / MFLs
. the right number of exams per subject

Anybody with a child not doing a 2nd set of Mocks, how much are they revising at the moment for the real exams? My DD has been told she should be doing 3hrs a day after school, which seems far too much to me.

Mine is doing mocks and certainly not three hours after school! Ridiculous. One - two max, and more on the weekend, but even then 3-4 hours in small chunks at the very most.

They need to make it to May and not already be absolutely exhausted and fed up.

3 hours a day, if that includes normal homework, is still at the upper end of manageable or sensible. It's a marathon, not a sprint!

If it's on top of normal homework, it's crazy!

Yes mine is doing 2 hours including homework. Sometimes it goes over and I have to call him for dinner. He has a Pomodoro timer to break it up into chunks. Surely they need a wind down time before bed, or they won't sleep, and cause more issues.

Pomodoro timer?! What a brilliant idea. I'll def get one of those.

DD is doing second set of mocks this week. She seems to be doing OK. I've just told her that Easter hols are only 4 weeks away (plus a few days) which made her smile.

Just type pomofocus into google and you can get a free one. I use it for work too as I'm prone to procrastination. It just runs in the background. It's embarrassing really how having an electronic clock in the background means I get so much more done!

Thank you @Angrycat2768. I'm going to download for work too.

We are mid mocks (only set). DS did 4-5h most days over HT, he's doing 2-3h after school this week.
We will probably go back to 2h after school and 3-4 at weekends from this weekend and then up it at Easter and after.

My DD's timetable is below, it shows the number of sessions. This includes homework but they barely get any now and if they do it's usually revision / past papers.

Sessions vary from 30 to 45 minutes, depending on subject. She is taking 9 GCSEs and the Add Maths FSMQ exam. Friday is her easy day as they finish school as 2pm and she only does Art, drawing or painting with headsets on.

She plans to take Bio-Chem-Maths-FM at A-levels. She is doing 2 sessions per week for each of Eng Lit, Eng Lang, History, German, 3 per week for Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Maths, Add Maths, and 4 for Art. (Art is time consuming but that counts as relaxation for her).

Mon 3
Tue 2 + athletics
Wed 4
Thu 4
Fri 2
Sat 6 + tennis
Sun 6 + athletics

Oh, and I created two rules which we try to stick to:
Mon-Thu no study after 9pm and Fri-Sun no study after 5pm (sees friends).
No phone checking during sessions.