Y 11 2023-2024 thread 3

[Techno56]

For when the other thread fills up tomorrow as we all discuss English lit 2 😁

DS said they are not allowed to touch any papers at all once the exam has finished. He felt bad about not helping l one of the invigilators that dropped some but they were instructed to stay seated until they were all picked up.

Gosh I am really flagging today, why is it so exhausting doing nothing but thinking about something stressful someone else is doing!!

Ooh that's a big cohort.

But still ... during the exam it's very easy to keep track on unused papers. And once exam finished you collect by row. Then a couple of you flanking each side can walk down and check all peeps handed in.

But yes. I guess there's always a possibility.

> note to self to triple check next exam <

Warning** 300! Wow
I bet your incident forms go into multiple pages for loo breaks!

A missing paper could also jeopardise the grade of every student sitting that exam so it's actually quite stressful at the end as you know they are knackered and some will have one or even two more exams that day so you don't want to keep them waiting

We once thought we were missing a paper. In an actual real exam. Turned out it was actually an absent student that we had missed when chemo attained ace at tye start. So we were looking for hers.

Shitting my pants doesn't do that morning justice

So now when lead invigilator has done a check we then get a second check done

actually an absent student that we had missed when checking attendance at the start.

Rather!

Thanks @dinomirror I do agree with @tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz though as it should be impossible to leave the hall with the exam paper. I just grilled DS on it and it sounds exactly as it was back in the stone age when I did mine - nobody moves, or speaks, until the invigilator has gathered up the answer papers and the question papers.

@GlomOfNit such a shame your DS missed out on a trip to China. DS had a skiing trip to Austria in year 8 that he finally went on in year 10. Bloody Covid! DS' Mandarin teachers take the group up to Chinatown for a day each year which they enjoy a lot, but nothing compared to a trip to China. I hope your DS gets to go one day; it's an amazing country.

Stressful @tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz one of DS' supplementary answer papers went awol after his English Language mock. That was run like a "real" GCSE so everyone went a bit nuts. It was finally found in a pile of a different classes papers. The school ran a full investigation and it turned out to be the teacher marking the paper had separated the additional answer pages, rather than anything the invigilators had done.

Exactly how I'm feeling! Definitely in need of that half term break. It's definitely a full-time job trying to keep DS's anxiety at bay. He's not been sleeping well. And now has lost his appetite (unheard of in non-GCSE times)

How did the computer science kids do?
I'm really proud of ds. He went from knowing nothing for the mocks (I'm not even exaggerating) to thinking the paper went ok.
He put in a lot of work over the last few months.

DS did edexcel computer science and said it was really hard
he solved 1 and 3 and parts of the others - 6 in total which doesn’t sound good! He’s strong on paper 1 thank goodness

@Waspie
I can imagine everyone's blood pressure

Not too bad apart from last question which was a 6 marker. Can't be worse than mocks, surely.

My son did OCR (which had a terrible paper 2 last year) and said it was his easiest exam so far and finished in 40 minutes 😬 not sure what to make of that to be honest!

@Gazelda do you have any idea of the cost of the Washington trip? DD does it in y13. I paid £1k for 3 nights in Iceland last year so I’m worried it will cost more as surely they go for more than 3 nights ?

I’m the same I think I’m more tired than dd!

Which board did he do?

OCR here too

Am I misremembering but back in the stone ages were we allowed to just leave the exam room when we’d finished? I seem to think people just put their hand up to signal they’d finished and then when their paper had been collected they left the room! I remember it being distracting but also quite interesting to see who lasted the full time and shy, quiet me always stayed until the end anyway! 😊🙈

I feel like I remember some rule that you could leave early if you’d finished until the last 15 minutes and you had to stay. It’s so long ago now I’ve probably made that up.

No, you're not missing-remembering. We were allowed to leave early once our paper had been collected but only up to a certain point then we had to stay. I'm pretty sure I didn't leave early as I didn't dare in case I'd missed so!

Missed something

Ds did ocr too. He said it was ok, which isn't the same as good but he could do a fair bit of the paper. He said he couldn't do the last question at all and one other question was confusing.
Going to that from leaving his mock mostly blank is a massive achievement. I really hope he can get a 5 at least but we'll see.

My dd didn’t believe me so I’m glad I still have some of my memory left!

DS did OCR too. Following your comment, I just asked him how long it took him and he said about half an hour (!) but he spent the rest of the time doing the last question (which was a really hard coding question he couldn't work out). He thinks he would have got 2 out of 6 on that question, but found the rest of the paper very easy.