Y11 2023-24 thread 4

[Techno56]

New thread for GCSE survival 🙂

DD really stressed about maths.

Not. She's still asleep

Good luck to all with maths today, especially any 3/4 borderline.

Good luck , maths, imedia and Latin students today!

Yes good luck to maths and aldo Dpsn7sh today!
Tons of revision for maths done here garfly any for Spanish l. A bit of complacency has set in on that one even though the lusteningvwsnt the walk in the park he thought it was going to be!

That's the same run-in as us! It's a tough week. Good luck to everyone. Hopefully, the last maths ever!

❤️

DS isn't particularly social either. He has lots of friends in various sports groups and he goes to play with them but as soon as that's over he comes home. There's never, "X and I are going to McDonalds after basketball".

I think that Covid really changed the way DS and his friends socialise. They were just at the age when they'd start to have more freedoms but ended up socialising on their games consoles. That hasn't changed for DS - when he wants to "spend time" with his friends he goes online and plays Call of Duty or is on Instagram - rather than see them in person. As others have said he is never going to be a "hang out down the park" sort of person.

DS is going from a mixed sex school to single sex selective (his choice), so I can't see his social life improving in sixth form either.

Best of luck to all our children today. You got this!

I think covid really hit this year socially. They had no chance really to form friendships in y7 before they were off school. So my ds just made friends on the PlayStation. And they weren’t the friends that he would “normally” have made. It’s only now that he is finally forming some good friendships.

i was just reflecting on how much school they all missed and it’s pretty amazing what they have all achieved

Lockdown definitely affected how DCs socialise- DS went down a bit of a dark hole for 2 years in all sorts of ways. Luckily he has good friends at school but they actually rarely do things offline.

DS left house late again. Think he squeaked into school just in time. How can he be so laid back? Confident for maths but a lot less so for chem and even less for physics - is there a consensus Paper 2 is harder than Paper 1 for Physics? DS is suddenly very daunted and has hit a block for electromagnetism especially. A few weeks ago physics was a plan B for A level...I guess not anymore!

Good luck to everyone!

DS definitely found Physics 2 and 3 much better than 1, but we do seem to have an unusual board (Cambridge). He also found Biology 2 easier than 1 but this could be because he was lucky with the topics. We'll see about Chemistry 2 tomorrow!

Good luck to you all with exams today.

Good luck all for the final maths paper.
The end is near

Covid was such a difficult time for every child (person!) and it's affected each age group differently. It's certainly manifesting differently as they get older.

It's DS' leavers assembly on Wednesday afternoon (no child in the school has an exam that afternoon) so I asked if he and his friends were going to go out afterwards, or when the exams have ended completely, and he was really surprised at the idea of this.

@Zubomama not sure about physics - DS found paper 1 hard (and he loves physics) but doesn't seem to think that paper 2 will be worse. He's AQA higher triple. It's not an A Level choice for him though so not as much riding on a top level grade.

I’m really interested by the socialising (or lack thereof) as this is definitely my experience with DD. A few good friends, but very little socialising outside of birthdays and other occasions. Younger DD (year 9) is out all the time. I really think the lockdowns at the start of their secondary school experience had a big impact on their friendships and social skills. Hoping college changes it all for them.

I clearly remember going from a position of allowing one hour per day on the X-Box and no Fortnight pre-Covid, to telling DS to get up to his room and see if there are friends around to have a Fortnight party practically overnight. Must have confused the life out of him 😂

DS really quite enjoyed home schooling (and his school did it really well - full credit to them) and was a little disappointed to have to go back and start getting up in the mornings again. He did enjoy all of his sports clubs starting up again of course. Rugby training via Zoom is really not the same!

He did go from being a very social child to being more happy with his own company. He also took on a project (learning chess) to take up the time he had previously spent doing clubs. We were fortunate that he coped well, I know lots of kids who did not cope at all and my heart goes out to them.

Similar here. I asked DS if he'd be out with friends after his last exam on Friday and so wasn't going to plan takeaway or dinner out in case he'd already eaten or wanted to stay in town a bit longer. He said most of his friends don't finish till Monday and he might go and meet up with them then but was a bit non-comital. He is happier playing online with friends which is definitely a Covid hangover.

DD in Y8 by contrast a complete social butterfly and never home or if she is friends are here too.

no revision over weekend here, but that isn't a surprise. Hoping maths is OK as it is a A level choice.

wrt socialising. dd is the youngest of 3 and the older 2 did have friends etc at this point, but I noticed that for both of them the real long lasting frinedships came out of sixth form. They stayed at same schools but somehow the friendships shifted and regrouped in a positive way.

They both did a few weeks of nothing after exams and then got a job. They both loved the freedom of having some money and both continued their jobs into first year sixth form. I cannot tell you how positive it was for them working. They learnt so much and grew up so much.
I highly recommend it.
Unfortunately dd is unlikely to be able to get a summer job and sustain it. I wish there was something that you could do to earn money for about 3 weeks! She won't be able to do a part time job and sxith form either.

dd is celebrating on Saturday 15th by going on her first pride march. Then off on holiday on Monday 17th and we're taking her friend with us.

DD1 was exhausted yesterday, she said she was taking nothing in for maths so swapped to history which usually gives her a bit of a boost but she said that didn't help. So she watched Doctor Who in the evening rather than doing revision but that seems fair enough. She has maths and Spanish today. Fingers crossed everyone.

DD has called me to say that Edexcel paper 3 (higher) was the hardest of all the papers. She only needs a 5 but said a lot of kids aiming for 8/9's to do maths a-level are worried they'll miss their grades now.

She's at a selective grammar for context. Why are they making the exams so bloody difficult!?

Oh god

Hi,
DD called too, said it was ok but the last 2 questions were impossible so she left them. Rest was ok and she said it was harder than paper 2 but ok. Edexcel higher too, but she messed paper 1 up badly so no 9s there. I think she'll do ok but what DD thinks may be different. She was happy though.

Yes, she was laughing hysterically about the last question - hexagons and circles? Her summary was "what the hell was that...!?"

If everyone finds it hard, it doesn't matter.

It only matters if you found it hard and everyone else says it was straightforward.

If you found it straightforward and everyone else found it hard, either you are able and/or revised well, or you 'missed' something about the questions.

The kids need to have faith in their own abilities and their revision (assuming they did some).

The last questions for maths are meant to be hard. They are there to help distinguish 9s from 8s.

Hmmm DD also doing edexcel and. said it was really nice. That makes me more worried if others found it hard. Hope she didn’t actually get given the foundation paper!

But I can’t see the grade boundaries lowering