Year 11 - 2024/2025 - Support Thread - the final stretch

[QueenMabby]

A new thread to take is to exams and beyond! All welcome.

Consider yourself lucky @QueenMabby From the sounds of it your DD is doing fine by herself!

AQA English Lit, DD tells me that paper 1 is Shakespeare and 19th Century prose.

But the back of our CGP guide shows that as paper 2, but perhaps Amazon sent me an old copy?

Aqa lit 1 is Shakespeare and the c19
Paper 2 is the "modern text". Poetry and unseen poetry

For the yearbook they've been asked to nominate classmates for particular categories, e.g."Who is most likely to...". Some of which basically translate to who is the prettiest. Urgh.

Gross. What are they thinking???

That’s really not a good idea!

I know right. I assume another parent will say something about the inappropriateness of it.

Who’s putting it together? School or a group of parents? I recall cringing when DD2 told me they were doing similar for their year book after A levels. I think it ended up being rather innocuous but it is risky!

School are putting it together. There was something similar in Y6 but the categories didn't make me gawp in this way!

Oh dear! What are the categories?

That's wrong on so many levels 😯

I have an older DS who left school in the early 2010s. His prom included awards with some 'inappropriate' categories, but I didn't think it would still be a thing in the current era.

One of them was 'rear of the year', which was awarded to a larger girl in the year group. Supposedly the prom committee got her consent, but it was totally wrong thinking back.

@SeaSwim5 - that's grim!

My son's school have just told them about how the exams will work. They have to go to all of their lessons when not sitting an exam. There is also a complicated arrangement around extra lessons before exams and revision sessions after all the exams in some subjects have finished.

I am glad that he is being given structure and help with his revision. It seems unnecessarily complicated though. Is this jsut how it is in schools now? I took my GCSEs a quarter of a century ago and was not at a state school so maybe I just don't have a clue.

When DS1 did GCSEs two years ago we had a complicated system like this. It worked well. Each week was different and it was "if you have no exam today, you go to normal lessons, if you have an exam in the afternoon, you go to revision sessions in the morning, if you have an exam in the morning, you go to normal lessons after. If you have finished a subject, you go to revision". It relaxed a bit after half term, although they were all expected to be in school until the final week.
When I did mine, we only went in for exams.

I never found school revision sessions that helpful and would have found it stressful not being in charge of my own revision so close to the exams.
I can understand why schools do it though

I am glad to hear that it works well in practice. I am just a little concerned that it will cause DS1 extra anxiety. He had ASD and LD, so school is already quite a stressful experience for him. He has been to lots of the extra revision sessions the school have been running. He might find that sticking to something closer to his usual routine is helpful.

Both Ds1 and ds2’s had under each person “most likely to…” in their yearbooks. I can’t even remember what theirs said now.

Yes Ds is to attend lessons as normal too. I said surely you don’t have to do pe lessons. He looked at me like I was stupid. I guess a “run around” and fresh air will be good for them.

They “finish” school this Friday at midday. They don’t need to wear uniform and can bring a school shirt for people to sign. So…2 more days of uniform left. He’s been counting the days down.

No idea on the idea of finishing at midday, because they have to go in as usual from Weds and lessons will continue (PD day tues) so they aren’t really finishing. I suppose it’s an official mark to the end of school while every pupil is there. Not many of them can get home as there’s no public transport, so some school buses have been called in early just for year 11’s. They have an evening bus route, which is on for those doing after school activities, it covers the villages, but doesn’t go along all the extra roads, so the buses will be doing those routes Fri. I told Ds he can walk from the bus stop, it’s about 3/4 of a mile. He looked shocked 😂 he reminded me I don’t work Fridays. The bus usually stops up the top of our drive. Ds is going to a mates house now anyway, so won’t be on the bus.

Talking of buses. Does anyone else have to pay extortionate amounts to get the bus for 6th form? Ds will get on the same dedicated school bus that he uses now, but post 16 we have to pay. It’ll be £1,200 for the year, ouch.

Dds school appear to be doing normal lessons with lunchtime and after school revision sessions.

Ohh that is a nasty sting for a bus @icanbewhatiwant DS will be on London transport and I think buses are free but not overground. Overground is faster….need to look into it. Traveling school should be free, surely…

I helped a friend’s son with a run through for Spanish speaking and his went well so that was good. DS’ is not until Friday week.

He is not as ready generally as I hoped but let’s hope for some 🍀 ! Got last minute tickets for Romeo and Juliet at the Globe weekend before his exam. He can teach me about it first, I figured…

Too much to juggle now! DS not a revision plan/ traffic light system person. Wants to do just do what he thinks he needs to do. Made me nervous but I had to let him do it his way!

School is still setting revision for homework depending on subject, which is good but again a juggle. No study leave from this comp, but I’m assuming some early releases…

French oral for Ds tomorrow. He wrote down lots of questions for me to ask him last night. My questions were in English he answered in French. I could understand little parts of the answers. But he said it helps to just practice. He says he’s dreading the oral French more than any other exam, not sure why as some other exams are more important.

Best of luck! Speaking out loud definitely great practice, understood or not!

Bus pass is £90 per month here

@Hollyhedgeoh, wow, I'm very envious! Enjoy!