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

[QueenMabby]

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

I asked DD's English HoD if we should be worried this year about English AQA based on what I had read on MN and other social media.

They weren't worried but I still am...

I work on the basis that hundreds of thousands of children take GCSE English every year. Only the bad experiences get publicised on MN and social media. I know someone who adjudicates for AQA. The vast majority of reviews of marking she looked at last year remained unchanged as the marks given were reasonable.

Edited for typo

I suppose the worry is your child could miss marks and you would never know. I understand it is possible to pay for remarks but unless their grade was miles off you wouldn’t know to.

Schools will know the marks and if they were close to a boundary they might suggest it. Grades can go up or down with remarks. My DS dropped a grade from mock to real thing in his one GCSE last year but unless it’s affecting their next step or is wildly out why worry. I don’t think it is something to think about at the moment.

Private schools are more likely to pay for remarks because of cost. So if your DC is at one they’ll have it in hand

I read the concerning conversations about last years AQA English on MN and asked the HoEngkishbat my DD school about them. She wasn’t concerned and says all the marks for their school have been as expected.

We are going to an art exhibition today. Lovely.

I'm a bit confused as to the above discussion. I find Mrs Hamlet helpful and speaks sense. But, I'm looking for any short cuts to at least help ds2. Any I can get quite frankly!

We know we can't rely on any 4 quotes. Silly to rely on any one person. But someone eg like Mr Bruff poetry comparison looks at all the poems and links etc, which can be helpful to streamline a dc's thinking, but knowing you can't rely on entirely.

which is why I asked for the Amazon link to past papers, on last thread. Did anyone post a link please?

I think they mean this kind of thing https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChsSEwjph-GQu52MAxWCkFAGHWGwCzsYACICCAEQFRoCZGc&co=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6YfhkLudjAMVgpBQBh1hsAs7EAQYASABEgLGwPD_BwE&sph=&ohost=www.google.co.uk&cid=CAASJORou1jtT7A8gkJUanCbXTDxDjAS0swCDNELSGn2ZjTLE5CjTw&sig=AOD64_2FhbTZxJmKVRiyokzN4grjutVc3Q&ctype=70&q=&ved=2ahUKEwiQn9yQu52MAxVBV0EAHXLNDMUQwg8oAHoECAUQDQ&nis=8&adurl=

Not cheap. £7.50 for 4 papers but printing that volume is not easy either

Do your schools not give students access to free printing? Ours can ask for extra print credits if they need them, and I'd run off papers if students needed them.

Thanks @Hollyhedge. That's the kind of thing I'm looking for. I can at least offer it to ds2. I can print massive amounts at work for free, so it might suit me.

Oh that ls a good idea. My printer won’t handle long docs

And schools can get the CGP ones for much less than that - might also be worth asking them if you can buy them through them. We buy loads from them every year.

For English, you don't need to print the whole papers - there are loads of writing pages, so as long as students know how much time they have on each question, the writing pages aren't that important. Just the extracts and the questions.

Yeah I think it’s more papers with a lot of questions - maths/ sciences - where a print out helps

So eng lit paper 1 with AQA is the three books they’ve studied?

paper 2 is unseen poetry?

Lit 1 is Shakespeare and pre 1900
Lit 2 is the modern text, poetry and unseen poetry

Thank you! Just trying to get prepared as to what he has and when. Hoping to create a timetable for revision but who knows if he’ll follow it! Going to be a stressful 7 weeks u til they start!

7 weeks is aaaages, miss 😂

🤣 That's what I think he’s saying in his head! He doesn’t really like to revise until the week before if we go by his mocks - I keep saying he’s got to start earlier for the real things! He is doing a lot in class too so doesn’t think he needs to do much at home besides teachers saying they should be Donna 2 hours a day from now in addition to what they are doing in school!

DS the same. We did a timetable today which was more let’s add up how many days off school you have, hours of revision per day, divide by subject, divide by paper of text (or whatever). Soon realise a few hours is not very long to revise whole of Elizabethan topic, or whatever it is. Not sure it will sustain motivation, we are all human, but it definitely focuses the mind!

Re: marking.
There aren't enough good, experienced exam markers.
And the pay is rubbish, too.
Dd isn't doing much at home other than preparing for her art practical in 5 weeks 😬
She's doing past papers at school in most subjects as they've finished the curriculum.
Some teachers are running revision days over Easter.
I forsee a lot of cramming 🙄

Thanks for the new thread! First exams this week for DD - Welsh speaking, then Art 1st week of April 😅 I offered to help practice for the Welsh exam but it was declined. Trying not to get stressed out.

DD also thinks it is aaaaagggges away! But she is doing some work.

They’ve still got a bit of curriculum to finish in History, Biology & Physics which I find worrying given how late Easter is this year. Pretty sure my other two had covered everything by now.

They had a history, biology & maths test last week on top of homework so struggled to revise fully. she’s beginning to feel the pressure. No results as yet.

School has offered a couple of revision days over the holidays (payable) but they’re in the wrong subjects for DD (ie, art, drama, maths & English) she could do with chemistry, chemistry and chemistry! When she’s done a paper at home & self marked she does ok (apparently) but in class she’s looking at scraping a 4! I’m thinking she’s a very generous marker! There’d be no reviews if she was an examiner.

I must ask DD about printing papers at school but I seriously doubt they’ll be allowed. She could do with a few over the holiday period.

More importantly she’s found a prom dress AND shoes! 👗 And when she’s wearing that it’ll all be over!!!!!!!

@Oblomov25 so sorry I didn't get back to you re: the practice papers! I've been away for a couple of days, but I see that someone else posted a link to exactly what I was talking about 🙂

Hi, just posting to bookmark for the moment

Thank you anyway Herecomes.