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

[QueenMabby]

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

Exam access arrangements

Yes

A teacher let it slip when I was chatting to them a couple of weeks ago
It's causing huge issues with finding enough rooms apparently

I've no idea how home invigilation works 🤷‍♀️

We send an invigilator to the house with the paper. It's very very rare.

We don't have any this year. We do have an inordinate number of individual rooms though.

I suspect many won't fulfil their potential in the GCSEs as a result having lost a couple of years of education at such a critical time in their lives...Lockdown couldn't have been worse for them timing wise...new school, puberty, friendship issues etc etc

Hopefully they will rally in the sixth form!!

40% !! DS only knows one in his year group although there may well be others

@queenofthesuburbs
I hope so.
I don't think dd will do a well as she could have, due to the lockdowns.
Big gaps in maths and science knowledge.
I think some schools dealt with it better - kept up with the curriculum more.
She's also had friendship issues due to no real y6, no proper start to y7 or y8...
Very tough to form those friendships/peer groups if you are in and out of school.
There was lots of tutor group movement, too.

"Over 40%" was what I was told...
I know that there is real concern about having enough rooms (it's not a big school) The Y10 mocks were a disaster, apparently.

EAA covers a lot of things though - extra time is pretty common, for example, and most of those students in my school get their EAA in the exam hall with everyone else.

I know there are 2 diabetic pupils, 2 who have quite severe tics (dd knows them...), 2 with significantly impaired vision - all of whom are 1-1 in a room on their own.
They are probably a few more

Yes.
Rest breaks, also.
Sometimes it's because a pupil is anxious.

DD gets extra time in English Lang, English Lit and Geography because she’s autistic: it affects her processing time - and her handwriting ability. And she’s sitting at the back so that people can’t cough/sneeze on her because of her OCD. I’m pretty sure the pandemic was the main cause of her OCD.

It's really hard as a mother to see this too and not be able to do anything about it.
Hope your DD is better now

DC2 will be typing their exams so gets put at the back of the hall with all the others that type. Due to ongoing issues related to the original injury (which is why they need to type), their hands/fingers can randomly lose sensation which makes typing rather tricky. They get rest breaks so they can move around, stretch and click in the hope the nerves in their hands will play ball.

We've managed to get over the made up rules the school's exam team had put in place e.g. any jumpers etc removed during the exam will be taken away and stored elsewhere, rest breaks are a maximum of 5 minutes etc. etc. so DC2 is now hoping the weather over the next few weeks isn't cold enough for them to lose sensation before getting into the building!

Before I start a thread of its own, does anyone have any tips for exam anxiety?

she’s fine on the whole, but it has come to light that she cried her way through some mocks - I don’t want her getting in that much of a state come the actual thing!

@Xmasfairy86 My tips for what they are worth.

. Reassure them that they can do it, and if they don't do as well as hoped it isn't the end of the world. (Hopefully they have a plan B for 6th form / college)
. If they are bright reassure them there are loads out there who will struggle way more than them.
. Either way reassure them you are proud for trying, and what will be will be.

. Practice calming techniques such as: slow their breathing, 54321 technique (5 things they can see, 4 they can hear, 3 they can touch, 2 they can smell, 1 they can taste). If they start to panic in the exam they need to take a break to recentre.
. Tell them not to talk to anyone before the exam (anxiety is catching)
. Put some lavender oil on their wrist or rescue remedy stuff

. If all else fails ask the GP for some propranolol to take before exams

(My DD is 20 and is resitting maths. She gets a reader, rest breaks smaller room, and 25% extra time. She currently has zero GCSE passes due to missing y11 for MH reasons. This is her first realistic attempt at maths as last time she sat it 2 years ago she could only last 1hr in each exam.)

Edited to add. Fresh air walks daily.

Dd says a ‘huge number’ have extra
time and most of the boys are typing their exams - many fewer girls . She dislikes the typing noise in the exam hall and I’m somewhat regretting not having talked to them about her wearing earplugs in exams. Too late now. She carries them with her all the time for orchestra etc and I guess has got into the habit of using them elsewhere. They are adjustable loops so she can change the volume.

hopefully she’ll be ok. She also wears fidget rings and I think is ok to still have one of those

this year group really did have such a disruptive start to their secondary education- it isn’t surprising so many will need help with this.

I suspect every year group from 2020 to 2036 will be 'the most impacted GCSE group' in their parents' eyes .

I feel my older 2 ds’s were effected more by covid, ds1 started his biology degree in the sept. There were lots of strikes, so many lectures were cancelled. Then covid hit. So the best part of his first 2 years were online. So he had to watch all the practical stuff online and then write about it as if he’d done it. He really enjoyed his final year though. Ds2 was in year 11 when Covid hit, so had GCSEs cancelled. So A levels were the first exams he actually sat, wearing a mask, they’d not even practiced mocks sitting in a hall together. Whereas ds3 had online learning, not much of it in year 6. But year 7 all the teachers were online and lessons went ahead as normal. But I can understand the impact it would have on some dc’s especially if they didn’t have access to computers, or the teachers weren’t as proactive as ds’s.

@queenofthesuburbs
It is hard.
Things came to head last summer with a couple of her "friends" and it's taught her a valuable, if upsetting, lesson 😕
She is both very excited and very worried about 6th form. She's picked one that very few of her year group will attend.
I loved 6th form so hoping dd does, too.

Have contacted the exams officer and senco/pastoral lead?
They might be able to suggest ideas/tips.

Helpful tips for anxiety:

.drink cold water. Put cold water on your wrists, face and back of neck.
.think of something you can smell, see, feel, taste and hear. Then do this again.
.suck a mint
.look at a window-look at its top left, and track your eyes all the way to the top right. Now track your eyes to the bottom right. Now track them to the bottom left. Now back up to the place you started. If you e no window, do anything square/rectangle, such as a ceiling tile or a desk.

Thanks all - some really useful tips

has anyone used or given rescue remedy type stuff?

Breathing techniques are helpful
Relaxing muscle groups one at a time starting with your feet/ankles
Cold water on face/back of neck
Immerse face for 20 seconds if possible (resets the vagus nerve)
54321 technique - 5 things she can see, 4 things she can touch, 3 things she can smell etc
Dd has found the cold/face immersion technique the most helpful.