Year 11 - 2024/2025 - In the thick of it!

[QueenMabby]

New thread. Sorry. Forgot to start it - I hope everyone finds this!

My DD found it really hard amd left some questions at the end

I'm worried too.
Dd did Aqa F maths and finished in an hour 😬
I've told her to try and use all the time next exam.
She is adamant she went back over the paper twice 🤷‍♀️

Same story here with higher Edexcel. One girl burst into tears in the exam and had to pack up and leave. She came back after she calmed down. 5 other girls my DC knew were in tears afterwards

No idea on the origin, but I had to get my GenZ work colleague to translate DD's messages earlier:

I 'cooked' the exam - I've done really well
That exam 'cooked' me - I've done really badly.
No cap - I'm telling the truth
lowkey - this seems to mean 'genuinely'

He's going to teach me fluent teenager and then I can be a really embarrassing parent 😈

I’d have more chance of passing GCSE French than understanding teenage speak. 😂

Yes, my dc school do this. We are on holiday when the results come out. A family member is collecting the physical results, but we can log onto their school app and see results at 11am too.

Oh, I hadn't heard that you could BE cooked as well as being the one doing the cooking. Let's hope it doesn't come to that! The other expressions I do know. ICL too (I can't lie).

Interesting…
I understood it as ‘I was/am cooked’ = not great. ‘I cooked or I am cooking’ = going well
Some 25 years ago my Aussie friends would say ‘we’re cooking with gas’ to mean things were going well. But no clue the origin. DD doesn’t say ‘cooked’ but says at least 5 times a day ‘it’s really not that deep’ 🙄 and in text ‘ngl’ not gonna lie.

Hi, mind if I join? I'm finding supporting DD through GCSEs much harder than doing them myself.

She was predicted straight 7s, decided that was wrong and it seems to have thrown her down a route of deliberately disproving school. She was 2-5 grades below predicted in her mocks across all subjects.
Her MH is v fragile ATM and her eating is v disordered so we've gone down the route of low demand, telling her what we expect but letting her do what she feels she can.
So far drama was ok (but we've not talking about the practical paper - no idea what went wrong there, she won't say)
Eng lit was ok.
We're not talking about biology. All the high mark questions in her mocks were in cells, and she didn't get the topic so she worked really hard on it for the real thing - and there were no cell questions. Not sure if she even studied anything else.
Maths was ok although a lot of people left in tears.
History today.

Welcome @golemmings and sorry to hear of your daughter’s struggles. Low demand is definitely a good idea. So hard walking on egg shells though as I expect you are. Do look after you as it’s tough navigating kids with MH without flipping GCSEs. It can be exhausting and quite frustrating as they’re teens they’re impossible to advise. Hoping History goes well today. My DD also has history. The depth paper, so one question on Germany and another on civil rights. 🤞 for them and strength for you!

DD told me last night her English teacher has done just one practice of the unseen poetry with them and that was on the day DD was doing her Spanish speaking exam so she missed it and when she asked the teacher to cover it in a booster session because she had missed that single practice the teacher said (paraphrasing) tough shit. Her older sister said her teacher last year covered it multiple times. Very tempted to phone the school to complain. Of course DD2, as is the way with teenagers, told me this at 10pm as I was going to bed <sigh> why do they do this? No exams today at least but she'll be in chemistry boosters all afternoon.

'Now we're cooking with gas' was an old advertising strapline (gas stoves were faster and cleaner than cooking with wood stoves). Then there's the old phrases 'his goose is cooked' and 'out of the frying pan, into the fire'. Probably more but the modern use of cooked will derive from all of the above.

My heart goes out to all the DCs who had a hard time with maths yesterday. All i will say is that sometimes the papers are really (and often unexpectedly) hard. DS had this in 2022 with Physics 1. It was diabolical. Loads of people crying. DS convinced he failed. The grade boundary was so low on that paper you besrly needed over half to get a 7! He did fine and got an 8 overall (and then an A at A-level).

Please reassure your DCs that grade boundaries will reflect the difficulty level.

Good luck for DCs on history and Latin today (plus any others I don’t know about).

Unbeknown to me DD was up at 545 this morning to squeeze in some history revision. She’s not overly confident regarding some aspects of Germany apparently. Hoping she’s not going to be too tired. But she can sleep all afternoon. They’re on study leave and has no afternoon exam.

DD did the edexcel foundation maths yesterday, moaned a bit but said she did her best - which is all we ask

AQA History today - which she’s actually looking forward to - she LOVES history.

@QueenMabby I’d forgotten about the physics - that was us too. DC actually got a really good final grade, but that paper was an utter stinker. I remember being told about fellow students crying over it.

Interesting to hear the conflicting views on edexcel higher maths yesterday - dd said it was ok, and most of her friends thought this but her friend at another school thought it was awful and said everyone there did. She is on the 6/7 boundary, hoping for a 7 and also immediately went on tiktok (!) to add up the marks she thinks she got and was reasonably happy.

Maybe it is the people who are aiming for 9s and expecting to be able to do most/ all questions who are more likely to be thrown when they can't, along with those working more at 5 finding it really hard?

Can also relate to expressions 'cooked', 'I'm cooked' and 'lowkey' (actually had to look that one up on first encounter!)

Good luck everyone doing history today. We have a break now until Monday 😅

My DC found Edexcel Math Higher Tier Paper1 quite tricky yesterday.

He said about lengthy questions. Some of them consisted of six lines; where the solution took a couple of lines.

He said it was difficult to understand questions somewhere ( he has Asperger’s syndrome and comprehension is his weakness area).

Mock exams which were based on the GCSE 2024 were easier to him; at least he understood what exam board meant, questions were clear in understanding.

The general rule: from the easy question to the most difficult was also broken. The most easiest questions were at the end of the paper.

Also, he added that most of these questions were never practiced.

He and his friend took extra time and breaks but of boiling brains.

He did not do only one question but hope to get at least grade 7 ( predicted grade is 8)🙏🙏🙏

When he left the school, all students left the building.

I hope exam board will mark fairly, take into account that so many students found this paper difficult and all children get their best grades🤞😊

DD has found all exams moderately OK so far.

However, she said she expects to be humbled by History this morning. She's gone in early to revise with her teacher but was more stressed than she's been all week.

She's also exhausted today bless her.

Good luck everyone today. Edexcel history incoming!

DS not slept great and had sore throat, but seemed in good spirits so can hopefully hammer through the 80 mins. I asked him about timings last night and he was v vague, I checked and he was going yo leave himself with 30 mins, so at least cleared that up. Once this is done onto marathon of prepping for v tough next week

@Hollyhedge sorry to hear that your DS has a sore throat… Would he be allowed to take pastilles into the exam? Otherwise tea with lots of honey is good!

Is it History of Medicine…I always thought that sounded fascinating!

Good luck to all the History/Latin folks today, plus any others I’m unaware of. DS has had three days of 2 exams per day this week (including today) and is really tired. He found AQA maths fine yesterday (it’s probably his best subject) and he did ask for the tracing paper which the invigilators then gave to everyone else as well. He said he only needed it for checking, but had time so thought he might as well.

i thought this was his last day of two exams, but then I spotted Physics and Music on July 16 so we still have that to look forward to. Today is definitely the biggest writing day though, so will be good to get that over with.

Only one per day next week, then half term!

It’s funny how lots of schools are doing last minute revision sessions. In my day the mantra always was that if you don’t know it now, you never will.

I never subscribed to this philosophy and was always revising up to the very last minute!

@queenofthesuburbsOh, I did history of medicine in my GCSE history (1994!). Didn’t know that was still on the syllabus now. I loved it and followed it up with a philosophy module in History of Medicine when I got to university.

I'm a believer in last minute skim through / refresh for 10-15mins but no more than that.

Having morning sessions pre exams does mean the students are in and awake however!