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

[QueenMabby]

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

I don't get why some schools insist on pushing them to sit Higher papers when they are on the cusp. At the end of the day, passing a solid 5 is better than stressfully scraping a 4 and it doesn't say on their exam certificates whether it's H or F anyway, so where's the issue?

@Oblomov25 DD has just been using sandwich bags as her clear pencil cases.

I know it was mentioned before, but it seems a shame there’s nothing in between the choice to do foundation and limit yourself to a 5, or go for higher but risk a lower grade, it would be good if there was something targeted at the 5-7 range. If they don’t need more than a 5, good decision though to take the stress off and do Foundation, and sounds like that’s why they got through it quickly.

Still not heard how DS got on today as he isn’t home yet, chemistry is one of his subjects he’s planning to take at A level so he is wanting to do well. I don’t think he’s done much for English Lit tomorrow yet.

Channel I too am a big fan of sandwich bags. I use to use big ones as party bags! 😀

Ds2 says chemistry and PE were ok, but he made some silly mistakes.

As a year, there are a few school buses, but nearly everyone either walks home 15-20 minutes, or they walk the same route to the train station. So a huge mass of a year group all go through every question one by one, on the way out of school, analysis the paper as a peer group.

They've concluded that this year many of the papers are a bit odd, a bit wierd, unlike the last 5 years, they've mixed it up a bit.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow
Don't be too hard on yourself...
We agreed with dds maths teacher that she would sit the H paper for her mocks and she - just - got a 4.
So it was a clear decision for us.
It isn't always so clear and some schools seem hell bent on putting as many kids on the H papers as possible 😒

@Sunnyafternooning DS says he was told learning 2 poems in depth is enough by his teacher, and I don't think, i hope not, they have to know them by heart. Just enough to quote from them perhaps? I don't really know, DS hasn't done that much work on them, which is a job for this evening.

PE and was easy according to DS so that's a relief and chemistry was ok.

DS feedback - Chem was going really well but he found last questions v tough and thinks he dropped quite a bit. Looks a bit deflated. This is AQA separate…

PE went well - was expecting other way round

Pressure is going to be on for chem 2 as he has it on his A level list. Although he knows it may not be possible so has been considering alternatives

OK. Thanks for clarifying.

AQA Chem single Higher today: DD found it Maths heavy, which suits her, but some recall questions early on seemed harder than usual. However, upon checking answers at home, she hasn't done as badly as she feared.

But she's not as positive as she was after last week's AQA Higher Maths and Bio single.

DD works at an 8 in class, but completely falls apart in exams and has very poor working memory. She often picks up marks on the hard stuff and totally overthinks the easier questions.

The teachers have spent Nov-April doing endless papers both Higher and Foundation with her to try and get past the blind panic in exams and felt it would be worth the risk at taking the Higher.

Her tutor also reckoned that was the right move. She's going to work on getting the mindset back on track before the next two and just hope no nasty surprises.

DS has said about Chemistry that he will find out how he did when he gets his result . He never knows whether he’s got Chemistry right and it could be a 5 or an 8 . He thinks he got some of them right 🤷🏻‍♀️. Currently making what looks like it should be flash cards on an A4 size whiteboard .. I’ve suggested he photographs it on his phone !

I find all this last minute dot com excruciating

It's horrible when you know they can do well but the stress of sitting exams is just too much. As a parent you feel helpless to know how to support them. Wishing your DD lots of luck for getting through them all.

Report from daughter is that PE (Edexcel) was ‘weird’ and not like past papers they’d done before. Said it was a bit tricky in parts, but as with the science papers, she prefers Paper 2 for all. Just Physics 1 left for this week and then a decent rest that is absolutely needed. She’ll go in for a 1:1 physics tutor session tomorrow at some point, and then do lots of past papers before Thursday. She’s capable but absolutely falls apart in exams. Dyslexic, dyspraxic and suffers quite badly with anxiety at times, which is not a happy combination.

But, she’s done 11 exams now, so have tipped over half way, just.

Hope everyone’s English goes well this week (and their other subjects).

Yes the decision between Higher or Foundation is a nightmare.
And I’m now eating my words @SuperTrooper14 as DD has just walked through the door saying that she also finished the chemistry in half the time (her past papers are anything from 3-7, so it’s very up in the air). She checked twice that none of the pages were stuck together. Hopefully paper 2 will be easy-ish too. She was less happy about PE, saying there were some odd 6 and 9 marker questions. She’s not sure she’s written enough for those. It’s her birthday tomorrow and exam free - which is a lovely gift in itself!

@queenofthesuburbs according to DD ours is the first year they’ve been given a formula sheet for the physics. So that’s why the past papers aren’t very relevant.

I asked about pages being stuck together too! Glad your DD doesn't have to sit exams on her birthday and that she can have a bit of a break.

DS just got home. Chemistry went "well". He wouldn't elaborate more than this. For him, chemistry is the most difficult of the 3 sciences. Maybe over dinner he give more info. Hope your DC are okay.

AQA chem combined higher here which dd described as hideous, but it is her least favourite science.

I do feel frustrated that there is no intermediate tier, but thing that really gets me is trying to push kids who are unlikely to get a 4 through english and maths papers with the pressure that they must retake if they don't get that magic number. DS1 is severely dyspraxic and dyslexic and really struggled with english. I have friends with kids who really struggle with maths. Ds1 had an amazing tutor who helped him get a 5 in lang and he just scraped a 3 in lit after getting Us in every mock. That 5 and 3 cost us a fortune in tutor fees and not everyone has that option. If there were functional literacy and numeracy options at this stage for those unlikely to pass it would be much better than making them feel like failures. Some of the maths stuff nowadays is way more complicated than when I did gcses. I got an A and have had to resort to chat gpt to explain some of DDs maths questions.

Dd says higher Aqa chemistry was good. Wrote something for everything, whether it’s 100% right is another thing. DS said his economics alevel was a alright. But he needs an A and doing it as a degree so might be being overly harsh. Hes now chilling in the hot tub and think DD has gone back to quotes.

Chemistry AQA combined as ok, "about the same as biology". PE (OCR) which he was unsure he would pass was "really easy" and he feels a lot better about that now.
I will be delighted when tomorrow is over - the more difficult EngLit and the more difficult Computer science.

My DC is looking forward to tomorrow's CompSci paper as it's the easier one! But we are OCR and I guess yours may not be?

It might be the easier one if you've been taught any coding, which my DC has not. Shortage of computing teachers has been a real negative thing this year.

Oh god how awful!
Yes my DC is a very enthusiastic coder, though mostly self-taught having spent lots of time on hourofcode.com such that the teacher just let them do their own thing in coding lessons while he taught the rest of the class. No idea whether hourofcode might be useful to your DC or whether it would be too late/liable to cause more confusion/anxiety.

@LarkspurLane if this helps in any way, H says the code is fairly straightforward it's how you think about breaking down the problem that makes your coding work.

Think about it logically, the computer will only do what you tell it they are effectively dumb machines.