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

[QueenMabby]

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

My DD loves English Lit too. They are doing Blood Brothers which she really enjoys and she feels confident with the poem aspect.

She did wonder how she will be able to fit it all into one exam though.

Last year Dd1 couldn’t sleep before her biology exam, and only really had 1 hours sleep! I thought she was doomed, but actually she got the grade 9 as predicted. I think the adrenaline sees them
through.

Lots of tired kids today but I think if they see it’s a ‘good’ question it spurs them on.

Remember how happy most were after last weeks English Lit? Fingers crossed it’s the same today.

I think DD2 will just be glad English Lit is over. She has extra time, so the exam is almost 3 hours long, and with her slow processing she can’t think straight after 2 hours 😢

It is a long exam
Ours has a 2 hour CompSci application in the afternoon as well

(will take a mars bar when I pick him up)

I think dd will be happy by the end of this week as it'll be 2 more of her subjects done with.
Science and geography are not really a priority for dd, so over half term it'll be maths and eng lang revision.
She's got a couple of things planned over half term...youth group, meeting a friend and we've just been told there "might" be a revision session at school one day...
She seemed OK going in but she wasn't looking forward to a 2+ hour exam 😬

Good luck all with Eng lit.

DS looked fed up this morn and was running a bit late. I think he got panicked last night that he didn’t know enough. He has done a reasonable about of revision with flipsco cards etc. I am worried he is not feeling v positive, so hoping for a good one. Then straight into physics revision. At least at half term he can catch a breath and reset before the final 12!

@NotDonna I second the CGP books, but SavemyExams is good for doing exam practice questions in the sciences, as they’re arranged topic by topic.

The Science CGP books also have “exam style “ questions, but I think they tend to be easier than the real thing ( but probably good for end of year 10/start of year 11)

That's DD too.

Her levels of exhaustion on a normal day are difficult to convey so God knows how she'll be today.

Pinning all my hopes on the adrenaline rush.

Good luck to all DCs today!

I think it’s a case of encouraging them to do fun stuff/ relax. Also emphasize it is really just a few weeks now and still a chance to make a positive difference.

some revision was done last night but I'm not sure how much, nor how useful it might be

Dd definitely flagging. She dozed off before her tea last night and was downing a red bull for breakfast. She's got her maths tutor this evening but it's also her brother's birthday so it'll be Chinese take away for tea which should be a mood booster.

The best part of this thread is realising how different the DCs are and how our roles as parents differ depending on their needs. Mine is in a grammar school and they have been harassed about GCSEs for coming up to 2 full years now, so my role is very much to calm her down and put it in perspective and that a 5, 6 or a 7 is not the end of the world and that the top grades only really matter in your A level choices. It sounds like a privileged position to be in, but the amount of pressure some of these girls put themselves under is astounding. Some pull all nighters deliberately which I think is completely bonkers. Hence I told mine to take the weekend off before this week and she did, mostly, and she really needed that so she can tackle this week, in a balanced way. I do really also feel for those who have kids who do not want to revise at all, but I sometimes wonder what is worse. Too much or too little. And two of DDs friends have swollen fingers from too much writing (I kid you not!).

Nearly half way through Eng lit. They'll have just about done the novel and moved on to poetry, I hope. No more Mr Birling and Sheila ever again!!!!

DS has been mad on revising Lit. He sees it as his weakest subject so he has just poured himself into it at the expense of other subjects. I'm glad it's over before half term so he can actually focus on other things. I hope he'll do as well as he could in his A level subject choices.

🙏 For a really great exam for all.

Funny you say that. DS is in a comp and I tended to assume children in grammars would all be working hard. Not so, have several friends who have absolutely torn their hair out. Comps are also harassing children about gcses for years! I think the biggest factor is not if selective/ non-selective. There are some extremely bright children in DS’ year v stressed. I guess big diffs in schools but even more so individual children. Also gender, the fact 65% of top grades go to girls does not surprise me. I do hope yours is keeping calm and not too stressed!

My DS watched An Inspector Calls last night before bed. I think he was all wrung out with learning poetry and all the writing. He'll be glad when this one is behind him.
I took him in at 8am for the pre-launch party cramming session and breakfast with his favourite teacher.

My role during this intense exam period is to be more present. It's just me and DS at home and we do fine, but we are often doing our own thing.

He walks to the gym after school and I'll collect him around 5.30pm (or later while he's been going to revision sessions and then the gym). Then I'll go out and do my own sport (running club, circuits). We may or may not eat together.

During exams I've prioritised being here, eating together and giving my own interests a back seat. I'm lucky in that I can run, cycle and swim during the working day so I'm not being a martyr. I'm mainly missing the social side because I wfh so going to sporty clubs means I see people.

He does appreciate it.

@rosemarble sounds like you're doing a lovely job. I can't do any of that with DD2 but have two at home doing a-levels and am lucky enough to work from home so feel very lucky about that. They have prom this week, and DD1 has her first A-Level so I'm nervously waiting to see how that goes.

I'm just hoping DD2 is doing some physics revision - it's her only exam left this week as the CIE english was earlier. Which is fortunate for her. She now only has six exams left - four science, one maths, one music. Mostly seems focused on a jazz bassoon suite, but I am trying to encourage some time with the physics syllabus today. So hard to keep them motivated until the end.

Dd was complaining of a sore/swollen hand week...hasn't mentioned it since so 🤞
Dds school has been pretty rubbish tbh. It's the school my older dd went to, so I know it quite well but it seems that they gave up on this year Y11 cohort imo.
No holiday revision sessions, not much in the way of taught exam techniques...its a new HT so that could be it 🤔
My dc have had very different experiences, that's for sure

DC said Chemistry was...
.
.
.
"fine"
🙄

Bus back to normal today, thank goodness. School were very apologetic, the bus company has said it was "driver error" . I expect there were a lot of angry parental emails. I wonder how the pupils in younger year groups managed, must have been very upsetting for some of them.

This afternoon DC have Comp Sci paper 2, which they're quite confident about as it is apparently mainly coding.

I have a non-exam-related question which the thread hive-mind might be able to advise on. DC will be leaving this school to go to sixth form elsewhere. Usually end of year we give cards and boxes of chocs to selected teachers, but this year were thinking we could add something bigger addressed to school staff in general. As we are not Bill Gates, we can't stretch to enough chocs for all staff who have interacted with DC over the years. Would something like a "hamper" of chocs and/or bunch of flowers, addressed to the headmaster & staff, be suitable? Or should we just go with one big thank you card to all, since there would never be enough chocs to go round anyway?

@Poisoningpigeons speaking as a former classroom teacher in secondary, a couple of tubs of celebrations or similar were always very gratefully received. Don't worry that there won't be enough. You snooze you lose haha.

I wouldn't do flowers tho as who would take them home? unless for a specific teacher. With DS1 we bought a thank you gift for his food tech teacher as she had done so much to support him (and he got his C). But otherwise yy to chocs or frankly anything edible.

We do gift cards for coffee shops

@Poisoningpigeons I sent a couple of tins of biscuits, a tub of roses, and a card for all, in for the staff room just before the exams started.

It's not great when your DC declares 'I thought I'd care once the exams started, but its just made me realise that I don't care'. I'll give him his dues, he's been revising hard for months and I'm hoping he's just tired. We're halfway done after Comp Sci this afternoon although it drags on from here because the exams become more spread out - not sure if that is a good or a bad thing.

@Hollyhedge - yes should have made that clear, all girls grammar school, very competitive on entry (what they call superselective), a ton of very bright girls going way OTT about GCSEs. I have done GCSEs with boys too, was a completely different experience in our family. Although of course one cannot generalise about sex either because there are plenty of very studious boys too who stress themselves out as well.

I’m out and about today and I know this thread will move very quickly once Eng Lit is finished! Here’s the link to the new thread for when this one is full.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/5338534-year-11-20242025-half-way-half-baked-half-term?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share