Year 11 - 2024/2025: Half way, half baked, half term!

[QueenMabby]

Continuation of the year 11 support thread. Go!

I've just discovered you all, and have spent the last while going through all the highs and lows of GCSEs reading the last thread and this one.
DD is in the midst of GCSEs too and thought English Lit was OK but compared Exposure to Poppies, which doesn't have any matching themes according to the official list but she could remember some quotes from Poppies and said she managed to link them, so hopefully she's done enough.

Next is physics on Thurs and Eng Lang on Friday.

I think I will pass my DDs revision books down to her cousin who is heading into year 10. We bought them but I don’t feel like she got a lot of use out of them.

Comp sci application exam today (Edexcel) was 2 hours for DS and he didn’t quite finish the last question but had included (I’m paraphrasing) “mumble square brackets mumble something white lines (maybe)”

Should have swapped with the ones who wanted a longer exam!

We've still got Ethics and Philosophy tomorrow afternoon then Physics Thursday and English Friday. It's been a long week for both of us, not helped by the fact I was convinced it was Wednesday and tried to join a teams meeting for tomorrow early! As someone said, told her she's welcome too bin or burn her notes, not the revision guides!

@VioletIndigoBlueGreen
my ds2 had the same subjects as your ds: RE, Physics, Lang. Ds2 will then be 1/2 way through too. I literally can't grasp why my ds2 has 25 exams, and others only have about 14! He's only doing basic subjects and has to do RE (Catholic school - I'm not myself and Dh is barely but his whole family is Catholic, and it is a great school,. It was me who dealt with all school issues, took them to holy communion etc) and a language (French or Spanish, ds got given Spanish so is on the Spanish 'side' of the school).

He had J&Hyde today and a poem that he did his mock on, but thus decided not to study since ? (Seems a very silly idea) so was struggling to recall info.

I am worried about him. He's seems in cloud cuckoo land. He's done bugger all work or revision as far as I can see, compared to some posters dc.

He keeps telling me he's got things wrong on questions and made silly mistakes, and then proceeds to tell me it went ok, he thinks it's ok, he's calculated the marks and he recons he might have just scrapped a 7. Eh? How are you gonna scrape a 7 with 43/70 or whatever stupid calculation he's done.

He's seems relaxed, blasé, as if he's doing enough. Fucking hell, I hope he's not in for a shock on results day when he opens it to see say a 6, and realises he hasn't got the 3 x 7's required.

I only wanted him to stay at his school for 6th form because it's superb, ds1 thrived there (but tbf ds1 is a totally different child! - a much more difficult child who had bought me to my knees) and it's walkable, instead of the 2 back-up options I applied for him at 2 colleges much further away, requiring trains plus walk of over an hour commute, to do PE, Chemistry and Biology, that only required 5's to be accepted.

I just want an easy life. I wanted him to get 7's so he could go to 6th form, walk there, would make my life so much easier.

I always thought that ds1 was my hard child. Ds2 easier. But I'm not finding parenting him easy right now!

@Oblomov25
It's interesting you say that.
My dd1 has a spld and had to work her bloody socks off and did very well.
Dd2 - who is a much more able child academically - has not worked hard (thats not true actually - but its been selective!) and so possibly won't achieve her potential.
🤷‍♀️

@babystarsandmoon
I hear you!
I don't think dd has looked at the geography ones 🙄😡

I was your DS2. I gave my parents sleepless night because I was so laid back away with the fairies and couldn't be arsed to revise. Hard though it is, you might have to accept he shouldn't be forced to tread the same path as his sibling and might actually be better off at college doing his own thing. It's actually really, really crap being made to follow in the footsteps of a sibling when it's not what you want to do.

DD practically crawled over the threshold when she got back after doing English Lit and Sociology back to back. She's utterly exhausted. We've said no revision this evening, otherwise she's going to burn out. Thankfully she's got a full study day at home so she can have a little lie-in too.

I know Trooper. Tbf that boy has no idea what he wants to do with his life, other than play football, watch football, play x box.

I didn't pressurise him to consider 6th form. I'm sensible enough to know that being forced to follow an elder sibling would be very damaging.

He wants to go. Found both of the colleges far too relaxed and says he feels he needs to schools rigidity and monitoring or else he'd do nothing. He's a bare minimum child. Like me. I only do things I like. The rest of the time I do the bare minimum to get by, making life as easy as I can for myself.

You are right though. I can't control him. I've supported him, offered tutors etc, he's refused everything. Whatever happens I'll have to accept it.

Been reading through, my DS is trundling on through this GCSE hell.

Apparently Engilish lit (conflict) was alright but totally not impressed with Computer studies, very down about it. But he's got various ND and disabilities and not been able to attend many classes as it clashes with his consultant appointments so been self-teaching.

Worried they are heading to burnout. This is more of an endurance test for them. And that's a shame as they've loads of ability but the process of exams (got 8 this week) is wiping them out.

They got ready for school on Sunday and were heading out the door at 8am before they realised they could still be in bed!

Thank goodness you've said that. My DC compared Exposure with Prelude and after no-one else had mentioned it I thought they'd done a real curveball. Although after reading it, and hearing about the theme being conflict, I still think it's a more obscure choice! Have to hope DC came up with some good analysis😬

Does anyone know the actual name of the table poem? I'm just interested to read it. I don't think DC was particularly inspired by it.

Glad Lit is over. It's been a humdinger.

I get it. My DD takes more after me barely scrapped A-levels than her dad got four straight As for A-levels and could've gone to Oxbridge and it's frustrating to see! Hopefully it'll turn out okay in the end.

Anyone do Exposure and Charge for the Light brigade ??????

Just mine ????

I would say Poppies is very much about conflict! It's about the impact of the conflict on an individual (the mum) so you could pick that out and contrast with the Owen being about the impact on the group. And loads more.

Table by Robert Hull.

Mine did Catrin with A Poison Tree...

I'm going with 'it will be nice for the examiners to mark something different' 😂

@Oblomov25 so sorry you are struggling. It might well not be as bad as you think tbh. Check out some of the recent GBs – I recall DS2 got an 8 in physics and even he said “I don’t know how I did that!”.

Re the numbers of exams – some DC take only 8 GCSEs and if you take certain subjects you may have fewer exams bc of practicals – thinking tech, PE, drama, depending on board, art is all finished; MFL otoh has four exams tho the speaking will be done by now (I hope!). Also students taking IGCSE English for example may have CW and thus fewer exams.

And Like a Beacon by Grace Nichol.

@somethinggoodisgonnahappenhttps://childrens.poetryarchive.org/poem/table/

DD loved this as we have a table like this. It's over a hundred years old though I got it cheap at an auction and I think it was used as a work bench because it's a bit of a mess.

My DS doesn’t tell me much at all about his GCSEs. I usually just get a ‘it was fine’. He has refused any help from me for revision, and doesn’t want me involved, so I’ve no idea really how he’s doing.

However, he’s just told me, he doesn’t know if the examiners will be able to read his writing, and he’s had to spend time at end of the essay style exams (English lit and History) crossing out words and rewriting them to perhaps make them more legible. Do you know how hard examiners try to read a student’s writing, or do they just give up and so score it with very low marks/zero marks? I’m quite anxious about it - although he’s told me to stop stressing! (He has English language on Friday….)

Table was loved by my DS (we have that table. I keep saying we need to replace it but I can't). They said Like a beacon was an awful poem (future in literature reviewing....). I'm off to read it to see....

No exams for DS tomorrow. He's way too chilled about things even when he knows he's not done enough revision or effective revision rather. Today's Lit was his hardest paper, and the least prepared for so was to be expected. Physics and Eng Lang left for this week. He needs to up his game with both. He gets all the maths questions right in physics but everything else is hit and miss and overall about 2 grades below target and he seems completely unbothered and he put down physics as a possible A level. Not sure he'll get the grade for it though.