Year 11 - 2024/2025: It’s all downhill from here!

[QueenMabby]

New thread to help us get through the next week or so!

DD home after EDEXL Foundation Maths. This is the paper that finishes with a section of Higher questions. She said the F ones were easy but the Higher section was really hard, but she still thinks she managed them okay. Fingers crossed she's done enough for a pass.

DS just phoned me after getting home. AQA higher paper he said was fine and seems happy enough with it. Now sitting down to watch Prison Break till I get home. I'm taking him a Dominoes for lunch as requested as we are in for a hard time with the English revision!

Dc back from AQA higher… seemed ok but not great. He said there were two questions he wasn’t sure about but had a go at, and one that he found impossible. However he did say it was better than paper 1.

In his practice papers he was getting a solid 8. He had wanted the 9 (don’t we all!) but realised over the past week or two it wasn’t going to happen. Bit worried as he was usually able to have a go at everything on the past papers. He is planning on doing a level maths so really needs that 8. Fingers crossed.

No time to dwell on it now. An hour to relax and have a break and then he needs to start history revision for tomorrow.

Another one down. My daughter said she thinks Maths went ‘pretty well’.(Edexcel higher) She said it was harder than paper 1 but still fine. There are still some topics that haven’t come up apparently so she’s expecting them on paper 3.

History and French tomorrow.

Edexcel higher maths was good apparently. One 5 marker question threw her but other than that she’s happy. Phew!

Texts in from DD... she said AQA Higher paper 2 was "good" and "much better" than paper 1.

Hugely relieved.

DD back from OCR higher paper 2 non calculator. Paper was a bit ‘meh’ and non calculator isn’t normally a great one but at least we aren’t needing much more than to pass! Moving onto AQA history tudors and medicine this afternoon.
i need to go out and restock the lucky dip!

Not yet heard anything, tried messaging DC but they're ignoring me!

got a call from dd2 - igcse higher Ed excel. Says a harder paper than 1 but reckons she did ok. Got the last question right she says (one where it was possible to know this apparently) and was a bit thrown by a 3d trig/vectors question where she ‘just drew some triangles’. Tracing paper was already put and necessary/useful. That’s maths finished for her- assuming she passed. @OhCrumbsWhereNow particularly pleased to hear re your dd and hope others were ok with today’s.

Edexcel iGCE feedback from DS just said it went very well - I’m at work so that’s all I can offer!

DD says AQA Higher Paper 2 a lot harder than Paper 1 (which she seems to have easier than a lot of others). She answered all the questions (going from the back to the front, which is her choice) but didn’t really have time to do any checking, which is a worry as she tends to make silly mistakes.
Now on to English Lang/Geography revision for Friday.
Good luck to everyone who has History and/or French before then.

Pearson/EdExcel iGCSE higher here - said paper was similar in difficulty to the first one. Apparently one 4-marker question about a square based pyramid where he thinks he only got 1/4 because he didn't realise it was square-based until it was too late (I just nodded like I knew why that mattered) and another where he realised he'd answered it all wrong so had to cross it out and ask for extra paper to redo it. But, feels confident. So, that's good as Maths is his best subject.

Now for some Cold War and Elizabeth... send good vibes... we're going to need them!

OK, got some not-very-useful feedback from DC about Edexcel iGCSE higher maths...

"fine"

then when I asked for elaboration, "not awful" "could have been better but definitely could have been worse" "not as fun as paper 1" and finally "we got to bisect a line"

DD is finding some of the papers more time pressured than expected. Goggle suggests 30 per cent of kids now get 25 per cent extra time. It was 15 per cent in 2016.
What has happened? And are they making the exams more time pressured for the 70 per cent cohort? Shouldn’t they all just get plenty of time?

I agree, it should be a test of how much they know not how quickly they can write it. Laptop use has also increased which is quicker than writing. My Dd had lots to write in English lit but didn't have enough time to finish the final question. After 2 years of study it seems harsh to have it all in your head and then have the paper taken off you before you have finished.

The children that get extra time will get it due SEN which puts them at a disadvantage. Thankfully we are now identifying more of the children who have things which slow down their processing speed for example, who years ago would have been left struggling The extra time goes some way to level the playing field for them and rightly so. I know many children with the extra time who don’t finish the exam in time. It would be lovely if they all got enough time but I suppose they have to draw the line somewhere.

I think @kary42 - mine is getting exam anxiety BECAUSE so many of her friends are getting extra time for exam anxiety and other conditions as well. She has a really high performing friend who reads voraciously who gets extra time for dyslexia. It is not severe dyslexia. So if this is then skewing the results as they are judged against each other, there comes a point where the exams should not be time pressured.
I think it goes back to the discussion as to why does a certain percentage actually have to fail? And the discussion on higher tier Maths and having the massive headache if you have the potential to get a 6 and then the entry requirements for some Sixth Forms.
It is all too much pressure for all of them and those with genuine hardship being given the same amount of extra time as those with some exam anxiety, it is not going to help either if there is not a set pass mark.

My friend teaches two children with exam anxiety who are currently doing their GCSEs. It is ‘genuine hardship’. I’m sure they would rather not have anxiety than have some extra time. I know one of these children had a panic attack and only answered a few questions on his maths paper before half term. He has also lost significant weight in the last couple of months and is on medication, so yeah, genuine hardship. Best not to judge.

We're not judging at all. Just saying the original exam time should be long enough to be able to finish the paper and check it through, not having to leave with lots of things still to say, having studied so hard for it.
incidentally my Dd has Type 1 diabetes, she gets time out to eat for a low or take insulin for a high but no extra time to account for the fact of how hard it is to process and think straight when blood sugar is low or high.

@ExamStuff - I am not judging, just observing that my DD is getting anxious because of it too now. Like she has convinced herself that she also has exam anxiety. And that she is not going to have enough time particularly in History and English.
At what point in percentage terms of access and extra time, do you rethink how much time you give everyone? Is it really impossible to have a standard recommended time and then those who are done can leave at a bell, but those who want to stay back and take longer, take longer? Or is it because of exam clashes?

30% with extra time seems really high. And the fact it was 15% in 2016. So what has happened other than Covid in the last 9 years for such a huge increase?

This is my DD and why she has extra time as part of her access arrangements. She had panic attacks in previous exams. I would give anything to take her anxiety away. I'm grateful allowances are made for it.

@kary42 - I think with Type1 I would have definitely expected her to get extra time.

Mine had glandular fever and severe anaemia recently, maybe we should have asked for extra time too. Now wondering.

Did you request access arrangements to allow her more time because of her diabetes?

DS says Higher AQA maths paper 2 was better than Paper 1, and he was happy with it.

DD was Edexcel maths Paper 2 was also better, but it was maths, so in general she hated it hahaha!

On to French tomorrow...

You don't automatically get extra time for dyslexia - and the criteria to qualify have actually massively tightened up in the last couple of years.

You have to have two qualifying scores below 84.

DD - who is severely dyslexic, has a score of 83 for working memory which puts her on the 7th centile - compared with 98th centile for VR and NVR

She has similarly low scores on couple of other tests which is why she gets the 25% extra time. However extra time is actually very marginal in how much help it really gives - she's a kid that works at 8/9 level in class, gets 100% in coursework modules and then scores 3s in exams.

It does go a little way towards levelling the playing field, but I'd swap her extra time for average working memory any day.