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

[QueenMabby]

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

Phew @OhCrumbsWhereNow , not how you wanted to start the day, glad they’ve arrived!!

Loads of luck to all English and geography students today, and to anyone who has exams!

Oh, phew..😥! Excellent news!!

I just dropped mine … was instructed not to “go on about exam stuff like I did last night”…. so kept silent apart from Radio One on really low ( thought silence would be worse- normally we are laughing and joking).. but, bloody hell, the songs were annoyingly dance-y and annoying and I thought about ten times in 5 minutes whether to turn it off…. got there, only managed to get out “good luck… love you…”, before he slammed the volume knob down ( very old Volvo!), “ Oh My God, that was SO irritating!!!!”… and hopped out and disappeared….. so!!

It’s a veritable wait and see for us all, from now till they break cover….! 🙀.. hope you fill your time distractingly!

I breezily mentioned I had put the outstanding geography detective photo in his revision guide ( because you know you have like 3 hours between exams) as he got out of the car.

Wish I hadn’t!

Are any of them in a good, would take reasonable, mood this morning?

(It’s not my fault there’s no Diet Coke left I don’t drink the 24 cans between RattyRevision, litre brother and dad, do I, I just buy the things and suggest you pace yourself)

Haha well DS was in a relatively good mood this morning but I did get a bollocking in the car on the way to school - why? I hear you ask

Yesterday when I dropped him off - I parked the car next to two lads walking. He knows them - he has no opinion on them either way but it was so EMBARRASSING!

So yeah - good vibes 😂

DD seemed ok this morning. She was revising biology last night, she said she felt ok for English and that her teacher has prepared them enough. They actually go straight from the exam to PSHE and double English so I'm not sure why they don't just let them go home after!

So glad it's not just me! I had my head verbally ripped off this morning for daring to suggest that apple juice on its own was not a sufficient stomach liner ahead of an exam. 🙄

All fine here.

Earlier this week the head informed us that they were putting on relevant study sessions instead of either PE or subjects that they've finished (they are still meant to be in school full time). It happened once.

Today I've emailed them giving permission for him to leave after 3rd period (stats) because 4th is PE and 5th is business (finished) as they've given no indication they're putting on sessions for the remaining exams.

They do a lot of talk at his school. I shouldn't care that he'll get an unauthorised absence (I mean, what are they gonna do...send the truant officer round?!), but I care that they are not more supportive of students wanting to manage their own revision and instead just want them in school.

Is it too far to walk? If it isn't I'd be suggesting he walks if its too embarrassing to be driven.

....and like before, the little rascal had better not go down the Londis!

😹😹😹😹😹… @SuperTrooper14I’m shocked you didn’t force a bowl of porridge on him, for that! Maybe @frozendaisyshould have pulled that one out of the bag… “it’s a bloody GOOD thing, Ratty, that I drank all your precious Diet Coke! It can burn through your stomach lining! Or something”! 😈..

And, @VivaDixie.. really….?? DS is Year 11 and you e not managed to parachute 🪂 him in to right by his school, remaining wholly invisible 🤷‍♀️?! Shame on you!!

@CocoPlum.. well done with your DD not ripping shreds this morning!

Well, I’m going to distract myself by driving to see my friend who lives in nearby city ( having moved from London way back, it’s a Big Thing leaving the countryside and not sharing the roads with sheep!🐑!! And, after my RTC on mere leafy lane last week, I’m probably setting myself up to fail!!)…

Hope everyone is calming down after a fun start to the day…. cheeky Pain au Chocolate ? Extra ☕️?!….. enjoy!

The Londis 😈! Indeed!

Oh, yep, that is super annoying, your school’s stance. You’ve def done the right thing, today…. Now, how to tip off the “ truant officer”…..👮 🤷‍♀️😈😹!!…..

Good luck to all today and @OhCrumbsWhereNow phew! DD has no exam today - for some reason her board has already done Eng Lang. She's coming home for the weekend early as her music lesson cancelled due to illness, so is speeding(!) towards me on bus and train. I am so grateful she can get herself around....lots of her classmates are not that good with public transport.

For a cheery evening we're taking her to see a performance of the lost music they found in the Auschwitz archives. Not a standard mid-GCSE treat, I must admit, but it's right up her street.

Meanwhile her sister survived A-Level clash day yesterday with a 'gift' of a politics paper and a disaster on biology. Sadly it's the biology we're worried about, but apparently everyone thought it was awful. She has History India today. Foster daughter has finished economics A Level, and having a somewhat more chilled day.

Getting there.

Yes he walks usually, but for various logistical reasons I am driving him in this week. He is just stressed, I made light of it and all was well.

😹😹😹! It actually tickles me, now .. ( soon enough they won’t want or need a lift there!) In all my years of dropping both DS off, I have not once managed to successfully do it without complaint!! I’m either too close to “randoms/anyone at all in a uniform” ( your heinous crime 👮‍♀️!) or “ actual dicks (DS16’s bully’s), or, it’s just basically embarrassing they have a mother! 😹😹😹…

in fact, I’ve just been thinking about my crime of having crappy Radio One on, low volume, this am… because, almost zero cars on road…… no escaped lambs, or tractors 🚜 who decide to go out at this time of day to deliberately annoy school run people (!)… nothing he could whine about… now I’m wondering what he would have been cross about had the radio been off………. 🤷‍♀️😈😹..

Bless them! I hope they are all keeping calm and ploughing on……🤞🙏🤞🍀

Haha - yeah he switches from being embarrassed to having a mother to needing me for all sorts! I shall suggest the parachute next week 😂

That is the stuff of my nightmares! I’m so paranoid about over sleeping. I was very glad to read your update that they made it in time.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow glad they got there - but not the start what you want really.

It's a fear with DS - A-levels as we don't drive and he gets in with bus - he has two chances to get in by bus on time and multiple payment options for taxi and 5 taxi number but still worry. He missed first bus last week non exam day for first time in months.

Mine two both have exams today but were in remarkably good moods.

Dosed DD2 up with everything going as still full of cold - English has been better this year the teacher last year was awful and class all underperformed.

DS today it's further maths - it was a complete shit show last year as they changed the exam format on him - there were widespread complaints to exam board who reponse was they'd flagged it up to teachers - you can see with the grades completely throws him first paper- he resat this year - and next one down he refused to resit - as well before he back on track with rest. He going in with attitude of he'll do his best but it's not vital like rest.

I am always in the wrong at drop off. We live on tree lined avenues and the cars get bird poop on them. It is what it is. But DS won't let me drive the 'drop off loop' if the birds have had a busy night..or if we see someone he knows...or any other random reason... I have to drop him off down the road if he so declares it necessary. Although apparently I'm not as bad as DH who once tried to shout after DD to tell her she'd forgotten her water bottle 😱 DS only just managed to salvage both DC's school credibility by silencing him with a stare, grabbing the bottle and declaring 'I'll find her and give it her, don't you ever embarrass us like that ever again'.

Oh poor @mojobrojo DH 😂

DS has told me that everyone found Eng Lang (AQA) hard. He feels it didn't go well but the grade boundaries should be lower (if everyone found it hard).

DD home for lunch before going back for geography.
much happier with this AQA English language paper

My DS found Eng AQA hard today - worst one so far. Didn’t really know how to compare the two extracts. Hoping his article pulls him through. English always his worst subject though. Good luck to all

DD2 said aqa English was better than paper 1. (All relative though, as she is aiming for a 4/5). Q4 was about similarities (apparently it’s always differences, so some of her friends wrote about that instead 😭). I think q2 was different too.

So DD thought eduquas was good and they had to write a review of a TV show so she wrote about Derry girls 😂. My invigilator room didn’t seem too pleased with AQA, said it was better than p1 though. One girl said she enjoyed it though. Maybe it’s a mixed one.

DS says AQA English was better than paper 1 but he still ran out of time and didn’t complete the 16 marker.