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

[QueenMabby]

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

Ds has a busy week. Nothing Tuesday. 2 on Thursday and one the other days. The following week Monday and weds then he’s done. They are still meant to be going in every day, all day, but he says a lot are starting to not go in now. I think he might ask to stay home Tuesday, he will definitely want to stay home the following Tuesday as I think almost all exams are finished.

DD tells me she’s been revising but I fear the motivation is waning a lot but at least it’s a common theme! Biology and creative imedia here - mainly revising biology because it’s more needed and there isn’t a great amount of online resources for the iMedia. Tuesday is exam free so will be a full day of maths revision.

Re prom, nice to see others are of the same mindset with regards to dresses and the like. DD got her dress and shoes off Vinted for less than £20 all in. Bag, jewellery and bits of new make up from Shein. I have a gel nail set so will do her nails for her (or she will do them herself), she’s practically translucent so no fake tan as she doesn’t want to risk a disaster but I’ve bought some Dove self tan and a mitt as one of her 16 unbirthday/post exams presents. Her hair is being styled by a professional and SIL is paying for that. No £1000 dresses here, thank you very much!

This just tickled me…..😹, at a good time! Mine would prob be perplexed and start writing about Labs and Petri dishes and how my old Consultant is how babies are made…….😈😳😹..

I genuinely think he has lost all motivation for tomorrow. I don’t, still, understand how the science trilogy grades work out…. If it was a stand alone subject, I’d be …🤷‍♀️.. pretty much how I gave up with computer science. He didn’t finish the last paper…, I went in to check on him and he had started watching som crap 2005 (?) movie called Sky High, I think… wasn’t paying huge amount of attention as I was so disappointed he wasn’t working on the paper, but I can’t risk him getting distressed … sad fact is that I think that the more he looks at the paper, the more he is realising he might have f’d up with his revision……… 🤷‍♀️….

Well done to those who are achieving today 🤩

@Sisublondie Science trilogy grades. They add up all the marks across the 6 papers. Then draw a bunch of grade boundaries between 99, 98, 88, 87, 77, 76, 66, 65, 55, 54, 44, 43.

Dd has been working today. Now on a break. Bra shopping! Might pop via Zara too. On the hunt for the ‘top’ to wear to Olivia Rodriguez! The one from Amazon she liked was not like the picture!

And, I bet she will look FABULOUS!!!!!! You know what all the prom talk reminds me of? “ Wedding Season.. 2001-3 ish”….at a hen do in Barcelona ..luckily was good friends with bride otherwise 🤯, but one “ hen” went awol when we were waiting for taxi back from club to the apartment.. pitch black, pissing down, a lad on a stag do in Europe had gone missing recently, and we were right next to the water..so I was worried about her, never met her before, but , you can’t just leave someone. Two of her friends also stayed with me and we searched around, got saturated, no luck, hoped she’d got back to apartment, got back as the others were starting to get up, I was quietly livid as about an hour after we got back, not having slept, she breezed in …, apparently some English bloke had let her stay with him ( cause “she didn’t know the address… but had remembered it a few hours later (🙄!)… but, hey, don’t tell DH at the wedding!”…🤔.).. zero words of thanks to us for looking for her…….anyway! Long story short…… at lunch later, talk got to 👗! What were wearing for the wedding…… after she’d looked curious at fact some of us weren’t spending a fortune on nails/ facials/whatever, she asked what I was wearing.. I’d found really lovely dress in H&M so described it… returned the question…. she replies “ you mean who?”. Me : “eh?”…. Her : “Stella”……..

Righto! as in Stella McCartney …obvs! 🙄😹.. TLDR!! Sorry, got sidetracked.. point is, your DD will look amazing! Whatever you wear, ( sorry- ! WHOever you wear!) it is how it makes you feel. Her happiness and excitement will shine through…. Oh, but you best make sure you get her nails 💅 right!! No pressure, then!!! 🤞😸

Good Luck! She’s going to Olivia R! and Zara!.. I hope she finds the perfect top 🤞.. have fun!!!

Ok, thanks, so… if you messed up all biology, say, but did ok ish in chemistry and physics, is that a strike out? 🤷‍♀️🙏

Well if you mess up in 2 papers you have the other 4 to help pull you up.

Oh good luck! I am holding out on the Olivia Rodrigo outfit at the moment in hopes of getting some more Geography revision done. Although what is wrong with her current wardrobe I do not know!

Tickets were an end of Secondary/GCSEs/Out of License Day/16th present from me to her and her bestie.

Also online bra shopping for Prom - apparently push up and stick on... I have been reading countless reviews online. My suggestion that we go into a shop with the dress and get advice was greeted with complete horror (given some of the dresses she tried on for Prom, I am rather bemused by how bra-fitting is apparently far too embarrassing to contemplate, yet her body confidence is definitely on a level that I could have only wished for in my teens/20s).

Six papers - maximum mark is 70/70 for each paper. Total max is 420/420.
You add all those 6 marks together to get a number and that number gives you two grades.

So for example, if you got:

Bio 1 - 40
Bio 2 - 38
Chem 1 - 17
Chem 2 - 23
Physics 1 - 38
Physics 2 - 35

Your total score is 191 which last year would have been a 6/6 for AQA Higher

If you got 35/70 on every single paper you would get 210 which would have been a 7/6 on AQA Higher.

On Foundation, those same scores would give you a 3/3 and a 4/3 respectively.

To get the 4/4 on Higher, you needed to have 93 or above in total on Higher - so 16/70 marks for every paper (or you could get 0 on one if you could get 32 on another).

files.schudio.com/balshaws/files/documents/Grade_Boundaries_2024_-_All_Exam_Boards(1).pdf

@UnderwhelmedEnid if this is the case then I think it is hugely unfair. DS found that question hard because, whilst there were lots of differences to write about, the question asked for similarities. He could have written a load of differences, but he didn’t, because that wasn’t what the question asked for. Finding similarities was much harder. If marks are going to be awarded for pointing out differences, it’s unfair on the kids who actually answered the question correctly, because inevitably they’ll get fewer marks, as there weren’t as many similarities to find.

It would be like in maths, seeing a question 24x4, and giving the answer 28, because it was easier to add than multiply, and then still getting marks for it!

🤩… good point!, well made!! Thank you 🙏😹

Cool…. right, I think I’m getting it! Thank you so much for taking the time to reply to me.. I will click on the link, too.
DS is doing foundation, so I’m looking at that secreting super nervous… I’m guessing 4/3 doesn’t count as a pass? Oh, well, what will be will be, I guess 🤷‍♀️.. 🙏again!

OK so I am going to have to sum up Biology, and I am thinking he needs to concentrate on enzymes, what are they doing mention it in enzyme terms!

So he is going to shout out answers to a past paper whilst I mark via a mark scheme AND make mexican buffet at the same time!

(This lunchtime's Spanish past paper listening was considerably harder than yesterday's and even though I am still very much last I improved by 2 marks (multi guess marks ;-) ) and they all dropped marks, clearly still considerably better than me, so I am taking it as a win as I have shown greatest improvement!

They are dismissing this as me still being last!

This is where we’re at - DS took the question to mean only write about similarities. I think I would have done as well tbh.

@Greenkindness exactly. My DS said the question is usually asking for differences, but on this occasion the question asked for similarities, which made it much harder. It seems very unfair if equal marks are awarded for answering the question incorrectly. DS said that writing about differences would have been way easier.

My DD said the same. She took the question literally and mainly focused on similarities. Give me a science or maths paper any day, where you have to read carefully and there is a right /wrong answer!

I did my Gov Gateway Child benefit for another 2 years.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow To be honest, for ds it has been pretty plain sailing. His DSA provides a laptop, software, printer, a mentor and in his case, door to door taxis for transport. The transport has been the most important thing for him. He definitely couldn’t have gone without it, as his OCD won’t allow him to travel on public transport.

Last year he/we had to pay for the taxis, then claim it back, which ended up being a big problem, as ds did get himself in a pickle financially without our knowledge. It all got sorted it all out eventually though and now DSA pay a black cab company directly via a contract and he only has to cover what it would cost him if he was able to travel on public transport.

His uni is a pretty big, city centre campus, not a highly desirable one, but has decent results and a good rep for SEND and MH support.

He is studying his favourite subject, which is one he has a natural aptitude for (computer related) and that really helps.

The DSA system is so much easier and more positive than the nonsense they put us all through to access school level support and a million miles away from the truly awful PIP assessment process.

@OhCrumbsWhereNowbra shopping was successful, she wasn’t embarrassed in m&s with the fitter which was good, but our local town
had nothing sparkly as desired. Primark and H&M let us down too. As for prom bras, DD just gets her stick on ones from Amazon.
Back in her room and I think the printer has just whirred out a past paper. She is keeping HP ink in
business.

Just did a past paper with DS which we thought went okay but like a PP when you look at the mark scheme, what they are looking for is sometimes way off what answer he has given. Still stuck on carbon cycle, fossils holding evidence of extinction, respiration and even the eye - still getting the light to dark iris question wrong. I declared, dilate is small to large, small to large; like vasodilation, capillaries dilate, ummm my cervix dilated before pushing you out. He made me stop then and I fear his ears have sealed up forever.

All this biology talk is reminding me of the y11 PSHE session I had to lead in which the mixed group had to feel fake testicles for lumps.

They were almost universally horrified.

We have had lots of tears this afternoon. Dd is panicking that she isn’t going to get a 5 in Maths and will have to go to her second choice college. The irony is, a few months ago it was her first choice, but in the last few months she has done a complete turnaround and now really wants to study the subjects she’s chosen for A Levels. (The other college is Performing Arts.)

She says it never occurred to her that she might not get in, as she has always maintained excellent grades, but Maths has been problematic all the way through. She has had tutors since year 5, but the last one left to do his finals last summer and then dh was made redundant, so we couldn’t afford another one. Her teacher predicted her a 6/7, but to be honest, he says he can’t understand why she does ok in class, but doesn’t match it in exams. There was a whole thing about which paper she should take and in the end they went for higher, but she says everyone else in her class is saying how easy the papers have been so far, while she has really struggled. She thinks this means the grade boundaries are going to be higher, as there are so many pupils finding the papers easy.

She feels it is harsh that she needs more than a pass in Maths, when she isn’t studying any STEM at A Level and regrets not picking a second choice college that will allow her to study English A Level alongside Performing Arts. (She did audition for one, but ended up 14th on their waitlist and didn’t get in based on acceptances.)

All the upset has really messed up today’s revision. We have done a bit of her teaching me Russia and some Biology, but she hasn’t got enough done at all really. Nothing I say is helping today unfortunately. 😞

I did the exact same with DS today ! It’s so hard to make it relatable for them ! He was so NOT enjoying my descriptions of the uterus and menstrual cycle he pulled a blanket over his head 😂 whilst DH looked on , equally perplexed 😂