Year 11 - 2024/2025: Heading down the home straight towards that finish line!

[QueenMabby]

Next thread. 10 days of exams to go. Looks like we’re all heading into a busy week this week - good luck!

@clary for the Spanish writing next week, DC said their speaking cards are very useful. Is there more to it than that though?

Up early. Couldn't sleep. Please let DD be awake and with it for maths today!

Reading the comments expressing frustration that DC haven’t looked at revision materials parents have left out for them, don’t know what exam they have next, head in clouds etc, and parents are worried how they’ll cope in real world etc - humour aside, do you worry you might be spoon-feeding them too much? I fret that I am not doing enough when I read this thread, some of you are so hands on, but I am mindful these are DD’s exams not mine though and if I intervene too much I’m setting her up to struggle with the self-study she needs to nail for her college course. Will I regret not doing more come results day though??? It’s such a minefield!

I think we all have our own way of parenting, and our children are all different anyway.
DC mature at very different rates between 14 and 17.

For me, I didn't really care how much spoon feeding I did to help DD1 get her GCSEs. Once gained we know she always has them there in her back pocket. (She has organisational difficulties and would have failed most of her exams if I hadn't done 1-1 revision with her).

DD2 missed y11, and has needed a lot of hand holding through college, but this year (her 3rd in college and 4th post secondary) she has matured and is far more independent.

What I wouldn't do is push someone too much on their A level choices, or with A levels themselves. If they haven't got the drive for them they should be doing something different.

But to turn 3s into 4s? Definitely I push!

Children are all different - my DS smiles sweetly whilst I offer advice and goes his own way . I’m fortunate he is bright and with the right effort should do well - still worried though that he will not do so well as he can

My oldest needed more help organising revision at this stage. He was always very bright but the lack of organisational skills may have prevented him achieving what he could have and we weren’t going to let that happen. He’s glad we did what we did as he got great GCSE results and was much better at organising himself at A level. He’s now at uni and very independent and doing well, so I’m so glad we helped him when he needed it.

Youngest is very organised and self motivated so we don’t need to do as much, but we still go through revision material with her when she wants.

Good luck to everyone today.

Ratty was an utter flake in year 10, yes we did the hands off approach, he has always coasted along, high grades minimal effort and was an utter pain in the ass in some classes during year 10, not disruptive to others, doodling, not engaging, being rude almost to the teaching going on, he was an embarrassment, fine if you have no academic desire not a problem but we expect you to show some fucking manners to teachers trying to teach you. From his SAT results, early secondary years he should have walked a set of A grades for everything - this is not going to happen by the way.

So we, mainly me, have been on his back this year, he needed/needs poking and prodding into action, through mainly ooo look pixels.

What I am filling in is the stuff he has missed catching up on in year 10, His year 10, November mocks, Jan mocks, March mocks, the grades have reflected the work he’s put in.

There are green shoots of independence and I have confidence that during his ALevels the subjects he loves, this cattle prodding won’t be necessary.

And it shouldn’t be necessary right now we all agree. This is our first time around doing exams - we were all a little underprepared for the reality.

So that’s were we are.

His little brother is about to enter year 10 and has been witness to this slow motion car crash, he is more diligent as a character, but I don’t think as much tutor babysitting will be needed with him (but watch this space check back in 2 years)

Ratty now partially wants to do better than predicted so his teachers don’t think he was an utter waste of space.

This is the first step in his academia life. He’s getting better, just was a lot to catch up on. Nearly done!

Happy glorious maths morning to all

About to wake SuperRatty up for an hour of “you sure you got this”

He said “no I am not taking laptop to bed I need no distractions and sleep because it’s maths innit” last night

Finally a good decision.

He agreed to be woken early
So I am going in

Oven on for cinnamon buns
will make coffee

and have sacrificed 3 goats to the maths exams god, Vector Victor, there are no upsets for all taking this morning.

Good luck all hope it’s a challenging but not weird paper

@Sisublondie i wish your DS all the best and have got my fingers crossed for him and for you. You sound like an amazing mum. Sending you love.

@SE13Mummy your poor DC. Sounds horrendous.

@clary i didn’t know it was so hard to do retakes apart from a English and maths. History has been a fav topic since childhood. Recently lost some love for it as too much focus on narrative history for her liking. I think yesterday might have been another nail in the coffin which is sad. She’s thinking of getting rid of history and l replacing it with English. She’ll also take classics, Latin, and politics. She says that she wanted a super good grade in history to support her application for classics at St Andrews. I know what you say about the hyper focus on what went wrong… (I knew nid de poule but I’m French 🤗)

Excellent nid de poule knowledge @Wafflesandcrepes!

That’s a shame about history for your dd esp if it was a possible A level. But other options are good. Honestly unis look at A level PGs above all.

It’s not that it’s hard to retake, but it’s unusual apart from m and e. Say your dd got 887776653 and the 3 was history (sorry obvs no idea if that’s what you expect!) there really wouldn’t be much point retaking it in year 12. The only ppl I know who have done year 12 retakes of other subjects are those who have basically resat year 11 due to poorer results than they were capable of. She will be fine I am sure.

@Wafflesandcrepes Just checked St Andrews for classics MA and it doesn't specify GCSEs at all beyond English plus a science or maths at grade 5+.

It does ask for a foreign language at A level tho but I presume her Latin would be acceptable! would hope so anyway. Great that she wants to study Greek (my secret love!)

Yes any phrases or sentences learned for speaking will be useful.

Is this AQA and H or F?

The key is as ever to use a range of tenses (accurately so make sure these are secure), use opinions and reasons, use a range of complex structures, reference different people (so not just I do xyz, I did xyz, but mention my brother did or my friends and I will do), as broad a range of vocab as possible (so try to use different words for saying something is wonderful.

The translation is a place to pick up marks – try not to leave gaps and if you don’t know a word, it's worth writing round it (as an example, the other day I was wondering what "preen" was in French (it was in Wordle and a French colleague does Wordle with me) and thought hmmm I would say "se faire beau" or similar – turns out that's how you say it in French! not that preen would be on the GCSE spec) as that may still get you a mark.

Make sure you answer all the bullet points in both questions – doesn't have to be evenly sprea across your answer but you must mention each thing (more of an issue for the shorter qu with four bullets).

Thank you so much… he’s up, has hot pain au choc and is giggling on the phone to someone …… ( that’s something to find out, AFTER the exam!!?🤷‍♀️😈😹…), which, right now is THE best sound in the world!!

I’m thinking of your daughter, too…. I hope this goes better for her than History, ✍️ wise….. it must really worry and upset you both and it’s really easy to catastrophise……I tend to project my stress on one thing, usually something beyond my control……. I 🤞🙏🤞 that your DD is worrying unnecessarily and she is able to put the unsettling worries about history out of her head, in order to concentrate on the rest of her exams 🤞.

ps- I wouldn’t have got pot holes either! But my twin has lived in Paris for over twenty years, so I bloody bet she would! Chicken is a perfectly fine alternative 🤩!
pps- 🤞for St A!

Morning all. Good luck for today’s exams. Is it maths? Dd does IGCSE so her maths is done and she has a day off today.

My youngest is a Ratty in waiting - I have to do this again next year - DS2 though is a much more volatile character who is unlikely to smile sweetly if he doesn’t like what I have to say - he needs the help much more than DS1

Good luck to everyone today

Meant to say (apols for multiple posts!) if it is AQA H paper the second essay has 32 marks so that's more than half the marks – need to focus on this one. But it only has two bullet points so as long as you pick up both of those and then stay on topic (so if it's about your future plans don't write about what you did for the environment yesterday – unless you plan to be an environmental campaigner!) then you will be OK. Make sure you write enough for the word count but not too much as they will mark it all and t's likely that your Spanish will deteriorate.

Maths today and then afternoon off for everyone. Scheduled contingency afternoon.

There is hope!
He got a grade 3/4 this time last year in English (both). 3 weeks later did his speech exam, got a distinction, because we made him put some fucking effort in, and he saw the result.

March mock he was one mark off an 8, He carried his English teacher’s box to her car (she was heavily pregnant about to go on maternity) and he is a sweet thing usually, and they both joked “I thought it was someone else’s paper”

My advice is to start at the beginning of year 11 and keep gentle constant pressure on then ramp up for mocks and exams. What other options are there?

Major Maths meltdown here last night, as predicted. Got herself so worked up she couldn’t study. Spent a couple of hours talking her down before she agreed to watch half an hour of something she enjoys to calm her down, before reinforcing some things she is ok ish with, rather than setting herself off again trying to get her head around circle theorems.

She’s up and eating the porridge and fresh fruit we make for her every exam morning, then dh is driving her in for the pre-exam revision session with her Maths teacher.

I feel so bad for her and also guilty, as she inherited her weird Maths issues from me. Same with her siblings, we are all ok with arithmetic etc. I am perfectly numerate and can do ‘sums’ in my head easily, but my brain panics and switches off with the more complex stuff. I got a D three times before I gave up, but passed O Level Accounts and later the Maths component of Business Management. I have considered retaking as an adult, but honestly, just the though of it makes me panic.

Dd1’s Maths tutor felt there may be some sort of strange dyscalculia going on, as they just don’t think and organise their calculations the way others do. Then, last year, dd2’s tutor said the same about her, but despite her school also Maths teacher being confused about why she wasn’t performing as well as she should, we couldn’t get school to back an assessment and couldn’t afford to go private. Ds is great at the Maths he needs for computing, but struggled with his GCSE mainly because, again, his way of working was odd and he could calculate in his head no problem, but couldn’t show his method/working on paper.

All three dcs have had to really fight to scrape a pass in their exams, while their teachers were convinced they were capable of 7’s. Unfortunately for dd, the goal posts have moved and now they want a 5 instead of just a pass for sixth form. The stress of knowing that has put even more pressure on and she says her brain just goes blank as soon as she opens the paper.

I wish I could say I will be glad when it’s over, but she is going to stress about it constantly until results day.

Best wishes to everyone for today. DCat1 brought in a mouse at 11.45pm last night: perhaps his sacrifice to Victor Vector??

Ratty…..innit……cinnamon buns……, I love!!! 😻!

My DS has warmed up Pain au Choc ( beyond fussy, last cinnamon buns I did weren’t as good as one he’d recently had from posh bakery ( “No! Really?!?😈😹!”)… and is on fairly ok form so 🤞🤞🤞…..

Good Luck, Ratty! 🍀

Good luck to all for maths today. DD2 has a day off as she did the maths IGCSE (she also had a concert last night so perhaps just as well). I've already texted her suggesting she makes a plan involving music, chemistry AND physics- otherwise she'll forget that's coming up too. She's probably rolling her eyes at me from afar.

Last day of school day! Maths exam then an assembly. We're close to the finish line!

Thanks everyone for sharing your takes on how much hand-holding you do through this process. If ever I needed a lesson in that it's very much driven by the individual child, I got it a second ago – asked DD if she'd checked whether her pens had enough ink in them considering yesterday's History writing and she bit my head off! 🙄She definitely prefers a hands off approach.