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!

I’ve never used it! Might have to start soon.

DS' English teacher recommended Chat GPT

It was a lightbulb moment for us 🤣

Just paper 2 presumably?

Practical 5 Rates of reaction
Practical 6 Chromotography
Practical 7 Identifying ions
Practical 8 Water purification

Click on link below, then click on each video in it for a good explanation of each practical. Free science lessons on YouTube is really good

https://www.freesciencelessons.co.uk/gcse-chemistry-paper-2/chemistry-paper-2-required-practicals/

eta the identifying ions one says triple only so I don’t think you need that for combined foundation???

Will click later. You are a star!

Thak you for that! - it’s good when others get it 🤩!. Yes, ditto with his ADHD ( plus autism) and bullying which still continues. The friend he was with today is also autistic, and I think it was a rare trip for him too! They walked to Sainsbury’s, DS bought some Ferrero Rochez ( apparently he’s been asking DH to try some, and been vetoed as “ waste of money!” - good cop/ bad cop on our house! No prizes for guessing which I am! … I gave him the money!), and they bought a Dominos and ate Al fresco whilst walking back to the car park…. But, he absolutely bounced back!!!

Great to hear your DC had found their feet, and friends, a little… the only way is up from here….🤞🌟🤩! And, how excellent that Morecambe Bay paper was nailed!! ( have I got that right?! They cooked it?! As in, did well?!!)… you must be happy with that, tonight!!

Yes flagging but chemistry and physics are a'level choices so have to use the prodding in smaller time interval tactic now. It's only today, one more hard revision day. You have the weekend for physics and you should know more of that. You can have tomorrow after exam off. So it's just today. (It's not clearly but will change the goalposts for physics and Spanish).

"yes I know you've done fertilizers in geography and biology but you have to do them thinking like a chemist this time"

Absolutely!!!💯!!! All I did get, rushing him in order that the Haagen Dasz ice cream he’d bought also in Sainsbury’s, didn’t melt, was “ it was lovely…. Just had to write about the text you’d been given…. a year 4 could do it”…….. Ummmm. Ok. Given the grade he got in his mocks, and the nightmare of the “ I didn’t answer that section as we hadn’t done that subject” ( the fieldwork horror section!) in the previous paper, a 4 was probably not to best number to use as an analogy, as I can’t see it being on his result slip, it 🤷‍♀️🤞🙏..

I hope you managed to get DS onto his rates of chemical changes! Or, is he too excited for his Space Physics monologue, after he’s stormed through the Physics Paper 2?!… after he “ responds on the day “!! Another phrase I’m going to purloin from this experience, if that’s ok?! Say thanks from me!! 🌟🤩🌟

Isn’t it?! A huge THANK YOU 🙏for saying that!! It’s such a “ normal” thing for the vast majority of DC and their parents, that the huge deal today was seems ludicrous to mention! ( esp with a lot of DC Leavers Assemby and Shirt Signs and celebrations tomorrow ( “ not doing it, if D gets hold of it, he’ll write “F “ing P&&do” and other slurs all over””; Prom which he is not attending)! So, it’s SO lovely you understand with your DD - it TRULY is “ a feeling of elation”!!

I hope your DS has managed to start some chem revision…. Mine halfhearted started, but, yeh, “ on the edge” is bang on for him, too….. Good luck with them 🤞

Thank you, @Dagnabit, it was lovely!!! As I had no idea, I’d arrived to pick him up, and had no idea how long he’d be!… so I just leant on my car ( too hot to sit inside!😼!) and ended up giving advise to the piles of tourists who ended up asking for advise as the Ticket Machine was out of use 😹!

Your DD’s plans for tomorrow sound perfect!! Yes, absolutely go out! Have a messy time at your lad mates house! 🥳! You only leave school once! Physics can, indeed, wait! The weekend is a llooonnnggg time! I hope she has a FABULOUS time!!!

CONGRATULATIONS!!! 🥳!!!

Excellent news!!!!! I’m so happy to hear that!! I bet it made your heart 💖bounce, as I say!! You can’t really describe
it, can you?! But, I get it!! It will get me through tomorrow, when he won’t be getting involved in the shirt signings.. I tried to jolly him up about it the other day .. said we hadn’t done it… we had a Yearbook instead…. He ( rightly !) assumed I meant a US style one, with photos and snippets about each student. I told him it was one we all wrote in ourselves, ( I went to a really crap school, got quite a bit of crap as me and my twin tried hard), there were sections like “ I want to be”… “Dream job” and stuff… One was Ambition, and someone wrote over mine “ To be a Virgin till I’m 65”!! We did laugh at that, tho- it could have been far worse!)…

So, thank you!!!, for getting me and my post and my DS!!! 🤩🤩🤩

@daffodilandtulip.. Sorry, I pressed send too soon!!

I hope your DS had an excellent time out!! 🤩🌟🤩🌟🤩
I’m so happy for you, too 🤗

Just given you my DS, now! Thank you! 🙏 You’re a star! 🌟

@SuperTrooper14 sorry only just had chance to come back to this thread. I am the spoon feeder, well it's more of a ladle!

My reasoning is that some children just don't have the emotional maturity and foresight to handle in excess of 20 exams without a steer. Some of my friends kids are totally capable and if anything some are perhaps doing too much (as in working all hours and getting stressed as setting extremely high targets for themselves.) Some kids are 15 still some are nearing 17.

I am influenced by my own experience. I was really immature when I sat my GCSEs, I didn't really care and my parents pretty much left me to it. I got very mediocre results. I then thought I wasn't academic especially as my sibling who was sensible and studious did well. It took me years to work my way back up (got a first class degree from a Russell Group Uni so there is hope for some of the layabouts on this thread!😁) So I feel like if I can help my DC get over this first hurdle by helping them organise their revision then I will. After all they are used to teachers setting homework, it's only revision when they are suddenly expected to be personally organised. I also think its a crying shame for them to not get the grades they are capable of just because they are disorganised.

This is PFB DC1 though by DC2 and 3 I may just leave them to BBC bitesize!

I do take your point, they do need to be able to stand on their own two feet and I hope 6th form and getting a bit older will help them achieve that.

@Sisublondie @daffodilandtulip so nice to hear your dss had a nice afternoon with their friends- well deserved !

Dd said the geography paper went well. She came home and we ate lunch and then she cracked on with revision after a bit. Chemistry tomorrow. She's in her room right now watching a live.

Other than the RG uni you have described exactly DS and I. I was the same, I really struggled through revision and was expected to get on with it. I didn't have the emotional maturity to organise myself so despite being academically capable I got mediocre results. Fast forward 35 years and I am the organiser of our household and have always been supremely organised at work. I just learned.

DS is me back then. He isn't yet 16 and needs our support. I think he would go under otherwise, he was so down about it in September we promised we would help him.

I think DS2 will be different, he gets on with things and has his system.

I love your username btw. I flip from Kate Bush to Utah Saints 🤣

Of those doing Edexcel music, do any of yours have extra time? If so, how is it being allocated?

DC was originally going to be sitting the exam in the same room as the rest of the music students but since being given an emergency scribe to help mitigate the loss of the full use of their writing hand, will be doing it elsewhere. DC thinks it makes sense to request the extra time is added to each question as per the Pearson document I've attempted to attach as it would give them a bit of extra processing time before needing to tell the scribe what to write.

This makes sense to me but DC thinks they've been told they have to have it all at the very end, like for non-listening exams. It would be interesting to hear how it's managed elsewhere. The emergency scribe is much appreciated but it makes things different from what DC is used to.

We've just found out that the sixth form DS wants to go to no longer offers Eng Lang, just Lang and Lit combined.
They did not contact him to tell him, I happened to be browsing their newly launched website. He's pretty upset. He didn't get an offer at the only other place he applied to.
I told him we'd look into it over the w/e and apply to other places now. I have no idea if it's too late, but I presume they have provision for students who move to the area. I didn't want him pondering over it with 2 exams tomorrow.

We live rurally and many of the colleges involve quite a bit of travel.

Yes DD has extra time - and Music is the one and only exam she wishes she didn't.

They basically have a 25% extra time tape and it adds 25% proportionately for every single question.

She would prefer to have it all for use on the big 12 marker (so all in one go at the end) instead she says she has to sit there for ages waiting for the next question all the way through... and then... oh squirrel... oh that's an interesting crack on the wall. Massively affects focus.

Looking at the image you attached - yep is exactly like that. 1 minute 30 extra after every question.

That is infuriating for him. I hope you can find some other options.

We live rurally and have found it is far simpler to just go into London for colleges than anything geographically near by.

The nearest non-A level 6th form college was 2 trains, 2 buses and 3 walks and took 2 hours 10 minutes each way at peak time (and didn't offer anything DD would be remotely interested in)

London is 90 minutes each way, but vastly more choice and a very easy train plus tube (with wifi, heating and guaranteed seat).

So worth looking to see if further could be actually quicker and easier. Length of commute is MUCH less important than ease of commute.

(DD has done the 90 mins each way since Y1 of primary... just slightly different combinations as totally different bit of London for Primary and Secondary).

Is that a specific recording rather than the regular exam board one? DC is under the impression the one school uses will have to be manually controlled. Mind you, they think they've been told a number of conflicting things so it's hard to know quite what will happen.

There are different recordings.

So separate rooms for the 25% extra time kids and the standard time kids. They press play on the recording and both rooms follow their respective audio file.

I don't believe it can be stopped and started - once you press play that is it till the end.

When I ran exams there are two files to download, the standard one and the regular one (for all listening) and it adds it in automatically.

the exams officer should know this anyone else might not know

it maybe though as they didn’t have anyone doing extra time they only got sent the standard CD and don’t realise the extra time file can also be downloaded

all of them come in CD/DVD format plus downloads from the exam server - these only become available 24 hours before the exam whereas the CD gets sent out with the papers

I am feeling so bad for DS. Since he had to leave the exam on Tuesday he has become so anxious. He couldn’t make it into the exam hall for maths on Wednesday and was put in a small room and did OK but they didn’t have any extra paper when he needed it and it had a lot of people in there who obviously have some additional needs so there was quite a lot of tapping and clicking so was very distracting. He is now revving himself up to make it back into the big exam hall tomorrow but is worried about being sick.

He had the day off today and we let him stay at home. I dread to think what tomorrow morning is going to bring. Plus our car has broken down so a friend’s mum is taking him to school.

I am just profoundly grateful this didn’t happen at the start of the exam season!

What I would tell him right now is probably a lie but it's a lie you can't prove.

As they have just altered it on the website there is every chance that others who have applied feel the same and come results day and everyone complaining that they want Eng Lang not Eng combined they would probably reconsider.

The website might be for people looking for this year's applications.

Then call them after GCSEs and find out what is going on.