Y11 2025/26 The Final Stretch

[UncomfortableSilence]

New thread to see our wonderful DC through their exams and onwards.

Come and join for chat, support and solidarity.

Think my son’s school does a different board from most here. He said Macbeth question was about deception, which was ok. And they also had poetry anthology as part of today’s exam and it was a poem by Ted Hughes that he knew.

Yes, I think this was Eduquas, most seem to do AQA.

Mine does Edexcel iGCSEs- we are curious what others thought about the unseen poetry. He was completely thrown. The rest he feels good about though.

I'm just counting down the minutes now until my son comes home at 3.30 as he had R&J and Jekyll and Hyde questions today - I am dying to know what the questions were! 😄

DD was pleased with (the dreaded) english lit. She thought both the Macbeth and Christmas Carol questions were straightforward and wrote "lots" - 4 pages for each question. She said she forgot one thing to put in but it was very big smiles when she got home.

This is a good reminder for me 🧐

My son messaged me following English to say Meh. Wasn't awful. Question was weird. Have done enough.
His enough probably isnt enough but there we go!
Not going to quiz him too much when he's home as feel majority of our interactions are not positive at the moment!
It's going to be a long, anxious wait until results day!

Mine had English Lit IGCSE edexcel this morning and has business this afternoon - so one of his worst followed by his best . Not heard anything from him as school take their phones . Dread to think how he’s going to be if the unseen poetry was bad

My DS home, thought the extract weird for CC but thinks he did ok in the end. He was very pleased with Much Ado. I am just pleased it’s done. He’s now on our rowing machine expending nervous energy before more revision.

@waitingquietly It was only worth 20 marks though, so hopefully he feels good about the rest of it. .

Are most children going in just for the exams. My dd is still going all day, everyday. This afternoon they have an afternoon of just Biology.

Like several others on here, DS was busily writing about Kingship yesterday! They have to stay in school all day but he managed to send me a text saying Macbeth had been about guilt an ACC about Christmas which he was happy with. Haven't heard from DD (I have Y11 DT's!) so hope she's OK.

Even if you hadn't specifically looked at guilt in Macbeth tho, there is loads that you would have covered that would work – Lady M and the sleepwalking, Macbeth re Banquo, Macbeth re Duncan, the dagger, Macbeth's hesitation about the whole thing, Macbeth's guilt to Macduff right at the end (sorry that's a bit disordered but ygwim). Any of those sections might work for another theme but could easily be written about to show how Shakespeare writes about guilt. I am sure they did fine.

Mine broke up last Wednesday and they are only going in for exams.

My son has full days and a full timetable too until the last exam.

English this morning followed by Biology revision for the rest of the day, the same as your dd.

I'm glad really as he keeps him focused and I'm sure he'll get more exam prep done at school than at home.

Mine's at home now and most definitely NOT revising, so thinking I might encourage him to stay at school for the remainder of this week.

Mine is in with normal timetable, unless the next session is an exam in which case she has a revision session. So after English today she resumed her normal timetable, then tomorrow morning is a biology session before the exam. She'll be in school full time til the end of the exams.

The first one probably carries an awful lot of stress, I think DD would have gone to bed if she'd come home!

Mine is in until half term full time. (Which she isn’t happy about.) Then only for exams after that. She was nervous this morning. I hope she thought lit was ok.

Mine has a normal timetable but after a lot of discussion we and the school have agreed DS not doing it. We are getting a lot of messages about it being a normal timetable which wind me up just as much as attendance emails did when DS was 5. I almost complained about discrimination after the last one but then DS came home. At this stage he works better at home.

DD was happy with Lit too, we got some rushed texts as she’s still in school until half term. She seemed very nervous last night but she slept well, had her breakfast and said she felt more hyper active nervous and that she’d use that!

I don’t work Mondays so looking forward to going to pick her up for a change. Her favourite dinner tonight and then on to tomorrow.

DS gave English lit a 7/10. Macbeth but also The Sign of four (Sherlock holmes but a lesser known one) .. hard to find a decent film version of it. It’s AQA - I don’t know how schools land on which texts they do! DS also on a normal timetable and has Business Studies this afternoon.

I have DTs too

English teacher mate of mine loved teaching The Sign of Four! She found the story appealed better to a lot of the lads in her classes (better than Dickens or Austen I guess) and it's a really good novel. Bit long tho – which is why so many schools pick ACC tbh.

@clary

Oh interesting. Yes I can see why it would hold more appeal than some of the others! But yes the length has been one of the issues I think!