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.

Same board. Son said it was ok. He’s pretty academic but I think biology his weaker of the three.

what will be will be I guess!

also not going to tell him about gcse Reddit … better to move on

I’m grateful for the day off tomorrow myself let alone Dd. She’s told me, three exams in, that she’s done. I’m stifling the obvious response of reminding her there’s still 20 odd to go.

Yeah I wish mine never knew about GCSE reddit.- but he was the one who told me about it!

I can imagine! And maybe my son knows and hasn’t told me.

I don’t seem to be able to open Reddit (even though I registered a while ago) and perhaps that’s a blessing

My DS also a bit meh about biology. He’s clawed his way up from being predicted a 5 last year to much higher predictions partly as a result of a decision to switch from triple award to combined science. In his case because the exams were shorter. He says there was one question he didn’t know at all, but overall happy enough but largely because he’d revised the required practical a lot as he didn’t understand it for months.

after that and RS I am mainly just pleased he hasn’t yet hit a complete neurological breakdown. I think today was the worst day with one exam scheduled to last 2 hours 37 and one 1 hour 34 plus additional rest breaks. He’s now revising for geography for tomorrow fortunately that is only 1 hr 53…. I hate the fact he needs the extra time. It just eats into everything and the exams are so bunched together. I noted the comment about times gone by with several exams a day, but that not being possible given extra time. I still feel there are several exams a day and with the extra time there is NO downtime

In times gone by we got study leave, so only had to go in for actual exams.

My son is having full lessons around exams, and that’s a lot so I can imagine it feels much more brutal for your son. I hope the rest of the exams go well for him!

Dare I ask what the Reddit thing is?

DD thought AQA triple was ok but then talked to her friends afterwards who all said it was really hard so is now doubting herself.. It is one of her strongest subjects that she's planning on doing for A level though so hopefully she's fine. She did say quite a few things she likes didn't come up and a lot of the questions were more practical so maybe that's why people found it difficult.

She has an exam free day tomorrow but then 2 on Thursday and dreaded History on Friday.

Impressed with those who can remember which exam boards they did for GCSEs. We definitely didn't have 100% coursework as we had a paper on war poetry in which I quoted a Cure song! I think we did Lord of The Flies as coursework though, good texts in retrospect.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GCSE/s/2aG6QPtppD

lots of 16 year olds talking about their exams!

I haven’t looked at gsce Reddit but suspect all ye kids have. DD in foul mood after AQA higher biology but says she’s no idea if managed to scrape the 6 she needs for A level. So tough as she has revised a lot for it, albeit all last minute

So far … and we’re only 3 exams in… but the feedback from others has matched DD’s so I’m hoping it’s reflective with grade boundaries.

I also think dd is definitely suited for alevels containing a decent weighting of coursework and not solely relying on exams.

DD said what a waste of two years as next to nothing they had been taught came up and there where very strange questions.
That was triple AQA. Thankfully she did 2018 paper yesterday which was strange so not upset the grade boundaries for 2018 for a 7 where only 102 a 9 was only 132 out of 200 so can hope till we get the results !

DS has done iGCSE biology today (edexcel) and reports that 'it wasn't an enjoyable' paper - biology definitely his least favourite of the three but he seems fairly relaxed.

I am feeling very old reading some of your GCSE dates I did the first ever round of GCSEs back in 1988, can remember lots of exams and more coursework components but definitely the same kind of range of subjects.

I also remember quite a lot of student stress but we had it so easy in comparison to today's students for the simple reason that the internet didn't exist!! Obviously there are many benefits to the internet but I do also think it makes student stress today a million times worse. Because of course they (and we) can obsess about everything, pre and post exam, by going online, looking at social media, winding each other up into a frenzy of anxiety over whatsapp or snapchat and so on and on it goes. Sometimes I just think we'd be better off without most of it.

I am deliberately not looking at any online content or feedback or anything, other than posting here, and trying to keep everything as low key as I can. DS is currently winding down watching gaming shite on Youtube which admittedly is still internet rubbish but at least not Reddit!

I did lit in 80s and took in annotated texts.
If I catch my DD looking up stuff about exams she’s done I’ll tell her to stop!

I did my GCSEs in 2004. Evidently blocked out the level of stress!

I remember very little about my GCSEs in the 90s. The main things I do remember are the English coursework and, for History, a question that included a picture of a plague doctor. I also remember my form tutor invigilating in the exam hall and making all sorts of noise, which completely put me off. Even now, I’m very easily distracted.
I don’t think I would have coped well with the amount of quote memorisation expected for English today - at times it feels more like a memory recall test than anything else.

It’s frustrating hearing my daughter talk about how much work and revision she’s doing, especially in content-heavy subjects like Science, only for exams to focus on topics that were barely covered in class. (Her school didn’t even finish teaching all the content). Today’s Biology exam seems to have been a perfect example of that for her.

I’ve answered a couple of 16 year olds on Reddit to reassure them - but now my son says that’s wierd!!! I should start my answer with as a 46 year old mother of a year 11. My son says stop talking to random teenagers 🤣😬

DS did AQA triple biology today and said it was "easy". I'm starting to suspect that he's going to say that for every exam, no matter how it went.

I did GCSEs in the 00's. No annotated texts there but we still had a fair bit of coursework. I was the swotty kid who loved exams. I think I'm more stressed this time round as a parent!

@ShesRunningOutTheDoor 13yo DD ran into the house yesterday and called me to come and see our 16yo NDN snogging her gf. I declined on the grounds that ogling teenagers would be weird. Giving motherly advice on Reddit sounds ok!

Too funny! Nice of you to reassure them.

DD did OCR Biology (triple) which no-one else has mentioned, she said it was easy. It is her favourite subject so no idea whether she's done well or it was just an easy paper. Hey ho on to Geography.

Phew what a day! A day of two half’s here.

RE - DD was buzzing about this! Apparently there was a really difficult question but randomly they had looked at this topic only last week so her whole class were over the moon.

Biology - well I’m bloody fuming! 🤣 All the revision I’ve done with her for nothing 🤣

Day free tomorrow, so we’ve encouraged her to have a bit easier night tonight as this is going to be a hard schedule to keep up. However she’s upstairs doing history now.

My son thought biology (AQA separate science higher paper) was surprisingly okay. It’s not been his strongest subject so we shall see.

Only three exams in though and he’s just gone to bed utterly, utterly exhausted and without looking at geography.

My dd too. She’s really deflated.