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.

I suggested DD wore her tan dance heels but apparently that's not ok 😂
No idea where to find suitable shoes that don't cost a fortune as she wont wear them again. I'll try Vinted, thanks for the idea!

DEICHMANN stores for shoes and bags are fantastic - not too expensive and loads of choice. Got DD prom shoes from there

DD is a bit stressed about her prom dress as we ordered it in December but apparently it won’t be here til May! We have alterations booked and she said she will do it same day but it’s a bit close to the wire! DD wore a pair of my heels to a party recently and said she was fine walking in them, around a 2” heel so we will just get something around that height.

She had her last mock yesterday, Physics Paper 2, and she said it wasn’t great. She had the most amazing physics teacher up to the end of Y10 who then left. Their new teacher in the September lasted 8 weeks and then suddenly left and they couldn’t fill the role so they have been having lessons covered, some by another Physics teacher and some by a Chemistry teacher. They have finally got a full time physics teacher who has just started but obviously it’s a bit late now. She said the only good thing is as Physics is the last exam she’s got some time to work on her weaknesses.

In other news her RE, Chemistry and English teachers are all off at the moment so she’s really winging it herself here 😩

Its her birthday tomorrow so hopefully she can have a lovely day with her friends and take a breather from it all.

@Caddycat thank you I will tell her that. I just ordered some fabric pens for leavers shirts might suggest she invites some friends round to start decorating them.

On the count down for one sport got one training session left and two days of matches just hope no injuries but feel she needs the escape and laugh she has with team mates.

DD also said no to trainers she is short so she picked some platform shoes as found them easy to walk in. Though now looking for a cheap 2nd prom dress as all her team mates and year above are wearing prom dresses to the end of season sport party during the day with bbq unfortunately a few days before DDs prom so could be too close if something happened to the dress.

Similar @UncomfortableSilence that my son is being taught Chemistry by a Physics teacher and hates it as a result. She's not been great.

MFL speaking today, lots of nerves!

DD is going for kitten heals - I really like some of the block heels, she keeps on rebuffing my suggestions. Can’t imagine why 🤔

We’ve gone for 2 inch kitten heels! And they’re too baggy round the ankle so need to take them to get adjusted.

Good luck to all those taking MFL exams today!

The end of Art can't come quick enough. 11 days until all sketchbooks need to be in and the exam starts. It's such a time stealer. Expected Mark is fine (7) but if I think about the time and effort that's gone into that 7 and how it could have helped in all other subjects it's a bit depressing (& she's still considering art a level)...

Agree about Art. It's a passion for my DD, but takes too much time. The content is too much. Night and Day to when I did Art GCSE - but also to other GCSEs today. I think someone above called it a 'time thief' - too true!

Good luck to all the MFL speakers today!

@Tebheag that sounds so horrible for your poor DD. Agree that the moderators will be looking at a random sample and will mark the entire cohort up or down if he/she feels that teachers have marked too harshly or generously.

@UncomfortableSilence that sounds really tough re the lack of consistent teachers. It’s so hard for them all anyway but that situation just heightens the stress. Hope she can enjoy a lovely birthday tomorrow.

DS has taken in his DT NEA model in today, the actual PowerPoint submission is in already but they need to show teachers the final models. Is it really bad that I’m glad to get the damned thing out of the house and don’t ever want to see it again?! DT has been nowhere near as bad as art I don’t think but I feel your pain @BeasKnee - DS put heart and soul and so many many hours into an NEA that is worth half of just one of the 11 GCSEs he is taking….

My DS is doing 2 hours revision after school, and about 5 on one of the weekend days, but I'm encouraging him to take one weekend day off. I couldn't work 7 days a week for weeks

I find this thread refreshing about the number of hours revision that most kids are doing. DD did 1.5 hours last night (normally more than that but it was at least full attention revision). The problem is she often procrastinates so spends hours and achieves very little and then feels incredibly hard done by. I am making her work both weekend days for quite a few hours but I think that's because she's been so patchy with revision up to this point so I'm worried. Perhaps I should pull back on that (although still lots of art to do!) Threads I had seen previously had kids working pretty much full time from end of school until bed!

I agree, I did art gcse and loved it and I don't remember having to write a word! It's so unfair to non-academic students who might be extremely creative and talented that so much writing is involved now. The annotation is tedious and so repetitive

My son doing 1 - 2 hours each evening
3 - 4 hours weekends
it’s a slog and he’s tired but there is so bloody much to do. He also can’t remember stuff we revised a few weeks ago. It’s like walking against a strong current of continual information and getting bloody nowhere

History is just so so time consuming and never ending

Agreed about History. High in content. I suggested to DD that she did Geography and Computing, rather than History and Art - purely because I knew the differences in amount of work they'd need to do (not saying Geography and Computing are easier - just less content to learn). But she loves History and Art so it didn't seem right to do GCSEs she not interested in!

Time-wise I think she does about 2 hrs each evening and 5-6 each wkend day. Seems a lot but she won't do less. I've learnt not to interfere, she has her plans. Still try though as they need breaks, usually bribery is involved.

They're getting somewhere, just a tough slog for now. Be worth it when they get their results..

DS and I were talking about History yesterday. The last bit they did (on their own) was either History of Disease or History of medicine- can't recall what it's called.

He said he was just going to ignore it. He doesn't have time. Pity as it's such an interesting topic. I can't see the point of the cramming and intensity. It just ruins a subject for them. (Don't get me started on the utter shite the English poetry syllabus is.... I scribe for alot of the iGCSE English and the topics, the subject matter etc are so bleeding dull... and the questions for essays really quite uninspiring IMO).

Oh my DS did that history of medicine bit first I think @3GoldenLamps and found it dull as shit. He's far more interested in the cold war stuff they did but that was less of their syllabus.

I get why nowadays English can't be reverted to 100% coursework like it was in the 90s but when it went to the exam method, they didn't have the AI tools which are here now. Sadly it means they can't go back and that kind of torture will continue. What is the f'ing point of making them learn poetry quotes though? Really??? How is that helpful in life? Even if I impressed by son by quoting some of Romeo and Juliet the other day, it's only because I had to learn it for Drama GCSE.

re Prom shoes. DD had heels but also some cheap fold up ballet flats in her bag. By the end of the evening a lot of the girls were in bare feet.

@BeasKnee at least art doesn't have a paper. Dance has a paper where they analyse choreographies and that's worth 40% of the final mark... So pointless. And Drama is also english disguised as art... So little acting, but DD loved it.

I agree that the history content is just too much, and so disjointed in a way... DD is doing History of medicine, Elizabethan England, Germany 1890 to 1940 and Conflicts and Tensions Inter Wars. The only saving grace is the overlapping of Germany and inter wars, but it is so so much and the way they have to answer questions is actually quite hard - knowing the syllabus isn't enough. @3GoldenLamps I wouldn't advise ignoring a whole topic though, he will have a 1 hour paper on History of medicine, that's 25% of his final mark.

@Lemonthyme I agree about learning the quotes, such a waste of time. I feel sorry for them.

@3GoldenLamps
we found some good videos of medicine in Britain on BBC bitesize. They are short, snappy and engaging. My son actually said he liked them and wanted to watch another one 🤣

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zktrg7h/video
@3GoldenLamps
other videos too