3 GCSE exams in one day

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DS has 3 GCSE exams in one day - I thought 2 was bad!

This is not unusual. Pupils are usually held in a secure environment if there is a clash so a later start can be accommodated. Years ago I remrmber staff were asked to host some pupils due to clashes😫

Thanks everyone - I only ever had 2 exams in one day when I was younger.

The exams used to be longer and fewer. The move to more papers makes things easier in lots of ways - it means that those who have extra time can fit their exams into the school day, for instance. Since covid, they have made sure to separate the papers for each subject by at least a week, so that if someone is ill they don't miss both/all papers, and can still be awarded a grade.

However more exams means some doubling-up to fit them all in. All the exam boards use the same days for the same subjects, and they won't double-up on things like English and maths, and probably not things like history and geography. I'm slightly surprised at F.Maths and French - F.Maths is obviously a minority subject, but most of those doing it will be doing a language, so in schools where the main language is French, there will be quite a lot of pupils affected.

Because the exams are mostly shorter, three exams usually fits in the 5.5 hours unless there is extra time involved, so it's probably no worse than when we used to do two 2.5 hour exams in a day, and it was the only paper for each subject so everything hinged on it.

I had 3 A level exams in one day - and it was my 18th birthday!

I'm slightly surprised at F.Maths and French - F.Maths is obviously a minority subject, but most of those doing it will be doing a language, so in schools where the main language is French, there will be quite a lot of pupils affected.

I don’t know how many schools offer FM though; certainly none that I know well locally to me (which is about half a dozen, through work or my own DC).

French only clashes if the school has chosen Pearson Edexcel board. AQA is the most popular board and that has no clash bc the R and L papers are on the same day, so it is done before half term. So I suspect this clash is not very common.

Mine had 3 in one day last week. It was brutal. 3 different subjects and only a 20 min gap between the 1st and 2nd.

She coped though and was pleased to get them out of the way.