Y11 2025-26 Exams have started - chat, support & drink of choice if needed here.

[UncomfortableSilence]

New thread for all of us with lovely Y11s to support them and us through the coming weeks.

Psychology all done here. Needs a 6/7 and thinks she’s probably just scrapped it.,
Maths AQA higher today - jury out.
wants a 7
History - Edex medicine - aiming for a 4!

I wish!!! But actually the only requirement from jcq is a working computer at the start of the exam…saving absolutely is the students responsibility and we make that very very clear to them. It’s not particularly hard to press ctrl+s…

Oh and she’s still up last min flashcarding trying to learn medicine dates whilst signing. She’s clear on topics she wants and not.. so could go either way here …

Has anyone else's DC aiming for 7 in maths found AQA paper today quite hard? All I seem to see is people saying how easy it is and how grade boundaries will be really high (someone mentioned the GCSE reddit on previous thread and I can't stop looking!) but my DD has come home downhearted.

Really worried about how she will end up doing in that and all others and whether it will prevent her going on to college. Only good one so far was biology. She seemed happy after English (but that isn't a subject she's likely to do well in realistically) but then making a silly (infuriating!) mistake yesterday that could cost her lots of marks and possibly a couple of grades in a subject she was banking on being good. She just seems so downhearted and I am very stressed.

@Funkylights all of the dates were without question the issue here! He decided they weren’t important as whatever he says is largely in the right century 😩

Let’s hope 🤣 maybe vaguely the right period will do. Only aiming for a 5

@BeasKnee aiming for 7 maths AQA higher here but DD said paper was odd

DD showed me a tiktok that actually made a good point (for once).

Someone who is very good at a subject can come out of an average level exam thinking that they have done badly as they will be focusing on everything they found difficult (as they are usually very good at the subject).

Whereas someone who struggles with the subject will come out of the same exam thinking they’ve done great because they’ll be focusing on everything they managed to answer well.

DD had this with her maths mock. She was positive she did badly because she found the last 2 questions extremely difficult. Her friends thought it was a good paper because overall, they could answer quite a lot of it. DD came out with a 9 in her mock as even though she lost marks in the last 2 questions, she got full marks in every other question.

At this stage I’d keep support very boring and practical: food, sleep, getting them out of the post-exam post-mortem, and one small plan for the next paper. If an exam has gone badly, park it in writing: what happened, what to change next time, then stop talking about it.

Honestly, as a teacher, I don’t put any store by how kids say an exam went. I’m happy if they are happy, as it’s good for their morale. But I don’t see it as an indication of the grade they’ll get. So many factors come into play: their general outlook (pessimist/optimist); their self esteem and pressure they put (or don’t) on themselves; the fact that often the kids who know the most are sharply aware of what they don’t know in the exam; their hormones on that particular day; how much they are influenced by peers; bravado/denial - I could go on. I had one student come out of Lit Paper 1 announcing ‘that was the easiest thing I have ever done!’. Based on performance in Y10/11 they are unlikely to pass. Meanwhile a child who got 9s in their mocks came out weeping. I can guarantee their grades will not reflect their experiences of ‘how it went’. I guess Maths is a bit different as they can forensically analyse what grade they ‘got up to’. But they, and we, must try to just keep calm and carry on imo.

Onwards and good luck!

Dd has been up since 5.50 working for edexcel history today - crime&punishment. Roll on Thursday and a decent break for these kids.

I really would try not to over analyse performance after an exam based on how easy everyone else thought it was. Maths is easy if you know the answers, and there will be plenty who didn’t, or who think they got it right and didn’t. I’d encourage your dc to just park it and move on. Two more maths exams to go and room to shift the grades. Stress and worry won’t help with the next ones either so better to forget about it. Easier said than done I know but I think by the end of next week when they have done a good chunk of them, they will hopefully all blur into one and individual ones won’t matter too much!

Solidarity- my son came out exactly the same. He is desperate for a 6 for college subject, but doesn’t find maths easy. He has had a tutor for the past few weeks to cover parts of the curriculum that the school hasn’t taught.
Hoping the next 2 papers go better. He has worked so hard and whilst he’ll never be a 8/9 maths student a scraped 6 would be amazing.
Suspect a 5 is more realistic though.

I said this on the other thread @postitnot but remind her that bc of the way higher maths is structured, there are some challenging questions, and a grade 6 on edexcel last year (for example) meant getting just over half marks – so a low 6 would mean not being able to complete almost half the questions, which might well make you think you did badly, while still doing well enough for a 6 if that makes sense.

@Beachforever I was about to write something similar re judging how well they have done, and focusing on what they did / did not do, but you best me to it.

My DD was saying something yesterday about only needing 38/80 to get a 6 on one of her subjects. So she wasn’t too pessimistic

this is very true and also reflects my experience as a teacher.

DD was in the first cohort of current Eng lit spec (her fave subject tbf) and the question on R&J was a horrible extract (which all the teachers I know moaned about). She ranted at me about how terrible it was all the way to dance class that night.
She got 30/30 on that question.

Equally have known a student say it was easy and then not get a great grade. Neither view means a lot (tho ofc it's better for the student and their morale if they think it went well).

My daughter is also very downcast after maths. She’s not naturally brilliant & doesn’t love it but has worked like a Trojan to get to what we all thought was a pretty solid 7. But she came out yesterday saying she’d be amazed if she got a 5. She really needs a 6.

She’s finding the whole process pretty awful - the only exam so far that she feels has gone as her mocks has been computer science. Chemistry (on her birthday!) and English (lit and language) next week. She’s usually pretty robust but is so miserable I’m actually worried. She’s been unhappy at school, is desperate to go to college and is now full of catastrophic thoughts about worst case scenarios.

I’ve been through GCSEs with my older children so I’m not completely new to it but I wonder if I’ve forgotten how awful it was last time!

Annoyed DD this morning by panicking she was still in bed when she should have been on the way to school but she pointed out Latin isn't until the afternoon!

I haven't got involved in organisation etc as she's always been on top of everything and she walks to school so no need to worry about extra time for traffic etc, with the result that she clearly more on it than I am.

I do think there's so much pressure on them. I feel like it's worse since they introduced the number system. I still don't understand why A is apparently 3 grades while B is one.

I can't remember who posted on the last thread about their DH saying they treat 8s and 9s the same but thank you. DD is at one of the super selective grammar schools and there's loads of people aiming for straight 9s which I keep telling her is unrealistic.

DS soooooo grumpy this morning and said he's already sick of exams. I usually drive him on a Friday but he insisted on getting the bus. Quizzing him a bit on history I think he'll be ok but worried his mood will reflect in his writing. He's excited that there might be a modern question (migrants) and he's going to write all about Reform 😆

He has to go to school tomorrow for an English revision session which he doesn't really need but it means he's completed plenty of work for next week's English. Then he needs a really good lie in on Sunday. He has Chemistry Monday that he's feeling confident for so I'm going to quiz him a bit but not OTT. He has a lovely Chemistry teacher who has put in an incredible amount of work with their set.

I had a nightmare trying to get DS into school this morning. He doesn't have an exam today (no study leave allowed) and refused to get out of bed. I eventually took his duvet away and got him moving at the approximate pace of a dead sloth, but he was very late. He was asleep by 7 last night and keeps moaning about noise during lessons so I think he's just done in. I emailed the school to let them know and asked them to have a chat with him about it.

I agree re the pressure.

YY my understanding is that even the top-tier unis, if they look at GCSE grades in detail (some unis, for some courses) treat 8 and 9 equally.

All grade 9s seems common if you go by MN haha but in fact in a typical year it’s about 1200 YP out of many hundreds of thousands sitting them.

My worry is that DD is an absolute whizz at sciences (9s a possibility) but almost every other subject could end up being anything between a 3 and 7. I feel she'll be very capable of the A Levels she wants to do but if she doesn't get the grades in subjects she has no intention in continuing, it's a year of resits ahead and that's not completely unlikely. She has a very academic group of friends who are lovely but it doesn't help with her morale at the moment. I guess that's like me reading mumsnet with all the straight 8/9 mums!

I find it hard to judge how much to help as my parents were very hands off (I think everyone's were back then) but I was also pretty driven and an all rounder which DD isn't. I find it frustrating TBH but try not to let it show. I would be interested in reading the telegraph article someone posted a link to earlier if anyone has a share token link?

DD was dreading history the most but said it went really well with questions and topics she knew and had revised thoroughly. I’ve been talking her out of dropping it for the last 3 years (they start gcse’s in Y9) so if she passes I will be over the moon and if she does better than pass it will be a massive win for her!