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.

Any top tips from business studies aces ? Seems like quite a lot of common sense but could easily go wrong at the same time ?

It’s great that she has a plan that helps her feel confident for the creative Q! It might be worth passing on to her that it’s incredibly important to fully tailor her answer around the prompt. AQA (and the other exam boards) have cited issues with obviously pre prepared stories in the examiner reports in previous years.

Dd English teacher has advised them against creating a story/memorising one.

AQA Business Studies for DS2 tomorrow … pleased to report he is revising after eating quite a lot of home made choc and seed flapjacks

Just about to ask Ai about possible questions ..

How is this not pure cheating?

DD Just RE wasn't nice had done horrible questions.
Just asked her about AI and there teacher suggested they use it for a paragraph she hasn't though . Wonder how many could have similar stories.

Aqa RE - Islam - she thinks she’s on for a 7. Said the one markers were the ones she wished were the 12 markers!

DD’s English tutor who is an examiner said they can spot prepared essays and do not mark favourably. Strongly advised against doing this 🤷‍♀️

Wow, what crazy times we live in - how can the education system evolve to prevent the use of AI in homework / coursework and exams?

I hope someone clever is worrying about this.

So is it just in English that students are expected to have ‘inspirational moments’ in the exam? They certainly do not penalise prepared essays in other subjects. Subjects like History and RE are basically all about prepping essays / points that could come up in an exam. Why are creative writing responses or English essays any different if you adequately adapt your prepped material to the prompt? I can understand if you just regurgitate something that completely doesn’t fit the prompt - that’s not appropriate or adequate - but that’s the same with any subject. Memorising sections of text with correct spelling, a wide range of punctuation and interesting imagery can certainly be beneficial and I encourage students to play to their strengths. Not all students need this, but it’s certainly not cheating.

I am an English teacher btw.

DS also not happy with RS. Says questions were weird.

I agree (although I'm not an English teacher and my daughter is doing iGCSEs and already sat her Eng Lang paper last week so I have no skin in the game). When I was at uni preparing for exams (Law) I would prepare by going through past papers and pre-preparing essays on all the big topics that usually come up. I then memorised those essays and just adapted them to the exam questions. Worked well 👍

I guess the difference there is you prepared the answers in advance yourself, you didn’t just learn someone else’s words by rote.
I agree though that so much of what they are taught is in the form of how to answer questions, points to hit for marks, structures for arguments etc. it’s a pretty fine line.

DS reported that French this morning was "bad". He seconds the redditors saying the listening was tricky because of "mumbling". Never mind. Onwards and upwards! Apparently one boy arrived at school at break time and missed the exam entirely.

DD not overjoyed by RP. Said something like the 2 things they had to describe the similarities between were very different and the 2 things they had to compare were very similar.

I need help for tomorrow's English quip. I'm going for a vocabulary angle so I've googled "pretentious ways to say good luck". I need to choose from the following:

"May the cosmic deities smile upon your forthcoming endeavors."

"May fortune favor your bold undertaking."

"May the winds of providence be at your back."

"I bid you the utmost success in your impending trial."

"Godspeed on your journey."

"I extend my most fervent wishes for a triumphant outcome."

Business in the afternoon is easy, just a simple, "let's get down to business!" should do.

@bluebluevalentine- my favourite is ‘May the cosmic deities’ 👍

English language and Latin tomorrow. I’ve been working from home and not monitoring my son closely but often when I’ve come downstairs he’s been on a break and I don’t think he’s been doing a huge amount of revision 🤔

Agreed.

I won’t use this but would love to say, “I really hope you parse”

I don’t think so. He’s got to write it in the exam and understand it in his own mind. He just needed inspiration.
These exams are brutal and you’ve got to find ways to get through eg stealing quotes from mr salles or poetry analysis from mr bruff. It’s all someone else’s idea first

Not sure about in exams but in schools we most definitely are investing in tech that we run pupils work through.

We pay for a subscription for this and it works, one students coursework I heard of had to be completely re done. It’s a really hot topic at the moment.

In other news DD said French and RE both went well. Had a bit of a moment when she said one line in French said my sister is bi sexual? I was fairly surprised but she was adamant and said all her class put the same and Reddit concurs however she said she has spelt Bi Sexual wrong!!

Not sure people will be getting paid £2/script for much longer. AI can already do it just as well (at least in the humanities). Presumably AI will be able to detect AI too.

DTs had french listening only today. Edexcel board this is the one with the “my sister is bisexual”. Said it went ok, which seems to be the default answer to queries nowadays.
one DT had RE Islam with edexcel, here I got a more nuanced reply of ok and the questions were good, no commentary on the answers though 😉. RE now complete.

we also have English language tomorrow with the rest of England it seems. Hoping for a decent picture or prompt for the big points question for everyone.