Y11 2025-26 - Trying not to melt and pushing through the final weeks

[Stowickthevast]

I finished the thread so started a new one. Welcome all Y11 parents, support and solidarity for the next big push here!

Daughter done with 4 entire subjects 👍 still 5 exams to go.

Not confident on any of them 😬 Maths apparently went particularly badly. She was so confident going into Paper 2 especially and came out totally demoralised 🫤 so not looking forward to getting that mark 😱

Dd1 update was English good but she didn’t finish. She did the big markers though so hopefully that’s ok. Their English teacher is excellent and they both usually do pretty well (7/8) so fingers crossed that remains the case.

7 left for dd1, 9 for dd2 (she’s doing further maths). So single figures but all pretty hard exams. It feels a bit odd that they have only totally finished 2 subjects (3 if lit and lang count separately.

so hard core science and maths this weekend with some history to break it up - both enjoy paper 2 content or to quote dd ‘I do love nazis’

My DS also only finished 2 or 3 subjects depending on how you count English lang and lit. He is sure today went badly as far as I can tell because he has less time than he wanted for the Q5. He did write a decent amount thought from what he said and he thought paper 1 had gone better than expected so fingers crossed it’s not a problem

DD is done with 6/10 GCSEs now - only science and maths remaining, nearly there! Hope they’re all hanging in there!

My DD felt the same about Q5 this morning!

@Crispsandwich25 oh no sorry to hear that. Good news though that DFD ain't panicking nothing can be done heard of people miss out whole sections and still get a 6/7.🤞
DD wasn't keen on Eng exam question but iffy, but glad it's over and never has to sit English again.

The timings really threw my DD out this morning too. And she’s normally pretty good at working within timings.

DD not too happy with English Lang paper 2. She said she found the reading passage hard (she has dyslexia) and they had to write an article but she wasn’t sure she fully understood the question. Hopefully it’s gone well enough - the first paper was ok I think as creative writing is a strength for her.

As for Art, she was disappointed with her raw mark. We were going to query it but we only had a week and she was ill and also apparently you can only say you don’t think they applied the marking scheme fairly and having looked it up, I don’t really know whether it was or wasn’t. She was just disappointed as she’d been led to believe it would be a solid 8 and she had a chance of a 9, but on last year’s grade boundaries she’s only an 8 by 1 mark, so it could well be a 7.

Since it’s her favourite subject and she wants to go on and study only Art next year, she was disappointed, especially that they hadn’t given any indication when she still had time to do more. But I think she’s put it behind her now - I think it must be pretty subjective and different from school to school however they try to standardise it.

No feedback on English yet as she'll be heading into the Music exam now. She was unlucky with timetabling and had 7 'double days' so this is the last thankfully! The coursework element of music has taken the pressure off for the exam and we're off for cake afterwards to celebrate being 75% through😀

That's a nice way to celebrate @cherrywhite but what an intense few days.

she may have done better than she thought @Crispsandwich25. DD was quite down after Maths but hoping it's better than she thinks.

We're near the end with 5 exams left but still 5 subjects.

DD said that English was pretty good and her classmates had guessed that AI would come up - assume for Q5.

Hope everyone has a great weekend with a little less pressure.

My son upset he only wrote half a 16 marker in history yesterday due to timing. He loves the Cold War so stayed in his happy place for too long 🤣
He made sure to be extra vigilant with timings today and managed fine.
its a hard pill to swallow though when you know you could have got the marks but ran out of time! V frustrating

English didn’t go that well here, sadly I suspect. Usually I get “fine” or “good” or “ok”. This time I got “I only made 3, no wait 4 major mistakes - not counting grammar and spelling obviously”. I mean if he remembers them and they are preying on his mind they must be pretty major as normally he totally forgets the entire paper as soon as he’s done it :(.
Now feeling a bit panicky about the results in the summer. Silly as nothing we can do about it now but can’t help it. Trying not to let him see though.
Glad it went better for others.

I hope so - this has given me hope! She’s glad it’s over as for some reason this the subject she dislikes most.

DC also didn't finish Eng Lang this morning, but thinks the Q4 and Q5 went well. Is hoping for a 6 - I think it will be borderline, fingers crossed they have done well enough in what they did do.

Music now for my DD too! She was dreading the part where they have to write the notes on the score (or something like that?! I’m completely non-musical). She said that part she finds so hard!

DD also said her timings were out for English and she didn’t finish, she is usually really strong in English, I think she is super tired after a full week of exams. Thank god this week is over! Just all the paper 2s for science, paper 3 for maths and further maths left

So was AI the topic on Q5? DS has a LOT to say about that 😂 so that's good.(He was not impressed when I was using it to mark his french writing practice questions).

Yes it was. We were all very amused that DD wrote all about how dreadful AI was, having literally just used it in paper one to write her creative writing piece. 😆

Eduqas was ‘can we live without phones’ and ‘write a letter to the council explaining why you’d be ideal to work with children’ (not exact but along those lines)

Dd said English 1 was better but was pleased with English 2 today - even though she was writing to the wire and only just finished without proofreading time. Apparently timings were super tight with this paper!

Still 8 exams to go…

Luckily my son, whose imagination is not the best, has actually worked with children in summer football camps so he was confident writing about that. Also luckily, I’d made him read an article on ‘should phones be banned’ this morning when I turned off his TikTok and told him to revise 🤣

DD enjoyed English Language today (AQA), though she said she had no clue what a phonograph/phonogram(?) was in the olde worlde text. She's really hoping for a 6. 4 exams left for us 🥳.

Whilst she wants to do A levels, she's got an interview at a local college on Monday to discuss T levels as a backup plan. Super proud of her getting this far after EBSA since year 8.

😆 Love their suspicious minds. If I was on the grade scam, I’d have been teaching my Y11s all the wrong things too surely, to advantage my DD - which would be truly diabolical!

From an English teacher perspective, it was a good paper today. But lots of kids saying they didn’t finish / maybe they all had so much to write that they ran out of time. Not spoken to my dd - she’s off with pals and prefers to debrief in person.

Did anyone elses DC do OCR Higher Maths this week? Dd said it was the hardest paper 5 she has ever done. Do we think grade boundries are likely to reflect this?

Did anyone see the news today about the A level Maths this week and there being a petition as it was 'impossible' is it just me or are they really changing things up this year?

My son did OCR higher Maths this week and said it was really hard. He is autistic so doesn't say much but did say it got very difficult after each question. Paper 1 he was happy with. I hope paper 3 is better!