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!

DS finished PE today, hoorah! That's PE, Business Studies and English Literature done. He's looking forward to Physics tomorrow.

Hi just found the thread thought everyone was gavia break over half-term 😂

@NotDarkGothicMama your DS might be in the minority looking forward to the physics exam 😅
DD just wants it over with. Even bit back at her bfs mum who was saying he was going to fail it as not done enough revision. Said her uncle left with no gcses and was on 6 figures oops.
She has done a few past papers for maths and physics got stressed over silly mistakes.

@Drivingselfmad hope your DD is feeling better.
Can't recall who was asking fir advice over a perfectionist I got DD to look at grade boundaries and how they can differ. I knew she would have problems so chucked her into sport so she could learn to cope with being beaten definitely helped her racing against someone her age in the UK top 10 🤣 taught her to race for herself.

DS loves Physics and Maths. He rants at great length about all the other subjects, just to balance it out.

I've bought the PE department a net of footballs to say sorry for DS being the most infuriating GCSE student of the year. I bet they're as relieved as I am that he's finished that subject!

@NotDarkGothicMama thats a nice thing to do.
DD is meant to be doing physics for ALevel 🙄

Reporting back that The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui was fantastic. And contained a lot more explicit history than I'd expected. DS certainly enjoyed it and we discussed who the characters represented on the drive home. I didn't book it as paper 3 revision at all so that's just luck.

We have a double bill of History and French on Thursday too. DS types his and checks the word count. He is autistic so does struggle with writing stuff that is untrue, but we have been working on that. I gave him a choice of writing about a wedding he'd attended (he never has) or the musical instruments he plays (he doesn't) over half term and he wrote about his cousin's wedding quite convincingly!

He is autistic so does struggle with writing stuff that is untrue

@tourdefrance yes this is definitely a thing. In fact lots of YP IME are not keen to make stuff up, which is one reason why the schools topic is always a winner – at least for DC in school, most of them have a view about favourite subject and a teacher they don't like haha.

What a lovely thing to do @NotDarkGothicMama I have a theory that PE GCSE brings out the worst in some students who can behave like perfectly decent human beings until they step into the PE arena! I had to invigilate it at our school today and it was painful. Was very glad it was only an hour. And even then we had multiple toilet break requests and several just went to sleep.

DS had his final Greek paper today so that's another subject ticked off. He is another one who is 'quite looking forward to physics, actually' and says that 'it's is usually a really enjoyable paper'. Sometimes I can't believe I gave birth to him!

Hello again, somehow had missed the new thread!

DS is ill - what terrible timing. He’s been feverish/lethargic/had the runs since yesterday. He seems a bit better this evening and had some dinner but he lost all the physics revision time he had planned for today. Going to have to dose him up on paracetamol before the exam tomorrow - and it’s only just occurred to me perhaps I should mention to school in case they want him to sit apart from the others so as not to spread germs. Just hoping he’s on the mend now!

@Wincher I think that’s very sensible to let school know. Even if they can move desk further or similar

@FlyingPandas is sleeping seriously a thing?? I’ve seen others say it happens. It was only one hour !! ( OCR here)

We had to get a doctors note for DD the week before half term, She did one exam (English Lit) while ill with ear infections in both ears and a chest infection, then she didn’t take computer science paper 2 in the afternoon at all. We put in the note for both and hopefully they will accept it. It’s such bad timing.

I really hope your DD is feeling better soon.

DS told he was very comfortable with physics - tested him last night and I wasn’t exactly blown away!

DS2 was watching one of those YouTube videos that tries to cover all the content in no time at all last night … he keeps telling me he can pass just by doing the calculations with formula in the first few questions and then calculated guesses in the multiple choice 🤷🏻‍♀️ .

sending extra luck to the two DC that are still unwell - hope the adrenaline kicks in .. I had gastroenteritis in my Geography gcse many many moons ago - still remember now - something did kick in though and I got through it

Argh so sorry to hear that - my dd is on the tail end of a similar thing. Yes do let the school know - ours was v supportive and has put measures in place. It’s awful timing isn’t it and feels so unfair.

My DS's whole revision strategy since we bought him a laptop in April (big mistake) has been watching YouTube videos. My young work colleagues have been telling me it's a legitimate revision strategy but my "born in the 80s" mentality can't help thinking a bit of reading and writing would help!

@Littletreefrog - I think watching stuff is definitely a thing . Neither DC seemed to use their own notes taken over the course at all .. YouTube and save my exams and the odd more specialist YouTuber

100% on YouTube here too. I actually think it’s quite good, I’ve watched a few with him and learnt something.

finally managed to get in a pre-exam joke this morning - he asked for money to go to the shop before school and I know he’s after a Monster energy (YUCK) so I made a terrible pun about chemical energy transferring to kinetic (which is probably incorrect). He was horrified

Morninf physics here and just sent off a very miserable looking DD. Shes lost all her drive though she is putting in the work.

Ive got to ask teachers who are invigilators - those pupils that go to sleep what do you think that is about? Do you think it’s dissociation of some sort, finding the exam just beyond their capabilities?

You must have so much self restraint from not waking them up and saying ‘just give it a go!’

My DD also doesn't use her school books and notes from lessons at all in revision. To be fair, she is an organisational disaster so the books are in a state but I do worry about A Levels. Surely they need to have written useful notes from lessons to be able to revise? She has mostly used pearson revision guides for science but I don't know whether that kind of thing would still be suitable for A Level. It does concern me as I was a very neat, colour-coded, note taking student!

She seemed quite happy today going off to Physics. It's one of her strongest so hopefully it will go well. It's the mountain of history content needed for later in the week that she is getting overwhelmed with at the moment. She's very much looking forward to never doing another essay based subject after this week is done (🤞if she passes English!)

Physics here today.
DD doesn't use her notes either, to be fair she's been inundated with revision material from school so between that, CGP books and Save my Exam I felt there was already too much material she could look at.
I agree with those who said the half term broke the momentum DD had. The heat, MIL visiting... 😅There was no rest, she revised all hours and is now more tired than before... I noticed the silly mistakes are increasing. She did a physics past paper were she got every calculation wrong because she converted the unit wrong...

History is like the sword of Damocles. It's a part of history I'm not familiar with so I feel less able to help and her school taught paper 2 first, it was the November mock paper, so her knowledge is less strong. She worked hard though so we will see. I can't wait for history to be over.

DD reports Physics AQA Combined was a good paper. One more paper ticked ✅.

Well done to your DD! I've been looking at Reddit to see what topics came up but quickly realised that between the different exam board, combined and triple, foundation and higher, there is just too many papers to work it out (Teens on Reddit are not organised in their posting lol) DD finishes in 5 min.

My son did his Alevels last year. His notes were chaotic and mostly illegible and didn’t use any of them for revision. Managed to pass all 3 with okish grades enough to get into uni. Watching videos was definitely his most used resource.