22 August 2013 GCSE results: Discussion thread

We don't have celebratory meals really, I'm kind of glad that it's low key. In reality, I'm not one for socialising and, well, fun, I just prefer to get on with things and work, so I'm glad that grades and what not aren't really celebrated. I don't even like birthdays that much any more! (I still like Christmas though).

That being said, when I'm at home I procrastinate. A lot. Weirdly I don't do so as much when I'm out of my bedroom and in another room, but I find it hard to do homework well in advance, instead usually leaving it till the night before. But when I'm at school I find it easy to get on with what I'm doing provided I feel that what I'm doing is interesting and actually beneficial.

I would have liked it if my parents had had a go at my Music teacher. He was a very nice man but an awful teacher - he didn't teach us how to compose, didn't teach us how to perform in an ensemble and he tried to get us to join the school choir and stating that it was compulsory for us to do so unless we wanted detentions (despite him saying in Year 9 when I signed up for Music that "singing is not mandatory" ). That being said, he did sort of have the issue of having a fair amount of people who couldn't even read music. That's the problem with the course - there should be a certain grade that you have to be at before you're accepted for it, even if it is just GCSE. Grade 3 is a good level, I'd say. I was Grade 5 in Piano when I started and Grade 1 Violin, but it seemed some people had taken it thinking it would just be a laugh. But the thing is he had to go over such basic stuff to some people because they'd never done a grading or music theory, for example, semitones and tones. That's one of the most basic things, yet we spent two lessons on it. I swear some people deliberately tried to slow things down though because there were some highly skilled singers in the class stating "I don't get it" when you should understand such things if you're a singer.

Phew. Sorry. I'm sort of ranting and raving now!

Try being youngest! When I was doing yr six SATS, oldest brother was doing GCSES, when I'm doing year 9 assessments (SATS were cancelled) oldest brother doing AS, when I'm doing GCSES, middle brothers doing AS other brother doing A2. They're worried about him getting into uni. I'm always the last person they ask about, and its a lot less special...but when you do A level, its massive because you're leaving for uni etc. but still, I feel you bro.


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I didn't even read the two texts for my English Literature exam, should be good fun getting the results for that.

Sometimes being the second child is fairly annoying... I know this sounds selfish, but my parents are so much more concerned with my sister getting her A level results than they are with me getting my GCSE results. I know that obviously A levels are more important, but it's just that I seem to remember that my parents were a lot more worried/nervous/excited/fussy about my sister's GCSE results a few years ago than they are about mine... I just feel as if since my sister's already done her GCSEs (and did fairly well in them), my parents don't see that me receiving mine is a big deal. And I know that when it's my turn to receive my A level results in the future my parents will feel the same way as they'll have already seen one child get them so the second time it's 'old news'.

I realise this is incredibly selfish but I would have just thought that my parents would've given me a bit more attention about it.... I dunno, i just needed to vent a bit haha


And even when she receives her results tomorrow, my parents will be busy sorting university things out for her and I'm worried that my GCSE results day will sort of get overlooked and disregarded.. Hmmmm

EDIT: I've just re-read this and omg I'm being such an attention-seeking teenager lol

Haha, ditto!

ermm all i remember was that there was a question on a lunchbox with a pic of a dinosaur on it!

I see what you mean and at my school everyone has to do the 2 English and 2 Science GCSE's no matter what set you're in so why not do it for Math as well? Further Math seems to be kept quiet and very few people did it at my school. Here the 6th mandatory subject is RE, and any further Math lessons take place outside of school so it seems like RE is taking higher priority. If it was a time constraint then they could have put things together better rather than pushing everyone to do 2 English and 2 Science, they could do what your school did and make each further GCSE for the higher sets. Now that I think about it yes further Math should be mandatory, at least for the higher sets.

Did anyone do AQA Drama? (Yep, I regret that subject choice massively!). Our class weren't even taught for the exam, there are about four A* English students in the group and we all failed the practice exam papers, not a good sign!


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Try being youngest! When I was doing yr six SATS, oldest brother was doing GCSES, when I'm doing year 9 assessments (SATS were cancelled) oldest brother doing AS, when I'm doing GCSES, middle brothers doing AS other brother doing A2. They're worried about him getting into uni. I'm always the last person they ask about, and its a lot less special...but when you do A level, its massive because you're leaving for uni etc. but still, I feel you bro.


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Anyone do triple award AQA science? What do you think the ISA grade boundaries will be? I have a really bad feeling my ISA's are going to get marked down.

Well I'm a very quiet and shy person and I too don't do socialising haha! But, I do enjoy to celebrate all the hard work I put in to my education.
I occasionally find myself procrastinating, but normally I do complete homework/assignments as soon as I'm given them—I think it's because I stress a lot and get incredibly anxious when I have outstanding tasks so I can't fully relax while I still know I have work to do! I'm also a bit of a stationery freak so I normally take pleasure in completing homework and making it look nice and neat, and then I can enjoy ticking it off in my planner lol..

Your music class doesn't sound much fun. Do you think that your class and teacher will have had a negative impact on your grade?
I've had experience will awful teaching... In year 9, before we had picked our options, my DT teacher decided that we would do GCSE product design during our DT lessons. However, my teacher didn't actually start the product design course with us until after Christmas. We had until June to learn/do everything, and we spent almost all of that time on the coursework since that made up 60%, but this left us with just 4 weeks (8 hours) to learn the entire exam content. It goes without saying that there wasn't time to be taught it all, so we were given textbooks to revise from. I managed a B in the exam, but most got less than a C. My teacher expected our high coursework grades to bring up our exam grades, but following moderation my coursework fell from the A which my teacher gave it to an E—and this was the highest in the class! I ended up with an overall C in product design, and the entire course was just an utter disaster! My teacher was a creepy fella, and didn't even always turn up for lessons, and he completely misguided us with the coursework... He clearly didn't know what he was doing.

It seems I'm ranting now lol! Good luck for your results!


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Is anyone else that took AQA French really freaking out?

We did our listening exam in a room right next to the year 9 playground during their lunch so I missed quite a bit of the tape, although I found the reading really easy. Do you reckon the grade boundaries will be high/low?

Also, OCR Religion? I'm petrified because I got an A* for the first exam and I'm doing that thing where I think the exam was too easy so I think I've done it wrong?!

Oh geez, I'm not going to survive until the 22nd, I feel sick already!

Well I'm a very quiet and shy person and I too don't do socialising haha! But, I do enjoy to celebrate all the hard work I put in to my education.
I occasionally find myself procrastinating, but normally I do complete homework/assignments as soon as I'm given them—I think it's because I stress a lot and get incredibly anxious when I have outstanding tasks so I can't fully relax while I still know I have work to do! I'm also a bit of a stationery freak so I normally take pleasure in completing homework and making it look nice and neat, and then I can enjoy ticking it off in my planner lol..

Your music class doesn't sound much fun. Do you think that your class and teacher will have had a negative impact on your grade?
I've had experience will awful teaching... In year 9, before we had picked our options, my DT teacher decided that we would do GCSE product design during our DT lessons. However, my teacher didn't actually start the product design course with us until after Christmas. We had until June to learn/do everything, and we spent almost all of that time on the coursework since that made up 60%, but this left us with just 4 weeks (8 hours) to learn the entire exam content. It goes without saying that there wasn't time to be taught it all, so we were given textbooks to revise from. I managed a B in the exam, but most got less than a C. My teacher expected our high coursework grades to bring up our exam grades, but following moderation my coursework fell from the A which my teacher gave it to an E—and this was the highest in the class! I ended up with an overall C in product design, and the entire course was just an utter disaster! My teacher was a creepy fella, and didn't even always turn up for lessons, and he completely misguided us with the coursework... He clearly didn't know what he was doing.

It seems I'm ranting now lol! Good luck for your results!


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Considering the fact that in the previous GCSE specifications AQA were consistent in the Grade Boundaries of virtually every ISA from Core to Additional/Triple ISA's they should be very similar to these grade boundaries of the Core Science ISAs(June 12/January 13):
FULL UMS-43
A*-39
A-35
B-31
C-28
D-22
E-17
F-12
G-7

I did product design in year nine too, and there were two classes and although our teacher was really good and helpful and just generally awesome, the other class's was rubbish - for instance, he told them that they wouldn't be able to get above a B because we did it all in a year, but people in my class got A*s (I got an A). My friend in the other class said she wouldn't have been able to get her B if she hadn't gone to our class's revision sessions.


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