Roo’s Final Run at GCSE, With Roo being 16 and in her final year of high school, we enter that final run towards studying, mock exams, homework, coursework and exams, how has this final year been?

Roo has a sensible head on her, she can get overwhelmed, stressed, feel the pressure, and get moody, but in reality shes a teenager…but nowhere near to the extreme as others, she ultimately deals with it and moves on, so going into this year I was not as worried. With this being said our attitude towards and has been guided, and constant reminders every week, while also giving her a little slack and trying to boost her confidence throughout it.

All the Prep

At this point, though she has already spent nearly two years in that’s style prep, which was made worse as covid affected some of this time, thankfully unlike some others there wasn’t a lockdown in these final two years. Over the last couple of years in particular you could definitely see the shift towards subjects that she needs to concentrate on like Maths, English, and Science, and away from the more recreational subjects that she isn’t going to make a career from, like Catering and Performing Arts.

These subjects are things that she has enjoyed in the past but are not really her a career for her, she’s not in the top 1% of performing and doesn’t have a passion for catering.

There have been highs and lows with subjects, deciding what level paper and thus classroom level has changed a couple of times, something that teachers have been actively looking at, along with changing the maths teacher last year as she couldn’t get on with the way one teacher teaches compared to another.

To be fair to the school extra sessions in the mornings and after school has been good, and I give Roo credit even though we kind of made her do it, shes just got on with it, even when you can tell she doesn’t want to or can’t be bothered that day.

The final Exams

But now we are moments away from when she sits down to the final exams, several mock sessions have come and gone and got her ready, and given her guidance as to what its going to be like, which I think is a great thing.

At this point coursework is done, minor things are done, and we now head towards it, I’ve said to her many times you have the whole summer to enjoy the break, it’s an extended one for her, and she will never have to have this level of concentration on pressure on a variety of subjects that she likes and possibly don’t like again.

Next Steps

She will almost certainly go to 6th form, then possibly University etc, even though she’s perhaps not a 100% clear about what she wants to do, just ballpark subjects, and that’s what I’ve said, get an idea of what you have enjoyed, go do more of that, and an area will show its self to you that you enjoy and get on with.

she can focus on that, and with 6th form being in the same school…probably the final exams and then wait for results will clarify her, but as you know it’s not the end of the world if it doesn’t go to plan, that’s what we’ve said, you can redo, or in some cases still do what you want to, many of us, including myself didn’t always get the result we wanted but didn’t stop us in our careers, but onwards we go to the next stage.