Year 12 - 2024/25 - Support, Discussion and Looking After Each Other

I think this is the way to go. Going overnight and staying with a parent was never the deal when I was their age: you went on your own or with a few sixth form friends. I’d have looked at you gone out if you’d suggested I take my mum along.

@Countrylife2002 That does sound expensive! DD wants to go to summer open days in Manchester and Edinburgh, though neither has released dates as yet. I am hoping to wave her off with her railcard and a posse of friends rather than go along with her.

Open days are proving expensive! I’ve been booking hotels , we’re doing two nights in Scotland Easter week as St Andrews open day is then, and we’ll go and see Glasgow as well, and a night in Durham in June, plus flights to Scotland and a train to Durham. It’s really going to add up. Teenage costs seem never ending

Well done to your DD @steppemum. What a relief.

Oh that is good news.

@steppemum well done to your DD was thinking of her when college mentioned the results last week.

Brilliant news @steppemum. Well done to your DD! 💐

Well done to your DD @steppemum

Happy news.
DD resat her English GCSE, she's just got the result, she got a 5!!!

So pleased for her. I really wnated her to get a 5 not a 4, just to show unis etc that she can do it.
Good for her to see that she isn't useless at English too.

We plan to do lots of open days in the summer too. DS is quite set on London but I think it's because he doesn't understand the benefits of community a campus uni could give him.

We live about 30 mins train journey from central London so he could easily commute if necessary and save on accommodation costs. DS' grandparents live in London so I have suggested he lodges with them but neither DS nor my parents were that keen on the idea!

My DD is searching for apprenticeships in the theatre ( backstage) she is adamant she does not want the debt associated with Uni

Anyone eles a kid adament they are not doing full-time uni?
Planning on apprentice route which is just as good for career if planning to do accountancy.

Yes accommodation and living costs in London would be huge.

Dd is getting confused about what unis she would like. From a financial point of view, going to Manchester means that she could live at home and commute as you can literally see the students accommodation from her bedroom window. Her dad would most definitely prefer this, as girls going to uni isnt common in our culture at all, nevermind moving out. She would be supported completely financially. However we recognise we live in england and there may be better unis elsewhere for her subject she wants (law). She also very much wants a city. She loves london , but the cost is putting her off.

Thanks for the replies on the provisional licence, no rush to apply for now then. DD needs a new passport too so I'll probably do both together. Interesting taking the test in Leeds was mentioned, we are not that far from there but I would not like to take my test in the centre of Leeds! It is a big city and busy so I am hoping our local test centre will be ok. DD's friends have said it is 6 months for practical test so they need to get their theory passed as soon as they can.

@wonderstuff it is interesting thinking what unis they may go to, DD didn't even know what a campus uni was until recently when we were discussing Keele. I think she would be better in a campus but DD likes Manchester and we are familiar with it as we go shopping there so who knows. As to knowing what to do I really think most kids don't know at this stage. DD just knows she loves all her subjects (chem, bio, psch) so will be looking at biochem or neuroscience courses to start with. I am hoping by visiting unis in the summer it will open her mind to other things out there too. Sometimes it is hard to know because as I was told at the beginning of my degree course 8 years ago 'you don't know what you don't know!'.

Exciting though, I'm looking forward to going to open days again.

It’s funny isn’t it the decisions we make, I absolutely wanted to be at a campus university and London would have been bottom of my list I think! I think it felt a bit less scary, now I love a city and I love spending time in London. In the end I picked Sussex based on the fact it had more bars on campus than anywhere else on my shortlist. I think my decision making has changed considerably since I was 17!

DD has no idea what she wants to do but does know that she will take a year out after A levels. Her older sister was sure that she wanted a city university rather than a campus one but ruled out London due to cost. @wonderstuff I persuaded DD1 to look at a couple of campus universities so that she knew what she was rejecting 😁Going away for a few weekends to look sounds like a good idea, helps to make an informed choice.

I think there’s still lots of time, oxbridge and medicine are a bit earlier and dd college has talks on these coming up, but dd is not going down those routes. Her college has a big careers department and I’m trusting them to direct to things, dd was told to make an appointment by her economics teacher and they basically said don’t worry you’ve loads of time to decide.

I am going to encourage her to go to the ucas thing as there’s one close to her college so seems a no brainer.

She is considering London for university, and I’m not sure really, we’re an hour outside, so just about commutable, but my worry is she isn’t thinking about other cities, we visit London a fair bit, she’s at college in a very small city, the rest of the country she doesn’t really know too well, we are thinking of booking a couple of weekend city breaks to try to get her to consider going a bit further away, but not sure where..

JessyCarr linked to the UCAS Discovery Events a few weeks ago: https://www.ucas.com/providers/events-calendar-2025

DS has signed up to go to one although he may end up not being able to go now unfortunately.

I've been reading the "Law at which?" thread in the Higher Education topic as this is one of DS' maybe subjects. He's also thinking PPE or PPL or something History +.... The only conclusion so far is that it's not too far away. Birmingham is probably going to be the furthest north he will look at. He's most interested in UCL/LSE/Warwick. His school pretty much expect all students to apply to Oxbridge (over 30 got in last year) so he will apply to Oxford but he's not expecting to get an interview.

@elliejjtiny my son doesn't have any clue either!

He has never been really passionate about any subjects so I've been trying to get him interested in degree apprenticeships.

He is in a scheme where he gets a mentor from within business or finance so I am hoping they will inspire him.

He actually has to sit his full maths a level in the summer - I'm not sure if that has fully registered yet! What he gets in that will really help determine which direction his next steps are.

We do need to get organised and get to some open days.

DS is looking at maths too. Possibly at LSE or Oxford - I have got a steep learning curve ahead! Luckily he’s in the Seren Foundation and they will be supportive as well as school. We’re waiting for them to release dates of their Oxford summer school which I think will help DS a lot with his decisions making if he’s selected to go.

@Tebheag my son is at 6th form college (not a lot of choice here) and although it's big, there are a lot of choices of courses and also clubs etc.

does anyone else's year 12 have no idea what they are going to do next? I'm on a group on facebook for parents of kids at university or applying because my eldest has applied for September 2025. There are quite a few parents of Year 12's on there who are already going to open days and I'm wondering if we are way behind. Ds2 wants to go and do something with with either maths or music but other than that he doesn't know. I'm not sure if he is capable of going to university to be honest as he got mostly 4's and 5's in his gcse's with a 6 in maths. Also I'm worried about him going somewhere too far away as he has autism and selective mutism.

To be honest had concerns about college 6th form especially as it is so big. But we have had a lot of feedback, friends who stayed on haven't had reports or a date for parents evening yet they seem more focused on the years doing exams in the summer.

That's rubbish on the part of the school. I think I remember you posting about this at the time now actually. Colleges do seem to have a wider variety of subjects on offer, and can offer subjects to larger numbers of student, although none near us were offering Core Maths unfortunately. I'm glad your son is enjoying it and that the move to 6th form college has gone well..

@Waspie He seems to be enjoying core maths was one of the reasons he went to 6th college instead of staying on at school as they where over subscribed wasn't till the day he accepted college school told him he could do the subject and apologised for ir the delay in letting him know.
Wow 200miles away that would make the test harder as not much chance to practice driving in the area.