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

I’m a bit aghast re the early testing some of your DC are having in their A-Level subjects. Surely they’ve barely learned anything yet?

@anoukis DD has one 2-hour driving lesson per week. £40 per hour so £80 per week 😭. We’re covering this for now but in the hope she passes first time! Obviously there are various additional costs for e.g. the theory test, the practical test and the learner insurance if they are going to practice in your car.

My DD is jealous of all her friends who are taking driving lessons :-). She's always been the youngest in her class, born at the end of Aug.

6th form is going well so far. First set of tests this and next week in all 4 subjects. I think the school wants to use these tests to see who is quick to embrace adjust to the new pace, otherwise I can't imagine what they are testing after barely 2 weeks of teaching.

DD found a hospital volunteering role that which she can use for her Gold DofE. She isn't sure what do do for the skills section yet... in the bronze/silver phase she took art lessons. She is looking at online courses, either driving course (GA driving education) or cookery, so that there is no commuting time. I think the online driving course is a bit too early to take given she's only turned 16 and won't be able to do anything for at least another year. The cookery ones look fun and useful - each week you watch a recipe video then you cook it and send a photo/video to the assessor.

May I ask, how many driving lessons are your DCs taking? I am thinking to ask DD to start saving towards those costs.

DD has a St Valentine’s Day driving test to look forward to 🚘 ❤️

(They finish school at lunchtime for the half term break).

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn well done to him! DS booked the first available slot this morning, beginning of March. We’ll see how he progresses but hoping we can bring that forward.

DS has also just passed his theory test, he has had a few driving lessons with me but his proper lessons start in three weeks. At least I can get his test booked now, it's a 6 month waiting list here.

Oh fab news well done to your ds.

dd's birthday is November so I am looking to book her her first lesson!

Loving the updates from you all. Just wanted to say I feel for all kids who is struggling with friendship groups. @steppemum and others. Hope they will learn/find a way through this soon enough. DD had issues in primary school, it was so heartbreaking to see her settle with playing football with boys rather than having girl groups.
@Waspie that’s funny! You never know where life takes you! That school sitting very closely linked to two good girls schools, no wonder 😁
DD settling well into A levels as well, so many drop outs/changing in her school as well. She was told economics now have room, but she says “ it will be interesting to learn, but I won’t be good enough to write down all that on paper for exams” so that’s it then! I am glad she had a chance and made a decision herself. We have constant talks about dropping Chem after this year, she can’t do it now with FM in tow. But enjoying C lessons so far. So leaving for her to decide @anoukis good for your DD to have that mindset already, it will be tough to have 4, but she will get there! Same boat here, although not going for Med( for bizarre reasons, she loves everything related and reads up on it but decided Bio is not for her). Just leaving her to sort it herself

Congrats to your DS @MiniMidiMaxi definitely a good start to the school year! I don't have to worry about that just yet for DD she's a spring birthday.

Glad your DD is settled well @JessyCarr . Hope the party went well. DD informed us of a 'party' yesterday lunchtime which was taking place last night 🙄. She tried to get lifts sorted as we live miles away but decided not to go when she realised the effort it would take. She is also extremely tired at the end of each week still and is working today all day at her part time job so I'm secretly pleased she decided not to go.

When we chatted about this 'party' when I got home from work it appears it was some badly organised event which started as a small party at someone's house, then escalated to too many kids going and they were going to use a field nearby instead!! Thank goodness DD decided against it without me ruining the fun by saying no 😂.

All good on the subjects though still.

Oooh - well done to your DS with the driving theory @MiniMidiMaxi. If there aren’t any test dates showing for your area you can look forward to being online at 6am on a Monday morning (!) when the new dates are released for 24 weeks’ time.

Added: obviously I should have said DS will need to be online at that hour, not you!

A good end to the week here - DS has passed his driving theory test so we can get cracking with booking the practical. We had a good chat about sixth form so far tonight - apparently a few people have opted to revert back to their previous schools and so have left, and there has been quite a lot of subject switching in the first couple of weeks. Must be quite a challenge for the teachers with timetables etc! Limited out of school social life so far though. People are spread quite far over so needs more planning I think. Hope it picks up for him.

Hope you’ve all ended the week well. DD feeling more socially settled and has been invited to a party tomorrow evening. She’s finding the workload heavy but is generally in good heart.

my kids schools often ran revisions sessions in the Easter holidays in year 13, but I haven't seen anyone running holiday courses for year 12?

And DD too has found a potential new 'friend', a boy from one of her classes who she spent a free with. Problem is DD tends to go head first into everything and ends up getting hurt, so we are now watching and waiting hoping she can be a bit more restrained this time (some hope! 😂).

Oh I recognise this! This is my dd too.
she limped of to school on the bus this morning, feeling much more robust.

@OfficeAccount mine hasn’t done holiday courses and I don’t see the need for them, especially in Y12.

Oh @steppemum your poor DD! having the fall was the last straw for her by the sounds of it. I hope she leans on the learning support team over the coming days. There is so little you can do as a parent to calm them down, but sounds like you did a fab job of being there reassuring her.

It awful when you want to scoop them up and protect them, but probably the best thing is for them to plough through the hours until it feels a bit easier to handle. Hope she has a better day today.

My DD is doing ok still, work is interesting and she is very engaged (especially with her good looking chemistry teacher 🙄). Friendships seem on an even keel for now, frees are now not too stressful as she generally has someone with her.

And DD too has found a potential new 'friend', a boy from one of her classes who she spent a free with. Problem is DD tends to go head first into everything and ends up getting hurt, so we are now watching and waiting hoping she can be a bit more restrained this time (some hope! 😂).

Does anyone have any experience doing holiday courses? I’m thinking that it would really help focus. For example for a couple of days in the Easter holidays

@steppemum Your poor DD! That was stoic of her to go in today after such an awful day yesterday. Hope things get much better from here.

@steppemum
bless you what a horrible day for you and your daughter.
It is so painful when they are going through a difficult time and especially when things are new and unfamiliar. Glad you got some support from the learning team and well done to your daughter for going to school.
hope things improve xxxp

Oh I spoke too soon.
Nightmare day yesterday.
dd started texting me mid-morning. She had had a run in with ex friend again. Not really ex friend being nasty, but her actions triggered a huge reaction in dd because it is what her bully did all through year 8, 9 and 10.

So dd texted, won't talk, just text, nothing I suggest will calm her down, and she won't go and talk to her learning support person because she doesn't know her well enough yet.
dd left and came home, missing her 3 hour computer lesson.

she had to change buses, and ran to catch the second bus and tripped. She went head over heels, landed on her head and backpack, skinning both knees, elbows and hands. Her tablet and phone were in her hand of course they are now scratched but at least not broken. Some lovely people helped her and the bus waited, but she phoned me from the bus in a complete state. I went and found her and spent the whole afternoon in damage control. She was so shocked and shaken up by the accident that she was really emotional and mixing it all in with what happened in the morning.

I did have a really good long talk to her learning support person on the phone and dd was happy with that, they are going to quietly intervene when needed. And dd now feels a little more confident to go and talk to her now that she has the full picture.

dd is limping badly this morning as she can't bend her knee, and still on the verge of tears all the time, so I ended up driving her to school and will probably pick her up this afternoon, but at least she went to school!
ironically academically she is doing great, and LOVES the English re-sit class which seems to be doing a great job in boosting her confidence for the exam.

Pottery and crochet sound like great fun!

DS is settling in, I think. I get very little back from him about the social side of school that it's hard to know. He is really enjoying lessons though, so I guess that's good. He's joined the Economics club and is going to his first CCF meeting after school today. He still hasn't decided what to do as his school voluntary contribution but thinks he might ask to run a chess club as they don't have one currently.

He's also got himself a girlfriend! She's at the private girls school around the corner and they met on the bus. So five years at a mixed comp. and no love life, two weeks at a single sex school and he's found lurvvvve 😂

Picking your battles made me laugh, I have become expert at biting my tongue!

dd can't work in a messy room and can't tidy it unaided, so when it is messy I have to go and sit in there and chat to her whileshe tidies it, otherwise she ends up on her phone. It is one of her autism quirks that I actually find really hard because I spend so much time just sitting on her bed so she can get on with stuff. But it works, and at the moment we will take anything which works!

@steppemum glad she’s bouncing back, pottery and crochet sounds great, imagine having timetabled time for crafting! I encouraged dd to think about a creative enrichment option, but of course any recommendations from me are quickly dismissed (you’d think I’d learn to keep quiet), think she’s considering Amnesty international, all her friends are in sports teams, but bless her she’s got no coordination and it’s just not much fun if you’re no good.

She’s booked her theory driving test so that’s a focus but she assures me she completed all her homework yesterday which is a day she doesn’t need to be in college. Her room is a mess and I’m not sure how she can work there, but I’m picking my battles.

thanks for all your support.
dd has bounced back quickly from tears, which is good. She had to join an extra curricula activity which I panicked about due to work load, but she has signed up for pottery and crochet! (they don't both run all the time) Good bit of creativity and another slot to make friends.

She has been given very little homework so far, but she is seriously timetabling her flip study and homework slots, all of which can happen during the day, which is really good for her (autism makes it really hard for her to work at home).

She is coping easily with work for A levels so far which is no surprise as she is good at those subjects, and she is down to do English re-sit in Nov, and seems pretty positive about it.

I'm holding my breath.....

DS is doing 2 A Levels 1 Btech Sport and AS Level Maths and they've been given a guideline of 15 hours per week but have made it clear that's above the "free" periods they get - these are supposed to be used for prep for the next lesson, such as reading but have been told not homework

It's that fine line of me starting to withdraw back and letting DS manage himself which so far so good but he tends to do his homework during his free periods as he has, pretty much two whole days worth of free time but can't leave school till 3.10.