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

@SunblockSue they do the entire A level maths content in Yr12? That seems like a lot?

Just wondering whether anyone has any experience of this situation. DS is doing Maths, FM, physics and DT and is already looking to drop DT as he can see it being really time consuming and that it's not necessary to do 4 A levels. However the school does Maths in year 12 and FM in year 13. So his A levels are spread across the two years.

From the limited research I've done (eg Oxford entry requirements for Maths) this does not seem to impact whether you get an offer but just wondering if anyone else has experience of this and whether it was a problem.
Thanks!

Something in film aesthetics, I think. Not sure yet. Older DS did one that was research....but maybe she'd like to do something more practical/creative, eg screenplay??

Oh dear @felissamy! Hope they were nice about that (easy mistake).

Does she know what she wants to do her EPQ about?

It's a multi school grouping so if first lesson is not at base school then no registration needed. Ah well. She was not only one!

oh dear! Ours have to be in for registration even if they don’t have a lesson first thing so this wouldn’t happen .

Did she know that last week was a week 1?

Hopefully they’re understanding so close to the start of term

Oh dear, school didn't make clear now is week 2 so she missed first lesson.....

DS' friend (year above) has just passed his test and is now paying £2,400 for insurance with a black box . Not sure which company that is with. He has a good part time job which covers the expenses. His parents were paying for the private coach as his college is in the middle of nowhere, but that took about 80minutes each way so being able to drive is very helpful for him as there is lots of parking and will only take about 40minutes. DS will need a similarly good job if he wants to run a car.

Like @bluefineliner we're also going to have to get DS a car as ours are autos and he wants to learn in a manual. DS is getting the bus to school and that won't change even with a car as there is no parking on-site or anywhere near (all permit parking or double yellow lines). It's about 40 minutes each way but they are frequent and it's a flat £2 fare per journey atm, so £20 pw. We are reimbursing him for this. The bus can actually be quicker than driving as he's travelling into a large town centre and there are bus lanes which avoid some of the worst queues during rush hour.

Good luck to those starting today!

First proper day today....is a very large school so she has a lot of walking around to do! No word about EPQ yet, which she really wants to do. Hard not to interfere in it all and start sending emails.

First proper day for DD this morning. Getting everyone up and out of the house by 7.15 is going to be a test of my patience (DD and DH are both v bad with time/organisation - suspected ADHD)!
She's quite shy and doesn't know anyone at new 6th form so I'm really hoping today goes well for her and she makes some friends.

@wonderstuff I'm with you on the cost of travel living rurally.

DD chose a school further away from the last one and we do live out in the sticks. School have a mini bus to get kids there in a morning as there is no public transport at that time of day, that is approx £700 per year. Then DD has to get 2 buses home, £4 per day, so we are paying around £1500 per year just for transport. On top we pay for her lunches, but I have it on auto top-up so the amount varies, I guess she spends about £20 per week.

We give her £50 per month allowance which was supposed to cover things above the basics. It doesn't seem to have worked like that though and we still pay for pretty much everything! DD also has a job now which she loves and for now is working 12 hours a week so she is raking it in! I think it will need to reduce as the A level work ramps up but for now she is very well off. She does go on shopping trips to nearest city and can spend a fortune in Sephora and on clothes though so I am using it as a life lesson on how hard you have to work to get those nice things you want.

DD not 17 until April but we will have to buy her a car (ours are both autos) so are budgeting for that now and the insurance. We have been through this before though so knew it would cost a fortune getting her through school/uni etc 😂good job we are both working.

Rural living has definitely got more expensive this year! Essentially it’s going to cost £80-90 a month for transport to college, no transport subsidy post-16 even though most people in the county are going to have to travel and because we aren’t in a town the only bus pass available costs £850 a year and because of the cap on bus fares it’s probably cheaper to payg. Then cost of food at college is more than at school, again not subsidised. I could start making packed lunch, but I won’t, I have adhd and I would really struggle with organising that! So that’s another £80 a month.. @Gazelda please don’t feel awful, I’ve chosen to live in a village which means transport is a big cost and school options are limited.

DD had a strop about allowance, and I get it, we’re spending a ton of money on her brother. So we’ve revised up a little. She did understand when I explained I was trying to save so she had options at university to go wherever she wanted. She doesn’t spend massively, but most of her friends are a bus ride away and without uniform she wants a little for clothes, she buys most of her toiletries and makeup as well.

I’m expecting about £1500 for car insurance when she passes, she’s been gifted a polo her uncle has stopped driving. I’ve told her she must have a job though because running costs will be more than the bus.

@Gazelda DS only gets £25 a month but he gets pretty much everything paid for too .he basically uses that just for snack or Warhammer!

Oh God, I feel awful. DD gets £20 per month. We can certainly afford more, but haven't felt the need to increase because DD doesn't spend.

I buy all her school things, pay for clothes she buys for out of school. Pay for her hobbies. Pay her phone. Take her wherever she needs/wants (no public transport here).

She never spends her allowance unless it's on the occasional outing with mates. She used to spend it on crystals but has outgrown that.

She's very good at budgeting and saving. She loves to track interest rates on her savings (built up from birthday money etc).

Thinking while I'm typing, perhaps I should increase her allowance by x and at the same time tell her I'm transferring her phone bill into her name/bank account.

And actually, when I think about it, she really likes fancy hair products that are ££. I should say that I'm happy to buy her Elvive (or whatever) but she pays for anything else out of her own money.

Marmalade was best for ds1.

The type of car can obviously make a huge difference . Watch out for special editions - they can really hike the price up. Put the full registration plate in to get quotes, don’t just assume that because one Fiesta is insurance group 5 (or whatever) they all will be

We did Admiral multicar.

@wonderstuff I don’t think £200/month sounds mean at all - on the contrary, it sounds rather generous. I have to admit we have not settled on an allowance figure at all as it’s all a bit ad hoc here. DD walks to school and has lunch included there, so has no day to day costs. She had gifts of money recently from grandparents and godparents for birthday and GCSE results so has spent some of that on clothes for 6th form. She earns decent money from babysitting which easily supports her social life. We pay for dance classes and are about to start paying for driving lessons. Frankly the girl is in clover! But it’s interesting to see what sort of level others are settling on.

NB you mention insuring a car - have you found a decent quote for that? From what we have seen it seems not too bad when they still have their L plates (and are therefore supervised) but monstrously expensive when they pass their test at 17.

I agree @JessyCarr - best discussed with the school and in conjunction with next steps.

DS is another who is enjoying Economics. No GCSE in the subject so it's all new and exciting.

Going back to the discussion about work/study split: DS has 6 periods of 50 minutes of each subject each week. Two period of compulsory PE , 1 of PSHE and 8 study periods. He spent the study period he had on Friday walking around the school and exploring the LRC. Two days he doesn't have to be in until 10.20am - this lie in opportunity has made him happy in a way only a teenager can really understand.

In terms of allowance he gets £75 per month. We pay everything for school, his phone, his tennis lessons and rugby club subs. He pays for his gym membership and social life.

DS doesn't really have any expenses. He gets £50 of his child benefit and the rest goes into savings. We buy his clothes and food. In terms of clothes, say he needs, new jeans and trainers, we might say right here's £100, anything above that you need to put the rest. That way he's learning whether the extra is worth it. He likes Zara jeans which are £29 a pair and I'm happy to pay that. I give him £70 for trainers when needed and he will add the rest, same with football boots.

Out of his £50 a month he has to buy any sweets, or save for extras and birthday cards or presents. He rarely spends and choses to save. He doesn't ever ask for money.

He works and gets paid between £20 and £60 a week, depends on how many jobs he accepts on a Saturday.

He also plays football once a week with his team and trains once a week. This is about £500 for the year and we pay this.

He walks to and from school and makes his own lunches but will buy himself a school dinner maybe once every 3 weeks when his favourite one rolls round again.

His socialising is either gaming at weekends, going to the six aside pitches or going to play basketball, all of which he pays for when needed.

He's quite low cost to be fair but also busy enough he doesn't really spend much money

That sounds like good advice @Waspie thank you for sharing. I told dd about The Guardian guide and she had a little look.

What are people doing about pocket money/ allowance? It's costing dd approx. £4 a day to get to college and back and then she obviously needs lunch, she can of course make herself a packed lunch, but dh and I don't do that often so it seems unreasonable to expect her to everyday (plus her brother is in an independent school with amazing catering while she went to state school). So I'm giving her £200 a month to cover those and expecting her to get a job to fund her social life, but I'm not sure if that is a bit mean? For school she had free transport and we paid for school dinners and then she had an allowance, so she's probably a bit worse off now, but I'm saving towards uni, she'll get the minimum loans so I'm expecting to fund her accomodation, of course I've only a vague idea what that will cost at this point. We've cut right back on holidays and we are trying to put money aside each month, but I want to have some fun money too.. I'm thinking I will see how this month goes and adjust if needed. The student bus pass is probably more expensive than single tickets due to the £2 cap, so that might change in January, she's 17 in November and we have agreed to insure a car her aunt is gifting her, so we are doing other things. I also don't want her to be comfortable enough to not get a saturday job because I think it's such a good thing to get more independence, I was working from 15 and I think that was such a good disipline. I don't know, my parenting leans towards strict and for various reasons we are financially in a fairly strong position, which neither dh or I were in as kids, I want to be really supportive and I'm scared of spoiling my kids. Sorry for long ramble. Parenting never seems to get easier, there's always a new dilemma.

Love for Economics here too so far. DS has now met all his teachers and thinks Economics, History and Geography will all be good. His second Maths teacher is an improvement on his first, apparently, but still in these early days it's looking like Maths is likely to be a slog rather than enjoyable.

We'll see how it goes. The trouble is of course that if he properly falls in love with Economics and decides to take it at uni he'll need to keep Maths going for uni applications.

Busy weekend here as we are still trying to finish packing up the house and move (moving in with PILs for the rest of the building project we are now in the middle of), so when DS isn't doing homework he is packing and helping to lug around boxes and furniture. Hope everyone else's weekends are more restful!

@Waspie @Flyhigher would Eng Lit really narrow choices if substituted for Business? Eng Lit is I think traditionally regarded as the more academic of the two. I’d think a discussion with her tutor would be sensible if she is considering a swap.

My DD still happy, though exhausted from a week of new places and people. She knows her way round now and has found nice people, though I don’t think she yet knows who her real friends are going to be. She does have two girls who came from her old school, but they are BFFs with each other.

Still loving Economics, which is a very popular and successful A Level at her school. I think they must have excellent teaching as they really seem to inspire them. Not loving Psychology though. I suspect this is because she did the GCSE in it (same board) and because not many do it at GCSE there is considerable overlap in the content. So maybe that will be the one which gets dropped. We’ll see.

@bluefineliner - I agree with @wonderstuff that's it's better to have a plan and change now than later, or carry on with a subject that she doesn't really enjoy. My DS also doesn't know what he wants to do as a career - maybe law, maybe international relations/civil service, possibly even the armed forces or police service. He's doing three essay subjects so STEM is not really an option.

At the parent's induction evening we were told not to go to open days yet and to leave them until the summer, after the mocks, when the students would have predicted grades in hand.

The Head of Sixth Form did say that we (parents and carers) should start having broad brush conversations about next steps. So, we have had a couple of these this weekend using the new University guides and starting to look at the UCAS and Good University Guide websites. They were positive - DS in inclined towards remaining within a couple of hours of home (Berkshire) which leaves a lot of choice but rules out some great universities (the one I attended among them!) We shall see. As he gets older he may change his mind.

I also agree with @wonderstuff's response to @Flyhigher . Doing subjects the young person enjoys is so important. Changing Business to Eng Lit would narrow down your daughter's uni options (if that's her choice of next step) as all of the subjects would be essay based. Have you looked at Informed Choices website, it may help? Subjects | Informed Choices My son is doing History and English lit and the third is Economics.

They are four good options @LighthouseCat . i guess the obviously droppable ones are either Politics or Physics. Dropping maths may not be an option as many schools/colleges won't let a student take physics without maths. A friend of DS' who is starting year 13 is taking English Lit, maths and physics and really enjoys the change of focus English lit gives from the other two.

Hope everyone's weekend's are going well. No homework here so I'm trying to persuade DS to finish his Tennis LTA coaching course work today to get it submitted and out of the way before school starts ramping up next week.

I think it’s important to pick subjects you enjoy, unless you have a particular degree in mind, a-levels are really hard (at least that was my experience) and it’s so much easier if you enjoy the subject. Might be worth talking to her teachers and looking at a couple of text books to see a sample of the content.

Glad to find this thread.
DD started back this week. She's starting with 4 but with a view to dropping one. Maths, Physics, Eng Lit and Politics. Bit of an odd combination and I have been worried about it. So far I think she's enjoyed all her lessons but I don't think they've really started on too much yet. Next couple of weeks will be interesting.