Any parents of Y12 DCs up for a support thread?

Cardibach They did offer a resit, but it wasnt practical. For some reason what he did badly was the speaking test which was taken the year before, no idea why because that is his strong point. He got a B in the summer exams, which is what was offered as a resit, but he would have had to pull that up to a really high A to get a B. There was also something about the 40% rule. There are other exams they will take,which I think are aimed at foreign students.
I am annoyed that it is something like that which will block him from even applying. He is in this photo so has been recognised as having a lot of potential in engineering. He is bottom right hand corner with the squashed up legs.

Secrets DS has been looking at engineering, but is also wavering towards physics. He has a had a couple of trips of power plants recently which i think he has found quite interesting. DS has D2 C1 and C2 plus a retake on mechanics which he balls up because he was so worried about D1 that he didnt spend anytime on it. But has done lots of past papers on C1 and C2 and only loosing marks on silly mistakes.

Have you had the paper work on Headstart, DS got his last week and he is really excited about it, although i think it was the food rather than anything else

bruffin I think you were on a thread about Maths/FM? What subject is he looking at for degree?
DS is beavering through past papers, of which there seem to be many. Poor DH has to mark them which he is doing his best at having done Maths A level in 1969. I reached my limit on Maths before GCSE.
He has mocks in D1 C3 and C4 in the next few days.
He also has a Headstart course in July which clashes with a couple of open days.

DS is year 12, taking Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Philosophy and Engineering as an extra.

We had a huge wobbly last term with maths, dug himself into a hole but wouldnt go to see anyone for help. Thankfully his january results were good and now he has got his confidence back and getting really good results in past papers.
He is driving me mad about uni. We have had over 20 prosepectuses turn up. he has a huge spreadsheet with requirements, whether they do a year abroad etc I just want to put my fingers in my ears and go lalala

He really wanted to go to Imperial, he has already spent a day there and will be going to a Headstart course in July but wont be go because he only has a C at English GCSE. He is dyslexic and got caught up in the aqa gcse thing last year. None of the others ask for a B at gcse for English.

Secretsquirrel Ds and his mates are going to the Durham open day but are going by train. I dont think they realised how expensive opendays are going to work out in fares.

BackforGood there are "apprenticeships" everywhere. I work in the the public sector and they have recently taken on about 40, in all areas of work. The local authority took on a similar number. They are certainly out there.
However I have huge issues with many of them and think young people should research carefully.
I think there is a great need for proper vocational, on the job training and if these kids came out after 5 years as qualified plumbers or hairdressers or similar then it would be fantastic. Sadly what I have seen is apprentices taken on for only a year, given little training, doing the same work as low grade existing employees but for much less money. The best that could be said for it is that it is work experience for the CV.

Thanks Glaurung and secretscwirrels - yes I needed support for his GCSEs too . ds doesn't really know what he wants to do, which makes it tricky to narrow down open days of course, but he's neither engineering nor accountancy inclined, which seem to be where the apprenticeships are. I think he'd be best getting work for a few years, and then going to University in his 20s if he decides it is the right thing for him. Trouble is of course, those 'jobs' are quite difficult to come by.

Cerisier, her plan is to do an engineering apprenticeship. She could go on to do a degree afterwards if she wanted - I'm not sure how many of them do in practice though and she would be limited where to do a degree by not having A-levels.

DS is going to Leeds, Warwick and Durham in June with college, he has been to Cambridge and Oxford on college trips and we are going together to Nottingham in September.
I would have liked to go to Durham and made a weekend of it but the coach is only £10 so I miss out there. He has mentioned Bath and Bristol which are both overnight jobs but we can't go on the proper open days.

Yup sort of- it's the music performance module. A good start in this will really boost his confidence.

I have DS2 in year 10 so 2014 will see GCSE and A levels together. I have always thought two years to be the perfect age gap but next year will test that.
Theas18 does he have an exam tomorrow?

I can see your problem fivefathoms! I'm only doing newcastle as it'll involve staying over - and the Nottingham day on the way back.

THe more of this juggling I do, the more I am thankful for the lucky happenstance that placed the kids 3 school years apart each time so we don't have the awful A level and GCSE at the same time thing.

Newcastle is very near for us hence everywhere else miles away! Open Days are going to be a pain as single parent with younger one doing GCSE's right to the end of June. Eldest will have to do what I did and go to open days by himself I reckon.

Mee! Please hold my hand..

It's the 2nd time for me. Eldest is 2nd year at uni. DS worries me more. He's equally able but has moments when he seems to just miss things. Not hugely, but when the profile you need to be taking forward is AAAA (plus general studies and the up coming EPQ) there isn't room for this.

Uni open days booked including Newcastle- that's £100 return on the train for me and DS booked 2 months exactly in advance, so he isn't going to be popping home and we aren't going to be popping up... (DD1 never pops home, well she's coming tonight as she's duetting with DS for his music performance tomorrow). We do go up to DD1s concerts though and it would be a shame not to be able to do so for him.

Soooo I guess the first set of vibes are for nerves of steel tomorrow for him! As long as he holds his nerve the marks should be good.

I was on the GCSE thread as Astelia- I have done my regular NC since then!

I'm sorry to hear DD is disenchanted with her studies glaurung. Has she any idea what she would like to do?

DD has turned the bathroom into a shrine to Chemistry
We used to have the Periodic Table shower curtain like Sheldon has in BBT I kid you not. Not that DS1 is a clone of Sheldon.

Hi cardibach and backforgood I think you were both on last year's GCSE support thread? In fact cardibach sent me some English revision stuff which was very useful.
DS1 is working his socks off at the moment. He is doing Maths, Further Maths, Physics chemistry and Biology. Did well in the January modules but is very keen to get into a top uni to do Maths and pushes himself very hard.
backforgood the open days are spread a little. Many in the last couple of weeks in June. Then another lot in September. Then I gather there are more in the spring if they want to re- visit once they have an offer. His college are doing coach trips to some uni open days and we will do others. We also live in the back of beyond so everywhere is miles away.

You can visit the campuses at any time Backforgood. If you can't make many of the official open days it still gives a feel of the place, most of them have self guided 'walking tours' you can do. I think the open days are mostly clustered in June/July - perhaps a bit longer than 2 weeks, but there will still be clashes and some get booked up rather quickly too.

It's not always wise to rush to university if unsure, especially if your ds can find a good alternative (is he thinking of anything in particular - there are some good apprenticeship schemes about). Dd is sure she doesn't want to go and my view is if she changes her mind she can always go a few years down the line instead.

Hi. My ds is in Yr12. He doesn't even know if he wants to go to University, and if he does, which subject, or where ~ not sure we'll get to a lot of Open days.
Do they all tend to be in the same couple of weeks?

Hi, ds is in yr 12, we live overseas but he is still taking AS levels. He needs all A's as he is applying to Cambridge and Georgetown, amongst others. His course are Philosophy, History, Gov & Pol and economics. We went back to the UK for Easter and visited 7 universities over the course of the 2 weeks. It's exhausting, and along with the weather, we all came back sick. Course work appears to be finished so it's all revision and past papers. He has flash cards with names, dates, acronyms etc, everyday he adds more, so he can use the right words according to the marking scheme. I just shuffle them and then we do 10/15 mins whilst making the tea or similar. He has enormous posters he has made tuck up all over the place. Other stuff has been written on the patio windows in the family room, yet more stuff on the tiles in the kitchen. You can't turn round for seeing something. And i must admit that I know far more now about philosophy than I ever thought I would do.