Year 11 support thread - keep on keeping on!

I feel I need to rant right now. DS starts sixth form tomorrow and has only just announced his jeans need washing. Cue a rant about how if he's thought about it beforehand tbcould be done.

He has to get up at 6.30 and needs to be in bed in the next half an hour or so. I feel like screaming, he never bloody well takes responsibility for himself. 😬😬😬😬

Thanks Laniaka andLittleHo My DS starts on Wednesday with an induction day and then the rollercoaster begins.

I will start a new thread, just so I have somewhere to rant whilst smiling sweetly and encouragingly at my DS.

Good idea minesawine

Do you think a starting Year 12 or a 6th form support thread will be useful?

Yes!

or do I just need to get over myself!

No!

When does your ds start back? DD has an admin day on Wednesday then lessons start on Thursday. We got an email from the school saying that we may not get papers back until November, I'm still a bit that we should've got her biology remarked but too late now.

She finished her summer work yesterday & is planning to spend the next couple of days baking (no complaints from me).

Hi - I am a bit nervous about the step up from GCSE's. Do you think a starting Year 12 or a 6th form support thread will be useful, or do I just need to get over myself!

He's got 12 GCSEs B-A* which is far better than many achieve. As regards science at uni, they'll be looking at his grades for A level - I'd imagine they'll be particularly interested in any science or maths grades.

That's it, Pasanda!

I know what you mean. DS got a B for PE. He got an A* in the practical which was worth 60% but a D in the theory. So he got a B.

He could so easily have got an A if he had done more revision.

But, in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't matter if they can get on to the next stage of their education.

I don't think it will limit him. He might get the odd rejection but as they are allowed to put five choices down when applying he will still get good offers.

Maybe have one aspirational choice, a couple of good ones and a backup option (five university choices allowed on the application form). Take advice from teachers nearer the time.

Oh, thanks for the info about the grade 6. We got a rather blurred diagram from the school about the new grades.

I know really they are amazing results, on the day I was ecstatic for him and am proud, he did work hard. It isn't the B grades per se, it's because they are lower than his predicted and targetted grades, if you see what I mean.

But he was quite bored with some of these subjects, and was finding school a bit of a treadmill by the end of Yr 11.

and I think a 6 is roughly a B.

He got 8 A*s and As. Those are amazing results!

OK, I know results are 'old news' now - but I am rambling on in my head.

DS did well - I know he did well and I am delighted with him over some of his results. 9 in Maths, 8 in English Language, A* in 2 sciences and music, A in a Science, History and Further Maths. I am pleased because in some of these he over-shot his target or predicted grades.

Then we get to subjects where he did less well than target and predicted: Literature: 6, French:B , Computer Science B, RE B.

I feel frustrated with him because had he shown more interest in these subjects he could have got all his predicted As.
I think he will do well at A level because he will be doing all subjects he enjoys, and which lead to his intended science degree at Uni.

I am frustrated because other people are sucking their teeth about Bs, I wonder whether he has restricted himself from top science Unis, and a couple of friends are being disparaging about Bs.

I KNOW this is ridiculous - but do Bs restrict top science Unis, and what grade in old money, is a 6?

I'm waiting to get anything more than I've already got; they put a load of revision materials on too, I assume they aren't necessary until they start heading towards exams. I can't even find much second hand, have they changed the syllabi recently? She's doing OCR A for chemistry & biology and OCR B for physics. This is the first year the school has done OCR so they don't have more than a couple of copies of anything.

I hope we will be able to order some kind of essentials pack from school, lab stuff & calculator etc - I have no idea what to get.

DH's boss asked about dd's results & when he told him he said that was brilliant were we going to buy her a car now ???!!!??? errrrr .... no! That can't possibly be normal surely

I'm ready for her to go back now, she makes a lot of mess & eats a lot of food!

Laniakea, that's steep. DD has a reading list, approx six books for every subject. However, school pointed out they are available to borrow in school, so I've bought her one for each subject for something to look at in the holidays. We've got to provide all stationery now, ie paper, files - we''ll see what else they throw at us.

DD will start a week today as well. Where has the time gone?

Can't she just borrow the reading list books from the library? Ds had a reading list but only required to pick a couple from it. It is more to read around the subject than part of the actual curriculum

dd has just handed me the reading lists that 6th form have emailed them. I'm shocked, she's doing three sciences subjects & each of the lists is over £150 It is a state comprehensive btw. They even need to get their own lab books.

I knew we were expected to provide text books (£25-35 each (for each year!) ) but there's an awful lot of other stuff they want. I ordered her the headstart books after induction (they needed them for summer work), and have ordered the first of the text books & one of the maths books. I'm smarting - the bus went up again, train ticket is double what it was now she's 16 and now this.

She got horrendously sun burnt at Reading & spent all of her money (& now wants to borrow some from me). She starts back a week today.

Yes B3 Edexcel I think she got a c which made all the other A* drop so A overall.

Jane - think it was edexcel, but will check. Have left it to dh to look at the marks etc as I'm in hospital, he said one paper better than the other but don't know the details. She thought both had gone really well then again, she thought English had gone badly and she got an 8 and a 7... He's put in for a remark, anyway, and we'll get the scripts to see what happened. She's actually pretty gutted another that one, it was always her best subject and she doesn't know what went wrong.

oh that's very interesting that B3 was low for other people too - there weren't any biology teachers around at school yesterday to talk to about it. It will be good to have a look at the paper.

Another one for B3 being nasty. And another one with a Dd with an astonishing 8 for maths. She's always been good at maths but thought the exam was so awful that she would fail!

B3 was the issue here too. Got an E on it and A/B/high C on the other papers. Ended up with a high C overall (68). It is frustrating but it is as it is I guess.

dd had one totally random paper - B3, which was 70 UMS (right on the B/C boundary). The other 8 science papers were all well above 90 UMS. That took her biology grade down from A* to A. We decided in the end not to get it checked or remarked (risk of it going down to a C) but have asked for a copy. DD has no idea what went wrong & I'm intrigued to see it, she's never had a mark anything like that low in biology

Her school had an amazingly good year, their overall five 4-9 including maths and English was way higher than last year. Girls did really well - dd was 5th overall, two girls got three 9s & there were only two boys in the top ten.

I was so stunned by her maths result that I impulsively gave her £50 - I'd taken cash to school & budgeted in case we needed remarks - she's spent most of it already ... cider for parties, a giant shark, junk food & a computer game. She told me that one of the other kids had said he was going to get nearly £1000 for his results. I don't know if that is actually true but it would buy a hell of a lot of cider!

She's at Reading now, I'm shell shocked by the whole thing - thank god we don't have AS levels next year.

Madhairday, what was the board for your DD's RS?

My DD got an A and was just slightly disappointed not to get an A*. Checking the four individual paper results, she got full UMS on two of them, a very high A on the third and a not very high C on the fourth! Quite some difference in performance there, yet she had absolutely no inkling of this - in fact, she thought the "C" paper had gone pretty well.

The logical explanation is that she misinterpreted the high mark question at the end of the paper and dropped some other marks along the way too. Not going for a remark yet, but I think we'll ask to see the script just in case ..

Thanks Laniakea I am proud but still in shock, am I dreaming. The relief is massive. However I am dreading the next two years and hope he surprises me by becoming more mature and not needing to be nagged so much.