GCSE Summer 2020 - Thread 11 Carry on Corona Cohort - Starting New Terms and Settings

@pasanda that’s hard. I’ve got a no 2 in year 10 who sounds a bit similar, so although I’m probably going to have an easy ride with dd, I definitely won’t with ds! We had a bit of a meltdown from him last night because he said he’s just too mentally exhausted when he gets home to do homework and in any case the Biology was too hard. My dh, who used to teach GCSE science, offered to sit with him and help but he wouldn’t have any of it! He does have ADHD and he really struggles to sit and study, plus he’s very prone to headaches. But he’s also really stubborn!

Dd has come home saying she should have taken Economics as a fourth subject because it sounds interesting! I’m half wondering if it’s more to do with the fact that the boy she goes on the train with does it and she seems to rather like him. And she doesn’t really like her RS class!

I've no idea about how supportive they are as it's a new 6th form / adult learning place she's starting at.
I'm not particularly impressed so far. Very badly organised and no acknowledgement of the dyslexia stuff I've sent over. I just hope the individual teachers are better.

Well at least she is listening to someone, galling though it is 😁
Yes it is really hard and can be quite isolating if everyone around you has DC who are loving 6th form.

Are school generally supportive? Are they supporting her with her dyslexia? DD has finally worked out she is an auditory learner and found various apps that have helped her organise things in a way she responds to well. Took her some time to realise that.

Bloody hell fools. It's so hard isn't it. She won't accept help from me but as we speak is with her dad (exdh) sat at the patio table at our house going over her media 🤷‍♂️. She obviously thinks he's cleverer than me! 😃

I really don't know what she'll do if they ask her to leave. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed they'll support her.

I’ve been where you are Pasanda 🌷DD wasn’t receptive to help from me and was at two different places and 3 different courses by the end of first month of sixth form.

All your DC's seem so clever. It must be so much easier having a child who just gets academic stuff. And just gets on with it.

There is no way dd would manage 4 A levels.

She is on day 3 of her first week which is all online. They have one week in, one week online. She is struggling already . I knew she would but they've set so much work for media which when you've not been to school for 6 months, never done it before, never met the teacher, have only 5 GCSE's, have dyslexia - it's getting to her already. And that's only one subject! The other two are just reading and notes. She understands concepts but really struggles to get her ideas down into paragraphs/essay form. Not doing GCSE's was a godsend for her, but she doesn't really know what hard work is because of it.

Plus the college haven't even let her know when she'll be doing her hour of maths gcse retake lesson.

I feel anxious already. I really hope she proves me wrong and the teachers are supportive but I do anticipate stressful times ahead. And guess who is her emotional punchbag.....

I do think it is short sighted to make it hard to drop one with things as they are ta the moment. It’s inevitable that this term will be disrupted and sensible to get as much under their belt whilst they can.
DS will have to see how he gets on with his 4th as not done it before.

DS is doing 3 a levels - the only people he knows doing 4 are people doing Further Maths.

He is doing OK with getting up and so far (touch wood) he hasn’t fallen asleep when he gets back from school, which used to happen a lot in year 10 and year 11

We're back to 6:45 wake up...it's been a shock!

Happy birthday to the Sept birthday gang: sounds like some lovely lockdown celebrating! I can't get my head around the idea that ds will be 17 this academic year: agree with everyone that it feels MUCH older than 16 ... and much too close to 18!!

@Piggywaspushed: any news on the Spanish teacher - that sounds like a total pain, esp for a subject that is so important to him

@AnneOfCleavage: yup, I have to open windows and curtains too - esp for ds, who would happily live in a cave - in fact he often closes them when he comes back to minimise any glare on the screen ;-)

Mornings not too bad here - due to imposition of staggered starts DS does not now start until 9.30 (used to be 8.30) and school is 15 minutes walk away. However DS has three 8.30 starts a fortnight which he is not happy about. Thankfully he doesn't start until 11 on Fridays which sort of makes up for it (he has a study period first lesson on Fridays, not deliberate policy to let them go in later).

Ds is taking 3 A Levels plus an AS. The AS (Computer Science) is something he really wanted to do at A Level but it wasn't offered. So I'm worried about his workload, but equally he wouldn't want to drop the AS to bring it down! He is taking Maths and Physics, and I've heard varying things about how much overlap this gives him - from almost nothing to about 25%).

4 A’s are strongly discouraged here unless it’s further maths. Not even pressured to do an EPQ. DD is doing an extended research project instead, which she knows doesn’t carry the same weight, but offset by doing an AS which doesn’t have the same pressure as only 2 hours per wk.

Thanks, Paddington, it really is a relief.

Sorry to hear things aren't all good in your house, Orange. When you say free periods, do you mean periods set aside due to Covid, or do you mean standard gaps in the timetable? If the latter, DD doesn't have anything she HAS to do in free periods ( although I'd obviously want her to be working).

DD's school insist on 4 A levels of 3 plus EPQ. She's started with 4 because she couldn't choose ( psychology being an unknown), but can't drop one until Christmas. I'm hoping that we could put forward a case for her to drop sooner, citing SEN, if she starts to struggle, though.

That’s ridiculous. At DD’s Grammar school only very high GCSE achievers could do 4 subjects. She was eligible but chose not to as she knows she tends to get overwhelmed easily. I think half term is the deadline for swapping/dropping subjects for everyone.

I’m finding mornings exhausting! Bring back lockdown! I’m out at 7.15 dropping ds to his bus stop 10 mins away, then out again at 7.55 to drop dd at the train station. I get back, have breakfast and start work at about 8.30. For the last six months I’ve been getting out of bed about 8.30! I haven’t even been into the office yet - that’s happening soon and I’m wondering if I’ll cope!

I think this insisting on 4 is madness. They are likely to be out of school at some point over the winter. If they are sure of what they want to do they should be concentrating on doing as much as possible while they can. Those who are trying to decide which A level to drop should continue. It's the one size fits all approach that's making me crazy.

My DD has been told that the first opportunity for dropping the 4th subject is Christmas!! She didn't really want to do 4 - there was no obvious candidate, so she ended up doing comp. sci., and she is struggling already. Only one other newbie to the school in her class, and I think the existing boys covered the GCSE syllabus a lot more thoroughly than she did at her old school so there seems to be an awful lot of assumed knowledge. I think we'll have to see how it is going at half-term and then see of there is any possibility of dropping it earlier.

@icanbewhatiwant snap!

DS has managed to wake up this week and is walking in for the first time since sixth form started. He did Monday and Tuesday on Teams, which went smoothly except that his teacher did not make it to one lesson - apparently his WIFI let him down.

@AnneOfCleavage my ds never opens or closes his curtains. If I go in a open them they stay open. If I go in at night when it's dark and shut them they stay shut. He can quite easily sleep all day with open curtains. He never opens a window either. He will shut it though as he worries wasps, moths, spiders etc. will come in.
Ds1 and ds3 are better at opening curtains and windows.

Anyone else already feeling the stress of the frantic mornings? I don't drive her in now as she is preferring the long walk in to clear her mind and prepare for the day but the 45mins leading up to it are sometimes a bit frenetic. I have to keep calm and soothing throughout then collapse with my coffee and breakfast once she leaves. To be fair it's not every morning but I guess today's meetings are on her mind.

Also anyone else go in to their teens rooms and throw open the curtains and windows once they've gone?

It seems many schools did internal moderating, DD's certainly did.
Girls that got low 9's in mocks got 8's. Now I know that's nothing to complain about but across the board 9's were only awarded to those that consistently got high 9's in their work. The same process seems to have been applied to all grade boundaries. So a lot of slightly upset kids having to hear about grade inflation at the same time as feeling a bit hard done by.

The system should have been able to spit out exception reports, and sent the results back to schools that had inflated them, or moderated them down rather than the blanket approach they used.

Happy birthday to your daughter Sandy! You are a week ahead of us with the same present and cake

The only issue we have is that DD has been ‘given’ her gran’s 22 year old car, but it’s in an area of the West Mids that has been placed under strict restrictions. DH will become my mum’s bubble...

After hearing the difficulty in dropping from 4 to 3 A levels I now am relieved DD didn't have the option of 4 now with a view to "drop" not drop one later. What a palaver for you all.

DD has already got a meeting at 8.15 so left home before 7.30 - this will be worse once the darker mornings start. The joys of being a senior leader. She also has to be be filmed saying why the new intake for next Sept should choose the school which is at 9am today so she is being thrown straight in with only last night to prepare her speech.

Happy birthday to Miss sandybay 🎂🎉🥳 enjoy your driving lessons!