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

Happy birthday to @sandybayley DD - hope she has a good day (and love the cake!). I also joined the virtual event last night - but I had misread the correspondence so only joined for the 7pm head talk and missed the separate house meeting. DS's tutor did phone calls to all his tutee's parents last week - he said DS seemed to be enjoying sixth form and was there anything he (tutor) could do for us. I said yes, keep the school open!

DD's school sent out a "decision tree" to help parents decide whether they should send their DC to school (no doubt they've been inundated with queries). I've just stuck it on the fridge - it is Very Detailed. I really do miss the days when I knew what a cough was.

We had a 'welcome to Lower Sixth' virtual event last night. All ran very smoothly and included a 1-2-1 discussion with DD's tutor. It worked really well. He's really pleased with how she's settling in and we had a good chance to chat through things she'd like to get involved in and her medical ambitions.

And today is DD's 17th Birthday. Driving lessons are her main present. She requested a Colin the Caterpillar cake for school today - you're never too old.

I think quite a few schools applied an internal process to get the results to match previous years, but some "gamed the system" and came out with very good results. I don't want to start a private/state debate, but there was one private school referred to in an article on HEPI which went from 18% A-B to 48% A-B and one local to us had a similar hike. I can't help wondering if some did not want to face discussions with angry parents, so just put in very optimistic predictions, expecting to blame OFQUAL when they were moderated down.

Interestingly found out this week that our school had exactly the same proportion of 9-4 passes in English this year as last and 1% less in maths. Seems they did a very good job of self moderating as you’d expect if every child had been judged on ‘a good days result’ their results should have been higher, given that no one had a bad day the way they would have done on a usual year to bring down the scores.

@Piggywaspushed that sounds a nightmare. Agree that there is nothing wrong with asking for an update on when a permanent teacher will arrive. Its a genuine concern.

@PaddingtonPaddington We’ve tried pointing it the dyslexia...maybe best not to overload. Highlighted the support DD is suppose to get. Tumbleweed.....

@greenele my maths degree led to accountancy (70% of maths graduates from my university became accountants). I would advise her to be careful before choosing a maths degree, it gets a lot more abstract at university. We did a lot of pure maths and I had more Greek than numbers in my notes. If she is good at maths, engineering and architecture are interesting options.

@Wheresthebeach DD having a similar issue in trying to drop her 4th A level (psychology). Tried on Monday with Head of sixth form, told to reconsider (even though went prepared with a list of reasons and counter arguments) and come back and discuss again today but then not available. She will try again tomorrow. It seems to be everyone starts with 4 but in reality they are not keen to let them drop one. DD is doing photography and this is incredibly time consuming already but she’s loving it and the coursework suits her work. And also loves her other 2 A levels (music and drama). She also has ADHD but I don’t want her to use that as an argument unless necessary.

@Alsoplayspiccolo glad your DD is feeling better.

Well, you’ve nothing to lose then Piggy. Complain away, it’s for good reason.

Oh yes, not haircuts or toilet breaks!

At least it was always over academics!

Having complained about sociology about 5 years ago and regularly complained about Spanish, and had a row about 'facilitating subjects', I fear I am already that parent.

Oh dear Piggy you will justifiably have to become that parent.

Fools I hope the boarding element improves soon with a steer from the school leadership.

DS having issues with login for Microsoft teams. Over a week and still not sorted. Minor breakdown over it tonight. Doesn’t auger well when the inevitable happens and lessons or notes etc online....

Trouble is Spanish was the number one choice!

Piggy Do you think at this point DS might consider a different subject altogether so as not to jeopardise his overall results? All this messing around after months at home must be so upsetting for the students. It really is it fair.

STILL no Spanish teacher and no comms from school. Sounds like they had a trainee today.

The teacher is now in the country living in our village but now they are waiting for paperwork...past experience tells me this takes months. FFS.

I might just knock on all the doors in the village until I find her and send DS over.

@MirandaWest i’d Love DS to tell me if my newly bought hat were awful. I’d be ever so grateful, much better than the usual grunts of ‘Sawright’, without even looking up.

Sorry to hear about issues in the early days of Sixth form. It's all so stressful.

We're having a bit of a time with school. DD was told she would be able to drop her 4th subject straight away. New academic head has now said she can't.

DD has always wanted to do science, Biology at Uni. She's doing Bio, Chem and Geography which she loves. Philosophy was her 4th - no use to her future plans she only took it because she likes the teacher. We've Covid to deal with so school time precious in my view. Why waste the time on a 4th she has no interest in? She's dyslexic as well so the extra reading and writing takes forever.

Hopefully we'll get it sorted, but I fear I'll have to drag the SENCO into all. The previous academic head was great, so irritated that he left.

@ShaunaTheSheep DS’s favourite documentary channel in the world is Nat Geo, infact for a few yrs we thought he was going to study Zoology. Apart from, that his favourite programme is ‘The Apprentice.’ What documentaries does your DS watch?

@Piggywaspushed Thanks for the recommendations. ‘None of the above’, sounds perfect. Just the sort of thing I was looking for. I haven’t looked at the second book yet but sounds promising.

Wow @MirandaWest that's an ethical dilemma I hope none of us has to face! Dd is also doing RS, but to be honest I've heard barely anything about her subjects. Every day I get a run down of who she sat with on the train, who she walked to school with, who she was with at break and lunch and who she travelled home with! Which is all good and she's definitely settling in! @Alsoplayspiccolo dd is loving the co-ed environment, after being at a girls school too! She says the boys make the days more fun and relaxed.

I am an accountant who works for an accountancy training college as a support tutor, answering queries from students studying all accountancy qualifications. PwC is one of our clients so I have answered many PwC students!

The majority of them are on graduate schemes but an increasing number are doing apprentice programmes starting when they’re 18.

i do love teens , the conversations you end up having 😂
Piccolo I think this stage is one of the trickiest bits of parenting to be honest - the transition from childhood to adulthood and they are doing so at a very tricky and weird time in the world which isn’t easy.

It’s a fine line to tread on the parenting front at this point. I coped with DD by biting my tongue a lot then as she left the room flicking her the Vs up silently telling her to F* O**. This worked well until the one day when she turned round unexpectedly and it nearly went very wrong. A survey amongst my friends showed this approach is not uncommon which made me feel less of a bad parent.

She is absolutely lovely now but it was a difficult transition at times.

😂😂 Miranda. The many ways we show unconditional love...

DS is doing Religious Studies - he has a list of ethical questions and was asking DD and me to think about them last night.

They ranged from whether or not to tell your mum that the hat she’s just bought is awful to whether you should eat a companion if it’s the only way to survive. He decided if it was them and me that I’d want them to eat me, if one of us had to be eaten, which is probably true, but I didn’t totally like hearing him say it

Thanks, ealing and Fools, I know you’re right. I guess my concerns are mostly around DD’s ADHD and the fact that she can’t ever foresee consequences to things.
It doesn’t help that we live in a tiny rural village, and her school is close to the city, so quite a culture change.
I’m not going to stop her, but will keep reminding her that school is the priority; as long as she works hard, I’m happy for her to play hard too.