Year 10 - 2023/2024 Support Thread

Ds2 on day 2 of work experience. With Dh. Day 1 he went to the gym. Tomorrow the whole school year is visiting the local uni.

@SB1971 I keep thinking you are me as same initials as mine before I got married (not been married long) and very similar year to my birth year.

@SB1971 haven’t school given you any info re collecting his GCSE result? Some schools expect the DC to log in on the day but some email DC. Maybe ask now before they break up.
For those with DC doing work experience what type of things have they managed to secure?
DD3 officially broke up on Friday just gone but has been in Australia the last two weeks for her g’father’s funeral. So she missed the week long language trip, which she wasn’t invited on anyway as not doing a MFL gcse and the last week was just sports days, prize giving & various assemblies / zero lessons. School gave her one week authorised leave but the second was unauthorised; which I appreciate and understand. It’s also meant that she’s missed two 6th form open days but they’re repeated in October.
She received her report on Fri (last day of term) and no real surprises. She seems to be on the cusp of 6/7 for a couple of subjects and 5/6 for some others. When ppl talk of 9’s it does make 6’s sound a bit rubbish but they’re B’s which used be pretty good in my day! She’s hoping with hard work she can get the 5’s to 6’s and the 6’s to 7’s but as we all know anything can happen on the day. And yr11 will be a bit tougher. But she’s a reasonable work ethic so…

My DD is still not quite sure which A levels to do either, it feels very early to be thinking about it but we have done two sixth form open evenings in the last week. I found them quite exhausting! So many people, so many different options, a lot of information to take in.

She only has this week in school as next week is work experience so nearly at the end of year 10. Fortunately (her last ever!) sports day is tomorrow and not today as it is forecast to chuck it down today! She's really looking forward to some downtime in the holidays.

Great that he gets to try new things before choosing @SB1971 ! DD2 still has no idea about which A-Levels. Her report is not illuminating on what she should do. Maybe the summer will bring some clarity - I think she's been too busy to think.

DS had two more weeks left now.
Had another college open day today where he tried Law as one of the taster lessons but wasn’t mad on it.
No report as yet, they tend to send them out on the last day so we shall see what that brings.
Am not too sure on why happens with the GCSE he took early in terms of results, presume they email them over but who to -him or me? He won’t go in just for that one am sure.
This year had whizzed by I reckon!

That should have said...ds1 and ds2 worked there for their summer hols. Its been a long day 🤦‍♀️

Ds3 is on work experience this week. I dropped him off for 8am start. Ds1 and ds2 have worked their summer hols from 6th form and uni. Neither are there this summer. I'm hoping it'll lead to a summer job for ds3 when he's old enough. He has to be 18. Though ds did say a couple of the girls are 17. So maybe a change of age now. He seemed to enjoy himself.

The just one more week at school next week, then that's it for year 10.

For the older 2 dc's year11 seemed to fly by. So I expect it will again.

My DD is on pointe shoes. I was surprised how much her first pair cost as it’s not just the shoes but the toe pads to pay for, plus ribbons. I think we paid over £100. They don’t last very long either. You may only get 2 months out of them if she dances several times a week.

@QueenMabby excellent news re pointe shoes! No idea of the cost but it sounds expensive.

Well we're done for the summer and DD1 is home (are we first?!) She's had a pretty good Year 10 given the massive change of school and her report was just lovely. Now we've got to just keep her motivated over the summer especially given she hasn't had an academic lesson for two weeks. She knows what she needs to work on...

Well done everyone - here's to Year 11

@DataColour ds1says biology is a bit of naff degree too. Most jobs want physics or chemistry. I'd say biology is the easier option of the sciences. I don't know what people do with a biology degree, but he's discovered he needs to go higher to work in science. But he's not going to now. He finished uni 2 years ago and not done much since. I'm sure his degree could be useful for other jobs though. I fear the longer he travels, the harder getting a good job will be.

@icanbewhatiwant I'd say you'd need a PhD for a "good" science job. I did a degree in chemistry and then a masters and I regret not doing a PhD. With working part time and child rearing, I feel like I've lost the opportunity to do it now. My job's in science, it's ok but not that well paid but a lot of the higher paid science jobs need a PhD, especially in academia.
Hardly any of my peers who did chemistry, did actually go on to pursue science jobs, they went into accounting, city trading, recruitment etc. A good science degree is a platform for a lot of sort after graduate schemes that's not actually science.

@minisnowballs the debt is huge. The actual loan was about 53k. So goodness knows what it is at now with interest. He started uni Oct. 2019 for 3 years. Ds2 is on £42k of loan so far, he's on a year abroad this year. So one more year next year, that another £16k 🤦‍♀️

@icanbewhatiwant the debt thing makes it all so tough. But there are so many things where they just need 'a degree' and I suspect many paths will open for him. I'm HOPING dd1 will get away without the debt as a nurse - she's planning to train in Wales which has some funding for NHS, and even in england she'd get a bursary. DD2 is another matter. It's probably music, let's be honest, but whether she's heading for conservatoire or a music degree joint with something else is another matter.

She occasionally suggests she might do something else, but given she then voluntarily spends 95pc of her time taking on more music than she should, I don't know whether she'd actually be happy unless she's fiddling about with instruments all day. Term finishes tomorrow - can't wait to have her hanging around the house even though I basically lose my office (which is her bedroom) and my living room (which turns into a sort of sheet music explosion when she's home) for the next nine weeks!

@DataColour ds1 has a biology degree. He doesn't want to work in a science job, has absolutely no idea what he does want to do, though says he needs a masters for a good science job. So he's gone travelling, been gone since Jan 2023. I think he's avoiding coming home and working. He told me recently he'd quite like to be a barista. Nothing wrong with that. But a slight waste of £60k of debt and a biology degree!

Not sure at all what my DS wants to do. He doesn't seem to have any interest or inquisitiveness regarding careers which is worrying me a bit, but lots of my friends and colleagues say that they had no idea what they wanted to do at 15, so I'm hoping it'll come to him eventually. I think it needs to involve maths as that's his strength and also geography as he seems to be good at that. He is an all rounder, sporty and musical too, and also thinking of music A/L but of course it needs to be a combination of subjects that works for Uni potentially.
DS doesn't want to continue at his school for 6th form and wants to go to a college as it's less like a school environment.

@minisnowballs Ds2 is doing a history degree. He did religious studies with philosophy and ethics at A level and enjoyed it. Ds3 will want to do sciences. He's the maths person too. Ds1 only did the lower tier at gcse.

In the chemistry, computer science and English mocks, Ds had the highest mark in the year. I did say he's aiming high. He handed me his citizenship mock paper as he went to school. He said he did so badly. A 6. That's a good grade still.

@icanbewhatiwant DD1 does biology because she wants to be a nurse. She's not a scientist really in any other way and is certainly no mathematician. No danger she wants a science degree - if it wasn't for the nursing it would history and politics!

Ds1 ended up doing film studies as that was the only one in the 4th column he liked the look of. He said he'd drop it after AS but ended up enjoying it, so he dropped geography instead. Ds1 went on to do a biology degree, but was limited to universities as he only took the one science at A level and no maths. But in year 12 he didn't intend to go to uni. hence not really thinking about subjects. Ds3 knows now that that is the route he wants to take.

At ours they encourage starting with 3 but 4 if some subjects are new. DD1 started Maths, Chemistry with new subjects psych and econ thinking she’d likely drop econ but absolutely loved economics! So psychol was dropped. DD3 will just do 3 new subjects and no 4th option.

@icanbewhatiwant exactly what DD1 did. She dropped English Lit. Politics was her 'new' choice and she loves it SO much (what a year to study politics), and she also does history and biology, because she needs it for nursing. Was glad she got the chance to test English vs politics out before dropping.

@NotDonna yes that's the thought at our school. Start with 4 and drop the one you dont like so much.