Y11 2025-26 Results Day and Next Steps

Well done to her, that’s great!

DD has applied for loads of part time jobs and got nowhere. It’s so hard to find anything. She’s got a couple of stalls booked doing henna tattoos for money though, and apparently they will be doing work experience as part of their course. Hopefully they will help find the work experience too.

How’s everyone doing? Dd has finally decided on her fourth subject to drop so she’s looking forward to starting her new timetable on Monday with a lot more free periods!! She also has her first EPQ session this week.

Is anyone else heading to Southampton open day tomorrow? We’ve also lined up Nottingham and Bristol as the first block (next group will wait for the summer) but the logistics in all of it! Hotels, trains vs driving, childcare for the other kids etc. Still, we’re both looking forward to experiencing the first one tomorrow.

DD has now finished her first full 2 weeks and is loving college so far, really enjoying her subjects and the step up in independence from school. She is also getting used to the reality of the extra commute. She is leaving an hour earlier than she did for school, but even though she's shattered some evenings she hasn't complained once and is very happy she chose that college.

We got the results of her remarks. Her Dance increased by 2 marks which was enough to increase her to a grade 8 which she was thrilled about, however her drama remained the same but was still a grade 7 so I guess it was a "vanity" remark more than anything.

Are they able to do an EPQ at any time? I admit I don't know much about it but DD has mentioned doing it but hasn't signed up for anything as far as I know. Just wondering if she has missed the boat on this or they can choose to do it at any time?

I’m sure it’s school specific. Ours (school sixth form) had to choose something from an enrichment list of which EPQ was an option and the deadline for choosing was a week ago.

Also I think we need a new thread title specific to Year 12 personally…?

DD has had 1 lesson about EPQ (she missed one with a braces appt) and so far she says no one has a clue what topic they want to pick for it so I'd assume most schools would let another one start before half term.

I had signed up for Southampton open day as it's a shorter journey than many others and can be done in a day, but in the end decided it was a bit too early given she'd only just settled which A levels to choose. Planning to get DH to take her to Birmingham in November.

DS went to an open day for the Uni in our city yesterday. Paramedic Science requires an interview which we were a bit concerned about with DS's autism but apparently the person they spoke to said about 1 in 3 of the students have some sort of ND and they take it into consideration. Which is obviously good but that proportion does seem pretty high. Although I haven't been able to work out from either DS or DH if he meant 1 in 3 or the Paramedic students of the whole university.

I am trying to gently suggest DS thinks about university and at the moment just get I’ve only just started A levels. He’s seemingly working hard but finding workload heavy. I think he forgets 50% extra time for exams means 50% extra time to do notes…

DD is the same @whereonthestair

But they have their initial Oxbridge meeting on Thursday this week so I don't know if she'll have to specify what subjects she's interested in. Maybe modern languages or English, or German with English. I'm just not sure how much they'll need to decide now as they're doing it alongside all the medic/vet/dentistry people who presumably have decided.

In other news, we got an upgrade in English Lan which was great. She only needed 1 mark and got 4.

Just booked the Bristol Open Day on 31 October

See you there!

Ooooh Bristol, my alma mater! Hope you all love it

Haha thanks @clary and definitely might see you @makemineadecaf and anyone else from here there 😀

Reviews came back today, sent in 1 paper for biology and 1 for chemistry - OCR which apparently are very strict on marking (and more expensive £68 per paper!).

Got the 1 mark she needed to go up to an 8 for biology. Sadly for chemistry they awarded 3 extra marks but then took 1 off another question so she was still 1 mark off a 7. That's the one she wanted most but hey ho.

Without doubt it’ll be one in three of the student body. A huge number of students label themselves ‘neurodiverse’ now, with and without a diagnosis

@Littletreefrog a high % of emergency A&E medical staff are adhd. And paramedics. We are brilliant in a crisis. We thrive on it. Constant dopamine hit

@Ursulla42 congrats to dd fir ger job.
@Stowickthevast great news about the 4.
Congrats to any otgers getting upgraded.

DD has just had some results back for first tests, seems school was checking students where ok to continue with Alevels. Thankfully so far all ok.

We have started to record how much work is really being set as at the moment DS college says work that should take 2-3 hours is setting work that takes 6-7 hours so roughly setting 3 times the volume they say they set…. So we are on 30-40 hours of set work for 3 A levels plus 15 hours contact time, plus enrichment and an EPQ… which is more hours than I work as a lawyer. I mean DS is a diligent student but I am assuming this is not normal…? My DS teaches one of DS subjects at university and thinks the time the teachers are suggesting things should take is about a third of the time he thinks the same work should take…I fear it’s going to be a long and miserable 2 years

That sounds really intense @whereonthestair

Is he doing STEM subjects?

Mine is doing humanities and manages to do most of her work during the study and free periods of the school day. A bit at weekends and after school but not much so far. I was wondering whether STEM get more homework while humanities, you're meant to be doing more reading. May be completely wrong though!

No EPQ yet here, they need to decide after half term whether or not they want to do one. I'm not sure whether it's better just to concentrate on getting strong grades in your 3 A levels. There's nothing obvious that DD would do it in.

@whereonthestair that seems a very heavy workload. My Y13 students also tell me that the work their teachers say will take 1 hour takes twice that time. However I think for that particular group, the 2 hours it takes will be also made up of scrolling, yapping with their friends in the ‘silent study’ area etc etc. Sounds like your son is more diligent than my little darlings though. Might be worth feeding back to the school?

Not Stem, humanities. Politics, economics, history. He studies in the college study centre in free periods and they tell me he is studying. His notes look comprehensive so I believe him, but the reading for one thing this weekend was 3 academic journal articles. Then write the essay based on those. The subject DH teaches was understand one issue. DH says seeing the materials he understands why his university level economists have no idea what they are doing as the standard text book is confusing. He is working most of those free periods but done another 4 hours today so far. He took yesterday off but did a couple of hours every evening so 14 hours on top of working 9-5 all week. And not finished for tomorrow yet

I’d add DS got 9s in all related subjects at GCSE so I doubt it’s going over his head yet..

Dd is getting most work done in frees with maybe an hour or so each night too.

What exam boards is he doing @whereonthestair? I wonder if that’s the difference. Dd is also doing history out of your son’s list with OCR. She has two teachers, each taking a unit and it all seems manageable at the moment. That said there’s only 8 kids in her class too.

EPQ has begun here. Title chosen. At DD’s sixth form it’s all done and handed in by June with the result then available to put on the ucas form this time next year.

Mines doing History too, AQA. But so far no academic journals to read, just things from the text book and work sheets.