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Further education

You'll find discussions about A Levels and universities on our Further Education forum.

Original poster

New Year 12 starters parent support thread (snappy title eh?)

999 replies

OhYouBadBadKitten · 31/08/2016 19:19

here we are.

OP posts:
needastrongone · 22/09/2016 08:59

Thanks guys. I was a bit surprised when the total changed by 3 full marks, but I suspect English won't change at all. Anecdotally round here, a lot of kids were one mark from an A* in Language. Different schools, but same exam board. DS won't be fussed if it doesn't change.

I am going to go to a couple of open days with DS. Purely based on the character he is. I might then see how he feels about going alone to others. I might not go to any with DD next year, she's a different personality completely. How does your DS feel about you going, or not Lobster?

School finishes at noon today, as it's the overall open evening tonight.

needastrongone · 22/09/2016 09:00

As an aside, DD text to say she was 27th in the year for academic performance, achievement and progress. Clearly not for spelling though, as she had spelt 3 of those 4 words incorrectly. GrinGrinGrin

Original poster
OhYouBadBadKitten · 22/09/2016 09:50

Good for her needastrongone :)

OP posts:
FantasyAndHope · 22/09/2016 17:49

DD has rang in floods of tears, havent heard her cry this bad since the days of bullying. DD got an A in maths and wants an A* was fine with maths teacher, head of 6th said she must attend the after school sessions dd was fine with that, however another boy has being told he doesnt have to attend thursdays as he has another club dd asked as she cant take french alevel and is considering history with french at uni and can take it without alevel french providing her french is of an alevel standard so dd wanted to go to cinema club. Head of 6th said no after assembly he grabbed her in regards to her email the email he replied with was rather abrupt and rude. He teaches her for english lit and she was quiet and she is terrified of him and he grabbed her again after the first time she cried for a double period to hers friends and hes grabbed her again after the session and shes in tears.DD said she's never being so scared of a teacher as you cannot say your word to him and he admits that he doesn't let others speak.

needastrongone · 22/09/2016 18:23

Just for clarity, so I understand fully, your DD was physically grabbed, 3 times by a teacher. Whereabouts on her body did he grab her? This might be important.

I don't understand about the email, which email? Was it an email asking about cinema club?

Flowers for your DD.

raspberryrippleicecream · 22/09/2016 18:34

Sorry Fantasy I'm really struggling to follow that post. I appreciate you are upset but could you break down the points and clarify things a bit.

FantasyAndHope · 22/09/2016 18:36

not physically need
sorry ive rambled like dd. Short and simple dd wants to redo maths to get an A*but couldnt attend the sessions due to another club so head of 6th spoke to her in the corridor and then later tonight after the club

needastrongone · 22/09/2016 18:46

So, she has asked, via email perhaps (?), to re-take maths but not attend the sessions. Do you think she's capable of getting the A* without attending the sessions? By which I mean that perhaps she was extremely close anyway or that she will be tutored maybe?

Without knowing the circumstances around the other student not attending the sessions it would be difficult to make a comparison I think, unless they are exactly the same as your DD's?

Unless I've got it all wrong, which is definitely not beyond me Smile

needastrongone · 22/09/2016 18:47

Like I said, I may have completely misunderstood, so apologies if I have!

catslife · 22/09/2016 19:01

I thought the same as you need.
It must be very difficult trying to help with a situation like this over the phone fantasy. Personally I think your dd needs to work out which is the highest priority - resitting Maths to go up to A* or improving her French to A level standard. It may not be possible to do both as well as her A level options.
There was no A* when I was at school and resits were much rarer but a friend tried resitting an O level subject to go from B to A. She regretted it (result didn't go up) and wished she had just concentrated on her A level subjects.

FantasyAndHope · 22/09/2016 20:26

need
She was 4 marks off the A* the other student is wanting to go into medicine. It's not the circumstance that has annoyed me its the fact of how the teacher commands himself around students, most of the year find him difficult to talk to, 1 girl has a severe eating disorder last year and felt she couldn't talk to him.

Original poster
OhYouBadBadKitten · 22/09/2016 20:35

It's hard when there are difficult to talk to teachers, but it does really help if they can learn strategies to cope with them. At university I remember some really scary tutors who took a huge amount of courage to approach.

OP posts:
needastrongone · 22/09/2016 21:14

Fantasy, thanks for explaining. I agree with Kitten in that I think it would be great for your DD to learn strategies to deal with difficult individuals, lord I manage one at the minute and that person is hard work, had another at 21 in my first job who was possibly worse and I was 20 years younger!

This is not to excuse the teacher being hard work and having a lack of understanding, but when your DD is at Uni I rather suspect crying for a double period wouldn't be a good use of time! Sometimes it's our job as parents to help them understand this, and give them ways to cope or good examples to follow. Smile

needastrongone · 22/09/2016 21:15

Flowers again for you both though.

Original poster
OhYouBadBadKitten · 22/09/2016 21:26

is there anyone connected with Welfare that she could talk to Fantasy?

OP posts:
raspberryrippleicecream · 23/09/2016 08:07

If your DD is coming home for the weekend, hopefully you can talk it through with her and work out some strategies Fantasy.

Icouldbeknitting · 23/09/2016 08:27

Fantasy It must be a very stressful time for you, I hope that the two of you manage to talk through it at the weekend. She doesn't need the A* maths surely, not if her future study is looking to be French/history? I can't see what the extra work of the retake will get her. As I keep telling DS "you are as good as your last exam", with rare exceptions it's your highest qualification that people are interested in, the lower ones have less importance as time goes on.

needastrongone · 23/09/2016 09:05

Oh heck, just had a discussion this morning with DD (Y11) about A Level choices, as her Maths teacher says she ought to take it at A Level (tbf, she's not FM material, but good at maths IYSWIM?).

Maths and Biology on the cards so far.

I'm going to go through it all again next year aren't I?!

I promise I won't talk too much on here though, as this is Y12, but I might ask for the odd bit of advice here and there if that's ok?

Double Chemistry and Maths for DS today.

Still no news on the English re-mark.

Original poster
OhYouBadBadKitten · 23/09/2016 09:17

needastrongone, you certainly are going to go through it again! of course it's ok to ask for advice on here, it's probably very fresh in everyone's memories.

OP posts:
starfleet · 23/09/2016 10:13

Strongone - DS is the same re Maths. His teacher last year (in fact the same one who is teaching him again) said that he wouldn't struggle with Maths at A level and it would suit his style of learning but didn't think Further Maths was for him. He wasn't wrong!

mintthins · 23/09/2016 10:37

We had a new Y12 parents meeting last night. I had loads of questions (they never allow them to be addressed to the floor, one of my bugbears with the school) but spent 45 minutes telling us how to parent. 15 minutes of that was telling us that if our child has any additional support needs that we need to talk to school about it. So 30% of the time they were talking, they were talking about stuff they should already know. Another 15 minutes was spent telling us that they should be wearing 'business dress' when actually the school policy does not say that at all, and the remaining 15 minutes was the head of sixth form telling us that we had to simultaneously take complete responsibility for everything from packing their school bags to making sure they don't go to parties, and get to bed nice and early but make them act like adults and take full responsibility themselves for finding the work experience that we pay the school to organise via their award winning careers advisors. They also told us that there is plenty space in school for the "quiet study" they are expected to do. This is despite them going 30 over PAN, and that meaning that the only available space is the canteen, that apparently doesn't get cleaned after lunch.

Didn't address my questions to the staff one to one. I was so wound up by their patronising nonsense that I knew I'd lose my shit if I tried. Epic fail.

Rant over. Just needed to vent somewhere!

mintthins · 23/09/2016 11:02

I've recently n/c by the way, after someone spotted me irl. You lovely lot have been with me from the start!

MrSlant · 23/09/2016 13:12

I need to n/c too minthins, it's really hard to talk about DS on this board without pointing a big arrow at myself! That sounds like it might have been a tiny bit of a frustrating evening. What was the actual point do you think?

I had to stay off this week because we've had traumas and tears and the dropping of a VITAL subject for his degree course. I think we've both been crying at different times! After a text yesterday (when I was busy in work, we have now had words about sending upsetting texts when I'm with patients) I ended up phoning his head of year and asking him to find someone, a SENCO or anyone really because I knew he was upset. Had a call back an hour later where the actual deputy head had found my lovely boy, had a good chat with him about what he wanted and what he found hard then actually phoned the course leader DS wants to go on and got an assurance that his out of school activities would be enough with decent A level grades without the BTEC to get him in. Deputy head said when the time to apply came he would supply a personal recommendation. I REALLY like that man now.

But I am exhausted and like a wet rag. Oh and DS2 wants to change one of his GCSE options too. Give me back my toddlers Grin!

mintthins · 23/09/2016 13:28

Oh dear MrSlant that does sound like a tough week.

I often wonder about the point of school meetings. I honestly think they do it because they are supposed to, and so have to. I've been to countless pre school trip meetings, and with 3DC also "new parents of Y 'X'" and they are often the same. I think I was just disappointed because I truly hoped for better. At least some mention of how they have managed to go so far over PAN (plenty of capacity locally, so not that) and how they are going to finance it, given that we've already had two begging letters for school funds this term. I just wish they'd realise that the parents who are prepared to come out and sit on school chairs for an hour on a Thursday evening are not the ones who need to be told to ensure their kids wear clean clothes to school. The hall was rammed, and lots of families with both parents attending. That level of engagement in Y12 is surely exceptional, and a quick, "wow, we're so glad you could come" before launching into a speech about how much time is wasted at Orthodontist appointments would have been nice.

Must stop moaning! DD is going out for a coffee with friends after school today. That is a BIG first. She was so excited. I can't imagine her doing that last term, she is just so happy!

Icouldbeknitting · 23/09/2016 13:50

MrSlant I'm glad that things have resolved but it can't have been good to live through.

I thought I was going to get away without a Y12 starter evening but I looked on the calendar for last year and it looks like they have one at the end of week three. How they communicate that to us remains to be seen, if they are relying on DS passing on a message he'll remember the week after the event.