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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:
Flowersandthorns · 01/09/2016 20:10

Well DS registered for the course he is less keen on and discovered he needs a uniform today. We then had an interesting trip to a workwear shop looking at steel cap boots and overalls. Not quite the same as the stuffy uniform shops I am used to looking at blazers etc. He is very tall and slim and made everyone chuckle when he came out of the changing rooms wearing overalls double his width. He was reassured that he will get on the course on Monday - it is the same college just a different campus - so we will see.
Hope everyone's DCs are feeling calm and ready for the next stage.

needastrongone · 01/09/2016 20:21

Evening all.

Ellen, that's really crap about the results/courses. Fucking politics. Tis' all.

Egg and chips is a perfect bad day meal Kitten, I hope you feel better soon.

DS made tea tonight, stir fry!

Welcome NoHaudin, Flowers and ICBW.

Fingers crossed for your DD NoHaudin, a lot to cope with indeed for you all.

needastrongone · 01/09/2016 20:21

Evening all.

Ellen, that's really crap about the results/courses. Fucking politics. Tis' all.

Egg and chips is a perfect bad day meal Kitten, I hope you feel better soon.

DS made tea tonight, stir fry!

Welcome NoHaudin, Flowers and ICBW.

Fingers crossed for your DD NoHaudin, a lot to cope with indeed for you all.

Original poster
OhYouBadBadKitten · 01/09/2016 20:35

not a bad day, the opposite, sorry if I gave that impression, I managed to escape real life for most of the day, it was just physically knackering!

OP posts:
EllenJanethickerknickers · 01/09/2016 21:02

Go Ape, OYBBK? Wink Grin

baringan · 01/09/2016 21:09

Hello all Smile

Dd1 has finally finished all her summer holiday tasks. God knows whether anyone else bothered with them. She struggled with the RS essay. She really does tend to waffle and things get a bit garbled Hmm Her biology drawings are excellent though. Bless her, she is a grafter. Its given her a taste of A level and I think she's feeling a bit worried that its going to be harder than she thought. I tried to reassure her by saying that she would have the back up of teachers and lessons before her next essays!

Bought her some new jeans and tops and a backpack online today.

I'm really tired and quite anxious. Being at home with 4 dcs doesnt help. Can't wait until they all go back although will be worried about dd2 who is going full boarding for a week, then will be a day girl at a new school. All change, except for dcs 3 and 4 who stay at their lovely local primary.

Original poster
OhYouBadBadKitten · 01/09/2016 21:20

hilarious thought Ellen Grin

OP posts:
2gorgeousboys · 01/09/2016 21:44

I can't believe it's only been a week since I opened a second bottle of champagne (on a Thursday shock horror Shock ) to celebrate DS1's results and now we are on a new thread ready for year 12!

DS has spent today doing some prep work for History although I think it was only because it was a better option than tidying his room!!

starfleet · 01/09/2016 21:46

DS's first "proper" day in 6th Form today. They were in yesterday but more of an informal thing - doing "team building and stuff". That was the run down of the day I got when I asked so I am actually non the wiser as to what they actually did!

School have changed his timetable to allow for a change in one of his subjects which is good - I think he was stressing a bit. He has one double free period a week - I'm
hoping that it will be put to good use.....!

He is having one of his subjects reviewed - was told on results day that the dept weren't happy with what we thought was one of his papers but they want to review two. He was 1 UMS off an A* on two other subjects so on speaking with school they are also being reviewed. We shall wait and see what happens.

FantasyAndHope · 01/09/2016 22:00

DD has sorted everything and is preparing to go back. Meanwhile the dog is currently sulking but the bite is now a lump on DDs leg with bruising. Who knew a chihuahua could bite so hard?

NoHaudinMaWheest · 01/09/2016 22:00

starfleet only one double free a week! That sounds like an intensive timetable. Hope the remarks go well.

littledrummergirl · 01/09/2016 22:22

Hello and welcome new people-sorry I am so tired I've skim read. Thanks for the flowers.
I had to work today and leave the dc to fend for themselves. They were amazing. Cleaned up after themselves and ds1 cooked them dinner before taking Dd to her training session! Shock
I'm so proud of them all for stepping up when needed.
Ds1 was being a proper grown up. Smile
I wonder how long they can keep it for? Grin

starfleet · 01/09/2016 22:38

NoHaudin - it is pretty much a full on timetable with most of his friends having similar - some have lessons running into lunch hour and one has no free periods.

The thing with the reviews is that if anything went down by a couple of marks he wouldn't be any worse off grade wise so it's worth a try.

TheSecondOfHerName · 02/09/2016 00:01

DS1 goes in for his induction day tomorrow. I will of course ask him how it went, but would put money on the answer being "It was OK."

Trufflethewuffle · 02/09/2016 07:45

DS3 will be staying for 6th form but we are not sure whether he will study 3 or 4 subjects. School are suggesting 3 and I am inclined to agree.

The difficulty is that he wants to do Film Studies, Biology, Geology and Economics so three of those are new subjects for him. I'm having a meeting with the school next week and am going to suggest that he starts all 4 and we review (with a view to discarding one) after the week 7 tests which they do after half term.

They don't go back until next Friday so we have time to think and discuss.

Good luck to everyone.

ITCouldBeWorse · 02/09/2016 07:52

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

cloudyday99 · 02/09/2016 08:01

truffle DSD is in a similar position, school recommend 3 only, given her not brilliant GCSEs but have agreed that she can start 4 as it gives more flexibility for one to go wrong. Only one of hers is a new subject, but it's still a big step up from GCSE to ALevels so I think that's good.

She's back for induction today so will see how she's got on later. DS meanwhile doesn't start till the 13th, so it's planning a week of Pokemon Go and teaching himself to make pizzas next week. And possibly a bit of maths practice in preparation for the upcoming test which he needs to do well in to stay in the double maths set

needastrongone · 02/09/2016 08:23

It's a hard one isn't it, how many A Levels to start. Especially new subjects I would imagine. I think we will be in the same position next next with DD.

I've looked at DS's timetable again and counted the study periods after the posts above about free periods. DS's timetable is over 2 weeks, standard for the school. Physics and Chemistry have 18 hours over 2 weeks, obvs 9 hours a week. He's doing Maths and FM, but the total number of sessions is less.

DS is less fussed and said 'will prob be right, will check with my mates' and he's too laid back for his own good, and if he's not back with a satisfactory answer by the end of next week, I am emailing school...

Independent study is marked differently, so it's not that.

TheSecondOfHerName · 02/09/2016 08:38

DS1's timetable is 6 hours of Biology per week, 6 hours of Maths and 7 hours of History. Not sure why History requires the extra hour.

Icouldbeknitting · 02/09/2016 08:41

One of the presentations I went to early on said that there would be 4.5 hours tuition per subject per week so I knew that there would be a lot of free periods. This was one reason that I enabled DS to ask to start a fourth to A/S only, several of his friends are taking music and music technology and he wanted to do that too. I thought that was shutting down too many options too soon given that they are only taking three A levels. The compromise is that he's going to be doing music tech for the first year, it's still unreformed so there is still an old style A/S at the end of the first year. I'm assuming that he's going to fritter away his free periods so they might as well be filled with something constructive. Hopefully when music tech falls out he'll be close enough to seeing the end of it all to be panicking and make better use of that free time.

Hello to the people I haven't spoken to before, I'm not myself at the moment so please don't think that I'm ignoring you.

#nodognow

TheSecondOfHerName · 02/09/2016 09:15

ICouldBeKnitting Flowers

cloudyday99 · 02/09/2016 10:07

Are you sure those are hour long lessons needastrong? DS's (state) sixth form gives them 4.5 hours per subject and DSD's (independent) one gives 6 or 6.5. 9 hours per subject, if they did 4 subjects would be 36 hours a week, which wouldn't fit in most normal school timetables, especially if you add on a bit of tutorial time, enrichment, etc.

4.5 per subject is very little though I think (and 6.5 for double maths). Most students at DS's sixth form will have only 13.5 hours taught per week. All very well saying they're learning the skills for future study by working independently, but can't help thinking it's unsurprising that independent schools get better results when they've given kids so much more teaching time.

needastrongone · 02/09/2016 10:29

Cloudy, you are right, I am wrong. Smile. In fairness, the VLE isn't quite up to speed yet, a lot of work has been done on it over the break. So there's some reformatting still to do, but still, my bad!

I've looked again, with my 'new format' head on. DS has 4 or 5 hours of Physics and Chemistry, depending on which week it is (split over 2). With Maths, which is all called Further Maths, so confusing, he has 6, then 7 hours, again, depending on week.

I wonder if some of the Maths A Level work is covered in the FM syllabus? I think I might ask.

Doh to me!

Flowers Knitting. I am sure your lovely dog will have had the very best life.

needastrongone · 02/09/2016 10:30

split over 2 weeks, so 4 one week, then 5. Brain. Engage. Today. Please.

cloudyday99 · 02/09/2016 10:44

I think if they're doing FM, they do the entire of the A level maths syllabus (usually in L6, and take the exams at the end of the year) and then the further maths syllabus in U6.

But they might just put it as FM on the timetable.

Your DS has exactly the same hours as mine then, I think.