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

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

here we are.

Dis is taking the IB diploma and has no free periods. Lessons every day from 8 until 3. I think he went to bed at 9 every night for the first three weeks! He also has 4.5 hours of rugby every week, coaches football and has 2 hours of tae kwon do so not much free time at all.
I took A levels back in the early 80s and had quite a lot of non contact hours - those were the days!

dd has 4.5 hrs per A level subject as well. There is also one period of "careers", a tutorial and one period of RPE. A period is 45 mins and most lessons are "doubles". The standard college day is (roughly) 9 til 4, so some days seem long to her (these type of hours were normal when I was at secondary school.
There are some days where she doesn't need to be at college until 10.45am. For the first few weeks, she has been having a lie-in on those days. This week she has started getting up earlier and doing some work before college, so that's a step forward.

Dd has 4.5 hours per A level subject a week (x4 a levels so 18 hrs per week) plus 6 hours per week free study periods and 1 hour of pse/career stuff. School day is 8.50 until 3.10 and we live very close - 5 minutes walk. School have said to aim for 16 hours of study per week. She is making the best of her free periods but realistically only achieves 45 minutes per hour of actual study at best in those. She does a couple of extra curricular things after school and works 6 hours per week at her Saturday job. They have to log their study time with task and benefit and form teachers check it. It does maybe baby them a bit but she says it helps to keep her focussed, so doesn't mind.

Dd has just come home to a letter saying her RS has been upgraded to an A*. She is very pleased.

Had a call from DD she got a B on her history essay she's extremely disappointed with this highest was an A. Asked her why didn't she get higher and it turns out she simply needed to expand her points further. Told her not to be so hard on herself and that as long as she isn't getting the Same marks at the end of the year it will be ok. Why don't they listen to us?
Anyone else have DC's that are extremely tough on themselves and by the way this is normal isn't it to experience a drop in grades at the beginning of alevels and they'll slowly pick back up?

I think there is definitely a drop off in grades to begin with, until they get into the swing of things, particulary with essay based subjects.

My friend's DD started off with Bs and Cs but moved upwards during the first few months.

They need to learn exam technique all over again, it's not just a brain dump of content but needs structure and presumably command words again.

DS got a B a couple of weeks ago and to my surprise went and asked what he would have needed to have done to have got an A.

To put it into context she got 14/20 on a history essay and her friend who got the A got 16/20. I've told DD this is not a bad mark! She is so tough on herself

Great news on the upgrade NoHaudin, congratulations!

Fantasy I think a B at this stage is fantastic. I certainly wouldn't be expecting them to be producing grade A work in their first half term of A levels.
Although saying that, I have no idea what expectations should be at this stage.

Dd had her target grades as predicted by ALPS (which I don't completely understand but I think it's based on GCSE data) but I imagine predicted grades based on mocks etc (January I think??) will be more realistic.

Well done to your DD No Haudin, she must be really pleased. DS had one go up, and one stay the same.

I would think the essay subjects take some getting used to to get to A Level standard. I remember this being so with English in particular from my own time, the analysis needed to be so much more complex and you don't have the skills initially.

Welcome Lime, I have a Y11 and a Y12, so GCSE's next year for us again, and DS doing 2 AS's as his subjects haven't moved to linear.

DS has had a promotion His maths teacher wants him to mentor top set Y11 Maths instead of Y7. Which will be interesting, as it's a different curriculum that he didn't cover....but good to learn new skills....

I am sorry NoHaudin because I missed your exciting news. You must all be very pleased.

Thanks need - it's going to be a busy few years exam-wise. And our year 11's are the new 9-1 guinea-pigs too.

Fantasy - a B in History sounds great at this point. DDs whole class did very poorly on their first bit of work but the teacher said that was pretty much to be expected with the step-up.

Dd has had three essays returned - all As! Find that difficult to believe tbh but there it is. Don't think biology is going quite as well though

Thanks everyone for the congratulations.

fantasy I would expect grades to be lower to start with otherwise what is there to learn. Dd is only just doing her first history lesson. I think she will be disappointed if it isn't an A but she is hard on herself too.

Welcome limeandchilli
Congratulations NoHaudin

DD is doing 3 subjects with 4 or 5 hours teaching per subject which leaves plenty of frees. This is really important as she is severely dyslexic. She is doing 1 BTEC and 2 A levels that are still "old style" - e.g. mainly coursework. It's keeping her very busy, but she much prefers this than being reliant on final exams. No grades yet, so fingers crossed. Congratulations to all of you with grades already - they all sound great.

I've reassured her it's fine. But she's still stressing. The dog has chewed her retainers on the other hand and now she is fretting her underbite will come back she's had them off for just over a year I said she should be fine till I can get her an appointment which is hopefully Friday and then I'll post them to her at school. She should be fine right?

Fantasy. Your DD seems to be quite stressed by a lot of stuff. This is said as an observation, absolutely not a criticism. . I know she's had a rough ride. Would it be a good idea to look at ways of helping her manage stressful situations rather than each individual circumstance? Either by talking to the pastoral care team, a GP, or doing a workshop or whatever you feel might work?

I don't know your daughter, so may be way off the mark. Sometimes it's giving them strategies to cope, rather than specific solutions.

My own DD can be like this. For her as an individual, not pandering to it too much works best and never rising to the emotion myself. Which might not work for your DD obviously!! She's calmer when I am calmer. I don't manage always though!!!

need
On the whole she's fine she's far from stressed I know her well enough to know when she's stressed. They are just expected to do so so much more in sixth form life besides lessons and it's taken it out of her.shes tired and ready for a break, the retainer thing she's stressed about because she had a bad underbite and ovbiously doesn't want her teeth to go back to that as she will be going 1/2 weeks without a retainer
I can assure you she's fine, was just a shock going from A*'s to b's she's loving sixth form life she much prefers sixth form and has a great unit of ftriends.

DS1 managed to speak with the head of sixth form about how stressed he is and how behind he is with his work, but he can't remember what was said in the meeting or what the outcome was.

He has managed to negotiate with the school that he will go to Learning Support (quieter and smaller than sixth form centre) to study on the days when he has several consecutive study periods.

Instead of using the half term to catch up with his work and get some much-needed rest, he wants to do NCS.

thesecond
See she's not behind on work or stressed with it the only day she hates is Wednesday as she has 9 periods+extra curricular activities and just 1 free. She would love to drop games but games/p.e is compulsory at her school.
shiney
If she was stressed I would ring boarding house and school and do a plan of action but she's fine, and I don't want to ring school and put a plan of action into place when she's coping like she should.

F&H I didn't mean to imply that your DD was stressed, my post was just meant to be an update on DS1 after I shared earlier this week how much he was struggling.

Does your DD get a half term holiday soon? I think that might help as a break from her busy schedule.

thesecond
Yes 21st DD breaks up for a week then she has 6 weeks before she breaks up for 4 and half weeks off.

She's just tired,nothing else she's got an appointment at the doctors in 1/2 term as I think there's an underlying issue with her periods and I think that is playing a big part in her tiredness and she is particularly emotional around start of period the slightest thing can make her very emotional at that time of the month