Parents of Year 12s - exam time again! (oh no!)

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Just noticed we were running out of thread!

I think I'm going to get my tax return sorted out nice and quickly this year to try and make that easier Raspberry, thanks for the heads up.

Some shared room but plenty of singles at Durham. Dd1 doesn't want to share. She is wanting to look at Trevelyan College as they are supposed to be musical.

I've just finished Uni myself so am pretty up to speed on loans etc. My advice is don't sent original documents and log all contacts.

so they wouldn't be forced to share if they didn't want to?

I'll suggest to dd she takes another look. I think she quite liked that at Durham you can take extra modules that have nothing to do with your main subject.

OYBBK - they can have the choice re shared bathrooms. Some rooms are ensuite - the ones we saw in Leeds had a tiny shower and a loo but washbasin in actual room, some were shared "Jack and Jill" type bathrooms between two rooms in the new(ish) build halls whilst in the older ones the bathrooms are on a corridor shared between approx 4 rooms. Obviously you pay more for your own bathroom.....

The course at Leeds DS has expressed an interest in also has the option of taking a 10 credit module with a subject unrelated to degree subject.

bathroom is fine for her, sharing a bedroom is not apparently (don't blame her!) I've said we will help with having a single room, but we are not paying for an ensuite.

Warwick seems to be good for taking a language alongside whatever degree you do. I don't know how well it works in practice.

Quite a few do the extra language module. Uclan certainly do.

I'll suggest she looks more closely at that then. Warwick seems to be the one that stands out on dds list.

DD is another not keen on the idea of sharing a room.
She wasn't happy when she discovered she'll be sharing one for 2 weeks at her summer course!
I told her it's good life experience and she might end up making a friend for life. (I'd hate it though, so completely understand!)

She's been to a uni masterclass today. Managed the train there all fine, haven't heard much from her except that lunch was really good!
Now she's just got to get herself home again!

Just got DS's internal exam results, and the school has used the new 1 to 9 grading system. I know I'e had this explained to me but can't remember and can't find a simple explanation online. Can someone explain it to me in words of one syllable, with particular reference to the equivalent of an old-school A*?

At GCSE the new system is 8&9 are both A ish. Officially the 8 should be a little easier to get than A, and the 9 is supposed to be a lot harder, but we don't really know as we haven't had any results yet.

Muffin your ds got his internal A level results in the 1-9 grading? I haven't heard of anywhere else doing that for A levels. There are no plans to change the gradings are there?

As MrsAD said though, 8 is like a bottom A star ish and 9 is a top A star ish.
Then 7 is an A ish, 6 is a B ish
5 is a top C ish, 4 is a bottom C ish.

Lots of ish because nobody really knows yet until this years results come out.
With a dd currently in year 10 we're all still pretty baffled.

Thanks, dragon and lobster. That makes more sense. I got the results by email yesterday just before going out so didn't have time to look into it properly - now I understand why all the info I found related only to GCSEs. I panicked a bit because there were 7s, which I thought were Bs, and DS needs A*s.

It's a mystery to me why the school are using this system, but we have a parent-teacher meeting tonight so I can find out more then.

Dd is gutted with internal exams so far.
The whole English class got D/E's in gothic literature there marks look fine but when applied to grade boundaries they look terrible. Dd is the best in the class at gothic too and was hit by the grade boundaries. Shakespeare was a U which she knew but she had a fair few problems with computer timing issues from the teacher in the exam.
History-Russia the whole class have failed due to lack of good teaching.
History-Stuart's she's yet to find out her results.
She needs AAA but her head of sixth has being supportive in terms of her ill health etc...
She's being in floods of tears

Muffin it's certainly unusual to give A level results in 9-1 format when their grades are going to be letters. It seems rather odd to me, we give all ALevel grades as letters, although lower down the school they are all changing to numbers we're doing a LOT of guesswork because nobody knows exactly how easy/hard it will be to get those number grades yet.

Fantasy that doesn't sound good for your dd. I hope things improve for her soon.

Dd has another maths exam this afternoon, M1 this time. She's not worried about it, she seems to think it's easy, and maybe it is compared to M2 which she takes next week.

Hello everyone, I wonder if I could join this thread? I have a dd in year 12 who has just taken ASs. She is predicted Cs but we are hoping she will get at least one B.

We haven't done any uni visits as if she only gets three Cs I can't find anywhere with that tariff that she'd like to go to!

She would like to teach primary school eventually so will need a degree.

I am getting worried reading this thread as we havent been anywhere to see anything as if dd doesnt get good grades she won't get in anyway iyswim! fantasy I read your dd wants SOAS but didn't do so well in her internal exams. What is she predicted and will you go and see it anyway?

Welcome Mercime

I am beginning to feel a bit left behind as well. Looking at the required grades for lots of Unis they seem to want all As which I am not sure DD will get. The whole process of applying to Uni is a mystery to me.

Ms
I suppose the only bonus is they all done badly
mercime
Predicted apparently comes from these internal exams, she's still going to the open day.
She's had one R.S back a B and a C
I suppose the only good thing is head of sixth said dd could resist her exams if she doesn't like her predicted grades because of her ill health. However it seems in all her classes the students haven't done well, they have been marked according to alevel mark schemes and not As mark schemes don't know if this makes a difference?

Dd definitely won't get As

I am leaving open days until her AS results when we'll know more. There are lots in September and October. I just don't want her to go somewhere and fall in love with it and have no chance of getting the grades!

Welcome Merci. Has your dds college got anyone she can talk to about options? I know a friends lad is doing a foundation year which will lead into being able to do a degree. I don't know how the funding works, but it may be worth looking into.

A fair bit of dds remaining few weeks this year is towards UCAS applications. They've said that they will be starting the process for apprenticeships a bit further down the line as deadlines for those are different.

Fantasy, your dds school must know what they are doing (I'd hope), presumably they get a good number on to decent courses? I think that if this years cohort are really underperforming compared to previous years, they'd make a massive fuss.

The tool on university.which.co.uk allows you to filter courses by predicted A level grades if that's of any use to anyone. You do hope that they get all this advice at school/college but I assume some get brilliant advice, most get some help and some get nothing of any use.

College had a day last week where the students started filling in their details on the UCAS form. DS stuck his hand up and asked how he entered his music exams - no-one knew. It took me less than twenty seconds for the internet to come up with the answer.

Welcome, mercime

Don't feel left behind. I think you are right to leave open days till the autumn. My DD (now just finished her second year at uni) did the same because she thought there was no point until she had her AS grades. And this time round with my DS, we are only going to bother with one or two, and will wait for offer holders' days instead.

A lot depends on predicted grades. If your DD does OK on results day and can persuade her teachers to predict optimistically (within reason) it will widen her options. And some unis will accept students who firm even if they don't make their predicted grades (as my DD discovered. It's a very different economy of grades when you are looking at the middle-tier unis rather than the top 10.

kitten's suggestion of a foundation year sounds well worth looking into. I have a friend whose DS did one and is now studying for an English degree.

Fantasy I'm sorry to hear things are not going well for your DD. Maybe the school wanted to give the students a bit of a shock with the marking and they've gone too far? In one way it's reassuring that it's the whole cohort and not just her, but it sounds as if the school has some issues to address. I hope things improve soon.

Thank you. She thinks two of her subjects went better than predicted, so we'll see.

DD was told there would be lots of emphasis on UCAS and next steps for these few weeks, but in actual fact she seems to be coming under a lot of pressure to choose her English Lit theme and books, and also get History research topic. She was hoping for a bit of breathing space.

So for her third English area head of sixth teaches her
The class broke in tears over results etc.. and he told them to stop stressing and that no-ones results are representative of what they can do and dd can still get AAA, she has work that shows she is capable of more than her exams have produced and the fact she missed 1/2 term due to illness. Head of sixth said he was expecting way less U's given just how ill she has been.