Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Further education

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

Half way through Year 13 and the last school year.

999 replies

OhYouBadBadKitten · 14/02/2018 20:14

eep.

OP posts:
Icouldbeknitting · 20/03/2018 08:44

doistayordoigo this is my worry, DS has been holding an unconditional since the end of November but has been waiting for a response from somewhere else. Last week he decided he wasn't waiting any longer and UCAS fixed it so he could accept the offer despite not hearing from the others. DS has had the email about accommodation this morning, if he doesn't get a place it will be the end of the world for him.

derekthe1adyhamster · 20/03/2018 09:01

nettle not The Woman - my best friend played that part!

How many grades can they increase by from mocks to exams do you think? I'm just wondering whether we need to seriously rethink. DS thinks he mucked up maths with poor exam techniques (he really wasn't in a good place at all mentally during mocks) and has since got an A in another maths paper.
Hopefully he is attending lessons and getting his head down, but he does seem to have planned an awful lot of fun things planned over Easter.... I guess the advantage of boarding school is that there are tutors around in the evenings

FantasyAndHope · 20/03/2018 09:36

The issue was ursula it was a half term romance where the boy wasn’t interested so they weren’t actually in a year long relationship in the boys mind there wasn’t a relationship so the girl couldn’t get it.

Nettleskeins · 20/03/2018 10:12

Doistay which uni was that had run out of accommodation? Not Hull by any chance?? [help!]

Derek the mathematician children I knew of (who got A*s), all did the fun things at Easter as well as getting their heads down! Maths seems to be instinct as well as hard work. Whereas English and History and French just need the effort as well as the instinct.

I've read over ds's coursework that was graded a U, and it seems to be alright really, (compared to before which was just hot air)full of good stuff. There seems to be some technique that he is not getting and will never get and I certainly don't know what it is! And the teachers are not able to enlighten either me or him because it is meant to be "independent". He has made several changes but somehow the freshness has gone out of it, and it seems incomprehensible again. I don't mind if it is an E anymore I feel done with the whole rigmarole...why can't they take make them go as a compulsory task them to the bloody theatre!!!! Instead of asking them to do coursework on something they will never ever understand by reading the mere text about middle aged/old people...

UrsulaPandress · 20/03/2018 11:33

I really don't want to read DD's coursework as I know I will start to pick it apart and that won't be helpful for anyone.

TheSecondOfHerName · 20/03/2018 11:42

DS1 has written about 20% of his History coursework. It's due in this Thursday.

OhYouBadBadKitten · 20/03/2018 12:04

Dds coursework is far beyond anything I could write. I feel very thick when I read it. I'm reduced to making encouraging cooing noises over it.

OP posts:
UrsulaPandress · 20/03/2018 12:09

DD's is her English coursework and that is what my degree is in.

Although that is such a mangled sentence you might not believe it......

OhYouBadBadKitten · 20/03/2018 12:16

Grin Ursula.

Dds coursework is in a field related to mine but either I have no brain cells left (very possible) or her ability far surpasses mine (also very possible)

Sadly I am not a useful critic anymore.

OP posts:
OhYouBadBadKitten · 20/03/2018 12:23

Blush I didn't mean it in a boasting about dds coursework sort of way though it looks exactly like that. It was more of an expression of my redundancy and impotence in her academic life now.

OP posts:
Nettleskeins · 20/03/2018 12:32

it's when ds uses words like "espouses" or "connotates" that I feel shifty. I'm not sure he actually knows what they mean.

I like the cooing Kitten. I should do more of that.

well today I hit rockbottom, ended up in Morrisons with sacks and sacks of "easy" food (like pizza and fancy ravioli)that I then had to give back because my card bounced. The ready meals were returned and the bill miraculously returned to a doable amount. A lesson for ds perhaps. You can live off tinned tomatoes pasta and a packet of sausages and a large tub of coleslaw and some potatoes for a long time...

Nettleskeins · 20/03/2018 12:41

ursula maybe they have got a lot more intertextual in their critical responses. When I was at university I would just write about what I thought the writer "meant" to say, not what he unconsciously represented or expressed. Or whether he she was a part of their cultural programming and how this was reflected in some secret code/structure. I find it most exciting, but I think when you are young you can get overly politicised in your responses to literature and lose out in sympathy and wonder..

UrsulaPandress · 20/03/2018 13:09

Quite. I'm not sure DD ever 'feels' the story. I used to write about my feelings and reaction to stuff. Much more scripted now.

starfleet · 20/03/2018 14:55

Glad things have worked out for your DH derek - it must be a huge relief and thankfully a weight off your mind now.

I haven't posted (although lurking as per usual) in a while and it seems like things are moving swiftly for DC's.

DS has his sodding EPQ to finish off which seems to be taking forever...

Student finance has been approved - had the letter at the end of last week. He just needs to confirm which universities now... he can't decide which to put as his first choice. He thinks it's 75% Liverpool but is still considering Newcastle. I might make him write a list of pros and cons for both to see which one comes out on top....

Icouldbeknitting · 20/03/2018 15:05

I was a chemist, my writing was short and factual with lots of numbers in it. I then went on to be an accountant - short and factual with a minimum of numbers because otherwise the reader would glaze over and run for the hills.

This afternoon's job was the submission of accommodation preferences based on walking distance, size of bed and number in flat (although the flat size of "3-8" was not altogether helpful). For those yet to do this, please have the conversation about length of contract because there may be a choice between 40/45 and 51 weeks.

chocolateworshipper · 20/03/2018 17:32

Ursula I don't know whether you've already seen this on social media, but it did make me chuckle.

This is Biff.
This is Chip.
This is Biff and Chip's homework.
Biff and Chip are required to write down ten examples of fronted adverbials.

Biff and Chip have not a fucking clue what a fronted adverbial is.

This is Mum.
Mum has not a fucking clue what a fronted adverbial is either.
"We don't know what a fronted adverbial is," whinge Biff and Chip. "This homework is impossible. You will have to help us."
"It's not my homework, it's your homework," says Mum, thanking her lucky stars that she did not have to engage in any of this fronted adverbial bollocks when she was at school.

This is Dad.
Dad still struggles to distinguish between a noun and a verb, and would not know a fronted adverbial if one came up and punched him in the face.
Biff and Chip think for a moment about asking Dad for help.
They decide to Google instead.

This is Mrs May.
When Mrs May went into teaching she honestly believed she would be able to spend her time helping children to love learning. And putting on plays. Mrs May loves a play. She did not realise that a love of learning would not feature on the National Curriculum at all, and that she would instead be forced to meet a series of impossible and continuously moving goalposts which successive governments would put in place, and have to teach her classes about ridiculous concepts such as fronted adverbials which, in all honesty, are only ever likely to be of use if they end up becoming professors of linguistics. Or primary school teachers.

If truth be told, Mrs May has not a fucking clue what a fronted adverbial is either.

This is Floppy the dog.
Floppy holds no truck with fronted adverbials.
Floppy eats the fronted adverbial homework sheet.
Floppy knows that he is a fucking liability, and waits to be told so.
No one is more surprised than Floppy when the entire family gather around and tell him "Oh GOOD dog Floppy."
Floppy feels this is proof positive that some good can come from fronted adverbials after all.

Later at school, Biff and Chip are, for the first time, able to legitimately use the excuse: "My dog ate my homework."

Mrs May breathes a secret sigh of relief that that is one less set of incomprehensible and entirely incorrect homework that she has to plough through, and suggests to the class that they will all put on a play instead to celebrate.

Nettleskeins · 20/03/2018 20:27

there, I didn't know what a fronted adverbial was, and now I do. They are lovely bits of grammar aren't they...
by the light of the silvery moon
all night long
way down in Alabama
a land down under
by the rivers of babylon

Ds2 and I have been watching the first act of Salesman on youtube with Lee Cobb. Ds2 (who is studying Drama gsce) sat patiently through until I gave him a reward bribe of a shortbread after 20 mins, at which point he declared it incomprehensible.

HesMyLobster · 20/03/2018 20:50

I love the Mrs May fb group.
There are lots of brilliant spoof Biff and Chip stories.

I'm another one in the appreciative noises group. When DD asks me to read an essay these days I'm lucky if I understand half of it, never mind offer anything constructive!
I have learned a LOT of American and Russian history though this year.

UrsulaPandress · 20/03/2018 23:22
doistayordoigo · 21/03/2018 07:14

Nettle Not Hull, it was De Montfort

starfleet · 21/03/2018 08:43

I am not allowed to read any of DS's work. Apparently I am far too critical.

He accused me of making him use "too many words" when I read through his PS and made some suggestions.......

I have no idea what a fronted adverbial is.

Nettleskeins · 21/03/2018 13:04

The owl and the pussy cat went to sea,
In a beautiful pea green boat

in a beautiful pea green boat is an ADVERBIAL

By the rivers of Bayblon,
Where we sat down
And there we wept
when we remembered Zion

of those lines, By the Rivers of Babylon is the FRONTED Adverbial.

because it comes in front.

I think....

"where we wept" is not adverbial because it does not describe a verb, it has a verb already..

I presume

[eagerly awaits the experts]

Nettleskeins · 21/03/2018 13:07

I did a deal with ds today. I picked up his A string for his violin on condition he watched a black and white version of Salesman from 1950 in his lunchbreak on his phone. Neither requests should have been necessary.

chocolateworshipper · 21/03/2018 16:35

The fronted adverbial is defined in the national curriculum as (deep breath) “a word or phrase that is used, like an adverb, to modify a verb or clause and has been moved in front of the verb or clause”.

They start teaching it in Year 4. YEAR FOUR!!! I somehow got an A in English O level without having a fucking clue what a fronted adverbial was. But I'm sure that the future of the British economy is brighter because our children will know what a fronted adverbial is.

HesMyLobster · 21/03/2018 16:36

I have an early finish at work today which coincides with DD having a double free this afternoon, so we occasionally meet in town for lunch.
Admittedly today we spent most of the time with a history textbook between us, revising the Watergate Scandal, but it's so lovely to spend time with her, and I realised this afternoon how few of our lunch dates we have left before she goes off to university Sad

Swipe left for the next trending thread