Year 12 #1 - GCSEs are sooo last year!

[bpisok]

New thread to see us through to Christmas?

Congrats on the academic scholar recognition brainmelt & cherry!!
....no GCSE certificates here but she has brought her Art portfolio home (now just need to sneak it into the bin without her noticing hahaha).

bpisok surely you can't mean that??! DS collects his one Saturday morning later this month. Then, hopefully, closure over Art GCSE! His old school hasn't mentioned anything about certificates so I had better investigate.
Brainmelt very well deserved award - well done to DS!

Huge congrats to your DS brainmelt. I suspected you would have the same good news .

Great news brainmelt how nice to be recognised. Well done to DS.

No sign of certificates here either. I imagine they will appear soon.

Ha ha cherry. I don't mean to take away any merit from DS coz he worked his socks off but my admiration goes to all the DC that achieved through added obstacles like yours cherry and many others in this thread.

I follow all the adventures re universities, masterclasses, lectures in this thread but feel really out of it as DS firmly going the conservatoire route which involves a whole other stuff... I'm guessing the dancers may follow that path too.

Loose- no, I am probably going to put in the loft. Some of it is really rather good but I have no where else to keep it.

bpisok I knew you wouldn't really - but I'm totally with you on the where to store it dilemma! Looking round the dining room, for example, we have bags of stuff for charity, stuff waiting to be donated or recycled, two cello cases, a music stand and a huge bean bag - that's in addition to what should actually be in there, and it is not a big room!!

Congratulations to Cherryburn’s and brainmelt’s DSes on their scholarships! Great to have that recognition of hard work.

(Noted Cherryburn’s Are they at the same school?)

We put the paintings up in our beach hut. We've had a cull though because four of the DC have now done Art. Sometimes I'm banned from putting a particular piece up because they hate it so much. Lots of people stop to have a look, which is nice. Makes the hut very colourful too (and keeps it out of our tiny house :)).

Yes, congrats on the scholarships. The school DD4 was signed up for (but didn't go to in the end) gave out academic scholarships along with £300 or so as a gesture off the fees. Nothing financial at all seems a tiny bit mean, but perhaps that's more usual these days than the £300.

brainmelt congratulations to your DS!

I love this thread, because I can feel proud of all your DCs' achievements.

Thanks brainmelt, that’s a really generous thing to say . Re going the conservatoire route, nearer application time there’s usually a thread in Higher Ed for those with DC going in that direction (and drama schools/dance) to chat about it. You’ll have to stay on this thread too though!

goodbye I’m actually fully supportive of the school’s stance on scholarships. They already have one of the best bursary schemes and they have big plans to extend it even further in the next few years. I do think more schools are moving in that direction. DD was also awarded a sixth form scholarship at her school which was worth £1k per year (and she wasn’t the only one) which, while very nice, felt a bit wasteful when they were also trying to increase bursary provision.

DS had a Rugby match yesterday. In the dining hall afterwards, the school had put up the photos of the 1913 First XV and the details of where they had all been killed over the next 4 years.

All! The Rugby Paper today listed those internationals who were lost during WW1. Over 400 former pupils of my old school served, but only (only!) 57 died.

Brainmelt What do they play?

sticker 490 of DS’s school’s old boys fell in WW1. The boys have created small porcelain crosses for each man and placed them around their war memorial. Firmly in my mind during the silence this morning.

thefirst what a sweet thing to say
cherry thanks a lot for the tip re conservatoire thread... However I'm also on anther thread and it's already impossible to keep up with both let alone three!
sticker PMd you.

Very moving to know how schools are joining in the WWI remembrance.

My Great Grand Father survived the Somme, got shot in the back (running away?) captured, escaped across Belgium and made it back home again. My nan would have been 4 months old at the time. We have the postcards he embroidered and sent back home whilst he was in captivity.

Very moving service for us too with every name of those from the school that died read out. It took a while !!

So pleased the weather held too not just for us but all in London too

Yes I'm glad the weather held too. Pages of the sea was an extraordinary idea from Danny Boyle. Thanks for the link to the BBC programme tonight whistl. My Scottish great uncle Bertie wasn't so lucky on the Somme Stickerrocks and I have all his letters home from August 1916 when he went to France until October when he died going over the top, and then the official telegram, a letter from someone with him in the same regiment and all the subsequent letters between his brothers and sisters. It's a sobering collection. His eldest brother was a medic who survived and the next brother down, my grandfather, was a medic too who got a medal for growing sweet peas over in France and thus boosting morale. I'm not sure if that's true, or if he just didn't want us to ask further questions.

I went to the cinema to see They Shall Not Grow Old a couple of weeks ago and got swept away with the little details, like your sweet peas. Tonight I will watch it again with a picture of my Great Grandfather, just on the off chance I catch a glimpse.

DS3’s school wasn’t around in WW1 but they held the 2 minute silence on Friday along with reading the Ode of Remembrance and one of the Y10 pupils playing the Last Post on the cornet.

Thanks for the reminder of the colourised film, whistl, I’ve got it set to record.

My town did a march commemorating all the fallen WW1 personnel yesterday and we had the usual Remembrance march today. There was a special projected film onto the town hall this evening as well, 15 minute film repeated throughout the evening.

I’m glad events have been held. My grandfather fought in WW1 as a cabin boy (and WW2 in the combined forces) and I lost a few great uncles. My nephew is a soldier and has served in Afghanistan 3 times as well as Irac, so it all seems a bit close to home.

I can’t listen to the Ode of Remembrance followed by the Last Post without shedding a tear. It didn’t affect me when I was younger but as my DSs have grown up I get much more emotional, especially it being the centenary of the Armistice.

*Iraq

I agree, Ellen - as our children reach 17 and 18 it becomes more real, rather than a national ceremony.

Well done cherry to your D's and you! this thread moves so fast I can't keep up! So congrats, well done and get well soon to all I missed!