Year 12 #1 - GCSEs are sooo last year!

[bpisok]

New thread to see us through to Christmas?

In today's school newsletter:

"Congratulations to all 203 students who took part in the
Senior Maths Challenge, achieving 51 Gold, 58 Silver
and 65 Bronze awards. Fourteen students qualified for
the British Maths Olympiad which will take place at the
end of this month."

Feeling a bit glad that DS gave up Maths A level! A lot of competition at his school. (One of the 14 is a year 9!!!)

That’s insane !! Very well done to them.

I wonder i I

Phone going a bit weird !

I know you’ve got your head screwed on Jackie but I wonder how many parents and dc realise that that’s not the norm

Yes - I wonder too. It is a bit of a rarefied atmosphere especially around maths/science at his school as the bulk of kids take these followed by Economics/PPE type subjects.

DS dropped Maths before half term and he has visibly relaxed now he just has History, Economics and Geography and EPQ (he wants to read History at Uni). I mean relaxed as in not fretting as he is working very hard at his essay subjects. It now means he is one of the "better" ones in those subjects rather than one of the "lower" ones in Maths despite a 9 at gcse. This is where I have to remind him it is all relative and he would be top set Maths at other schools in the area.

When DS3 did the IMC in Y11 at his old school only 4 got gold and only DS3 and one other got into the kangaroo. That’s a bog standard comprehensive of 250 in a year group, though probably only 30 or so took the challenge.

In his sixth form there are only 11 doing FM and only a handful of them got a 9. I think his experience is more typical of the country as a whole.

He still hasn’t heard his result. I think they like to print off certificates with the results on rather than tell them their score beforehand. His maximum possible score if he got everything right isn’t enough to get into the Olympiad, so it’ll be a more ‘average’ result!

All quiet here (literally as I have an ear infection)

Dd is coming home tomorrow to watch Ds in his Youth theatre show & she’s been to a Christmas lights switch on tonight with a friend so hopefully her social woes are improving.

Have a great weekend Alex

I am seriously concerned about DD and her A levels.

She says she is struggling with physics A level and tutor has told her she needs to revise more but she isn’t because “no one else is” and “everyone else is struggling”

she is at local College doing her A levels rather than school, we have had no contact with them in regards to her progress (or lack of). She completely flipped when I suggested that I contact the College. She says she has now asked about parents evening/progress reports but they don’t know - I don’t really want to go behind her back and contact the College anyway

She does not seem to have learnt any of the lessons from lack of revision with GCSEs, when she didn’t get the results she wanted.

She does not want to talk about it, she constantly pushes us away. She doesn’t want us to infer and wants to be independent but do I just sit back and watch her fail

Twinplusone may not help very much but DD1 took Physics to AS alongside English, History and Geography and also really struggled up until Christmas, when it clicked.

Twins I would definitely sit tightly on top of your hands and not get in touch as this stage, however frustrating it is. Do you have some kind of parent handbook or calendar which will show you when there is a parents evening or how they can get extra support? Our handbook suggests when you should contact the college and who the right person is. In most cases though it should be the student themselves who seeks help (unfortunately).

twin I am feeling exactly the same. Dd is keeping up with homework but doing nothing else and for her it's computer science that she's occasionally not getting.

She casually told me the other day that they'd done something last week that she didn't get but it's ok because they've moved on now

It's frustrating because she started so well in September but she's back to her old ways now.

I've done a bit of light nagging this morning and she has done one bit of homework but she's gone out now and she has plans all day today and tomorrow so that's it for this weekend.

I think it's the first time I've had to interfere since pre exams and she didn't take it well. I know I should back off and let her do it herself (or not) but I know from past experience that I can only hold out so long before I lose my rag and shout at her about wasting opportunities.

Sorry no solution. Just sympathy

Congrats on all the BMO results! abitofastate so glad your DS did so well, hopefully it will be a bit of a boost for him. He’s been through such a lot. DS hasn’t had his result yet but I don’t expect it to be stellar!

Twin and Kick sympathies. I can remember moving from my (small) comp to a sixth form college and the sense of freedom and being under the radar it brought. I think sticker is right though and it’s best not to get in touch with the college yet. Hopefully as things settle down and they are faced with assessments the penny will drop. I semi-read the riot act to DS the other day who I think is doing just enough and no more. It’s incredibly frustrating when you can see that they’re potentially storing up trouble for themselves later but at least it’s still Y12 and not Y13!

Similar sentiments here as ds is doing the preps but the the plans to consolidate notes and revise as he goes along have gone out of the window. He now has d&d as added distraction. They don’t get a huge amount of homework either - I’d say he averages an hour a night and a couple of hours at the weekend. But I remember cherry’s wise words of leave them be for a while and not blight things with nagging, they are going to school and engaging and hopefully there is still time to put the graft in if/when they want to.

They need to find their level as well. Ds acknowledges he worked really hard for the last six months of gcse but just didn’t have the motivation, drive or interest to do that for two years. It may be that he has to settle for less stellar grades at a level because of that but he is not naturally driven or a grafter (more laid back, funny etc) so it may be that a course/job that those stellar grades would lead to is not for him anyway. I think for gcse s we could push them to work to lay a base level but we are getting to a point where they have to find their own path. We can of course encourage and help them find support then they want it

goodbyestranger I am particularly worried about physics as not DD strongest subject. Just home from pinning her down at Costa to share my concerns with her. She assures me I’m worried about nothing 🤞🏻

stickerrocks resisting urge to interfere but so hard. We don’t have a handbook and no information on College website. I know it’s part of letting go that I need to get to terms with

kick completely feel your pain, seemed like DD had turned over a new leaf in September but back to old ways again

Oratory and Cherry wise words thanks 🙏🏼 too early for ?!

It’s never too early for Twin. Or

It's weekend, crack open the bottle ! Taking advantage of the empty nest and have tickets to a sporting fixture tmrw - just wondering if I can follow sticker's example and put something in my coffee cup to keep the cold at bay :)

This afternoon I am sipping a Tiger Gin with Clementine & cinnamon tonic whilst watching the Southern Hemisphere sides scare the home nations, celebrating a victory last night.

It Is so hard not to interfere. DD gave me ructions last week for emailing someone about another problem, because I was "treating her like a child", but it did get the desired result & I couldn't wait any longer for her to sort it out herself. Meanwhile I had frantic text messages yesterday asking for help because her season ticket for last night's match was somewhere completely inaccessible to us both. Mum to the rescue again with a bit of lateral thinking!

Oratory wise words. DS was the same though I must say he's working a lot harder now than he ever did for GCSE. His problem is not being good at organising himself. He's got into trouble a couple of times for forgetting to hand in homework that he actually had done but left behind. I have told him as a teacher myself I know just how irritating that is!

stickerrocks it’s soooo hard not to interefere

I agree. I have a feeling the parents of two DC from DD's year at school are wishing they had interfered before they unexpectedly became grandparents this month with no warning.

Oh stickerrocks

It certainly puts discussing about marks in the SMC into perspective!

Shit!

I'd freak out. I know, it's not the 'right' reaction, but no just no.

My oldest has a new girlfriend and now I have the strong wish to talk with him about contraception again!

DS1 has had a girlfriend for about five months. As soon as it became a serious thing, I gave him a lift somewhere (he can't leave the room if we're in the car plus we don't have to make eye contact) and repeated my condoms-alone-are-not-a-reliable-form-of-contraception lecture, then sent him the clinic times for the nearest sexual health clinic and said they could either go there independently or I could take them.