Year 12 #3: Open Days and Predicted Grades beckon

[whistl]

Yikes! The title has just hit me! It's too soon! I'm not ready!!

Thread number 2 link: https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/further_education/3443840-Year-12-2-Carols-commutes-a-few-stocking-fillers

Bimkom DS is really enjoying this year despite a few bumps on the way - changing one subject early on, then dropping one and working much harder than he has before - but he settled into a new sixth form really well. He's learned a lot about organising work and revising. The hard way - but he's learned!
Options night last night for DS2 - he's going for history, computer science, DT and music on the very sensible grounds that he likes them and does well in them. Interestingly, the computer science teacher is already talking about degree apprenticeships, which is good because I don't think apprenticeships were mentioned at all last time round.

That’s good loose. DS school held an ‘apprenticeship evening’ this year. I’m hoping DS will get as much support and time provided at school for job applications as dc do for ucas and ps etc but we’ll see. The school are probably learning as they go as much as we are without that bank of experience they have with ucas.

Bimkom dd is like a different person compared to last year.

This time last year I was cajoling / bribing / nagging her through every bit of revision. I virtually did her English language GCSE with her. It wasn't that she didn't want to work. If she just hadn't cared I might have left her to it more. It's that she wanted to but didn't know how, didn't understand revision and just found the whole thing overwhelming and stressful. This was coupled with some health and friendship issues which made the first half of last year quite difficult.

This year has been so much better. She is completely self-sufficient with homework, planning and getting herself to and from college. She seems to have grown up overnight. Academically she is doing so much better because she's only doing the subjects she loves. It feels a lot less pressured despite her doing one AS this year.

I think moving to the sixth form college was the best thing she's done. It removed her from a difficult friendship situation but more importantly they are treated much more like students, not children and the quality of teaching is so much better.

DD has found this year comparatively easy. She's doing subjects she loves and really enjoys the teaching style.
She's absorbed in lots of school clubs debating (local competitions) history and politics club (press ganging members and inviting speakers), environment (made the school plastic bottle free and organised branded refillable bottles with the proceeds going to charity) and is head of house (organising house music, drama, chess and charity days etc)....so her school days are pretty full on but she loves it!
She has also started working every other Saturday, plus she still trains and teaches her sport (combined 7 hours a week).
One of the best things is that she gets roughly 4 essays per week but has a week to hand them in so she can organise herself and her time. She has def grown up in the last year or so.
I think it really hits home when you realise that there's so little time left at school and it's only 18 months before they could potentially be leaving home and going to Uni!!!!

Would you all agree with me though that it was the experience of doing GCSEs and maybe going to a new sixth form that was the catalyst for our DCs's sudden maturity?

DS has learned the important lesson that what he does and does not do will have a direct effect on his life. Before Year11, I think he just drifted along not feeling empowered.

Question: is a MN thread the right place for us these days?
Remember how the threads suddenly filled up within hours in May when the GCSEs started? How so many of us have had to name change, not to hide our identity from each other, but from lurkers?

Would there be interest in migrating to a private FB group? TBH I don't actually use FB, except for another private FB group but I think I'm right in saying that it allows file sharing (photos, pdfs, spreadsheets etc)

I have been wondering the same and wasn't brave enough to suggest it!!

Your right on the impact of gcse but some of that may just be from growing older and emerging from adolescence.

Also ds like many dc and especially boys only really work at either what they enjoy or what they can see has benefit. It was a real struggle to make himself learn biology terms to fit a mark scheme or why a poet wrote in a certain way - but he feels that every piece of work he does now is helping him towards his chosen career

Happy to go with the flow on a move or stay put

I don't do FB but I am in a closed Cluster group and that works very well - you get an email whenever there's a new post.

I've never heard of Cluster. Is this it?
cluster.co/

I don't want to push anyone into doing something they are uncomfortable with. If the consensus is to stay on the MN thread, then I'll be happy to carry on as before.

Sometimes though i feel uneasy about how identifiable I've become to those who know me or know DS. And I'm about to narrow it further by posting info about attending taster days, master classes etc

I'll go wherever you lot want to or stay.

Bimkim DD is absolutely flying this year. She has always taken responsibility for her own learning and we have had a couple of issues with procrastination (the joy of having so many free periods each week), but she loves what she is studying and is so enthusiastic about the next steps. I think getting away from some particularly toxic so called friends has helped enormously.

The school are probably learning as they go as much as we are without that bank of experience they have with ucas.

Oratory I think you are right. My DC’s head of science said that he realised that because all the teachers followed the traditional path of A levels, degree, job they tend to recommend and support kids into it. So it’s a mixture of their personal and professional experience being mostly on one path.

Whistl that's the one! Happy either way but I do take your point about lurkers.

Shall we wait a day or two to give everyone else a chance to log in and say whether they'd be happy to move?

Peggy what do you think?

Move to Cluster, i meant.

I'm not very good on all these different apps. I will look up cluster and get back to you all tomorrow.

There could well be other good ones - I am not very up on the apps either! Willing to learn more!

Thanks for all the replies, really interesting.
My DS is already pretty mature this way (I think actually, having two GCSEs last year, one of which he tried to wing until after mocks, really drove the message home. He seemed in a way to grow up in parallel to your lot. And I am slightly furious that the school he and DD attend, supposedly because of the "new GCSEs", are taking that opportunity away from DD, Year 8, who I think has maturity issues anyway as a summer baby. I really think an early GCSE, even if she didn't do so well, would help her immensely for the main set).
DS is working exceptionally hard, and takes full responsibility these days, all I do is feed him and buy new protractors and such (and be the butt of periodic meltdowns, as the stresses are immense).
But I guess I am worried about mental health and stability, getting over this GCSE hump only to hit more pressures.
I confess, for what its worth, I really enjoy lurking here because of the window it gives me into next year (just as I enjoyed mostly lurking last year). I would miss you all if you went to cluster, although that is not a reason not to move.

I hope you weren't thinking that my post was inspired by you, Binkom. You aren't the sort of lurker I had in mind.

Just before I logged into MN and put the post up, I had just been on a whatsapp group chat and I was in share-with-the group mode. So, it jarred a bit as I reminded myself not to post a couple of bits of news as they are too identifying to be published without being able to limit who sees it.

I hear what you say but I think although the workload and things they get involved in hasn’t eased it seems less stressful. May be it’s that they know what it means now and gcse was fear of the unknown. They kept being told gcse s were difficult and important etc etc but not they have experienced it and come out the other side so better able to manage the next stage.

I think there is also an element of choice now. DS has friends who are doing three A levels and very little extra curricular and have lots of free time to relax so although he is busy he had options to drop things and make space.

I think stress will build closer to when actual mocks and UCAS applications start. Having to have certain predicted grades is at least one stressful thing to consider.

But most of our dc now have the validation of a good set of gcse s behind them. I’m not saying it’s not hard work and stressful but I think it is different to year 10 and 11

I dread to think what sort of profile someone could build up on me, given that I've probably contributed around 5% of our thousands of posts without a name change.

There's definitely more ownership of what they're doing. I think all of our bunch are enjoying their courses, whereas last year they were all taking something they disliked alongside the good stuff.