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

Bit quiet here today

We're all busy elsewhere. We need some year 12s to explain how social media chat apps work!

Whistl is working very hard on a new format which will.be easier to compartmentlise and still be private and easier for MAW to navigate.

easier for MAW to navigate
😂

Pity thread is quiet, I prefer this format.

Hi Sost. I have pm'd you.

I do miss the 'flow' of this thread.

I think we will go back to educational stuff here and others on the other side!

What about which masterclasses, summer schools, work experience etc our Dc are doing? Is that on the other side? Or are they too well-attended to be outing?

Slightly on a side note, but I've been looking at evidence of how quickly school fortunes can change today. Traditionally there has been 1 secondary school on the Isle of Wight which received a good OFSTED and 5 or 6 others, all of which performed below the national average. The good school received a dreadful OFSTED a few months ago, mainly for financial and senior leadership issues. Their offers data has been published today, with 150 places unfilled out of 271 available. Other schools have been over-subscribed for the first time, even the some taking more than their PAN. This going to have a huge impact on their budget and presumably their academic profile. They have had around 35 DC allocated the school who had not even put down a preference for any school. It's a faith school, but I imagine that those families concerned about the faith element will be in a minority for the first time.

whistl i think that will be over there too

Am here! Lurrrrkinnng!

Thanks bobble for pm.

Sticker this is so true - out of my class of 30, only 5 have put our local Academy first this year, compared to an average of 10-15 5ish years ago. Despite their excellent Ofsted, a few parents used the new data tools to identify that this particular school does not produce expected progress for their most able children (whereas they do a great job with the children coming in at a low level).

Playground chat disseminated the information and their numbers (from us, at least) have plummeted.

Just a call out to regulars on this thread who may want to join in with a "separate private" chat page on Clustee to contact me by PM if you want to join in. I will ne messaging some later if you haven't already received a link.

The ridiculous thing is that it is still the only school on the Island which gets over half the pupils through their maths & English GCSE.

I saw another mention of the 3 universities which are hovering on the edge of bankruptcy in the press earlier. Does anyone know which 3 they are?

I saw that article on the WIWIKAU group today.

Universities publish their financial statements on their websites, so the information is there for anyone who wants to look.

Me, read accounts for fun! I shall take a look at 2 of the suspects. I used to audit one, so I used to know their accounts well.

Found it. Well DD won't be going there then.

Would you like to tell us sticker to save us finding the accounts?

I haven't looked at for the 2 up north, but Chichester looks decidedly dodgy. Solent & Plymouth were also on the shortlist, but are fine.

On November time it was rumoured one NW (think very far NW) and 2 South Coast.

So what is it that is putting universities in trouble? Increasing costs or falling revenue?

In a bid to stay competitive there needs ro be investment of a capital nature. Some of the more prestigious unis will be able to get private investment or even donarions to ensure they have top labs, top equipment etx whereas my understanding with one up north in particular is they have to borrow to do this, are then not perhaps getting enough bums on seats to cover all costs etc and therefore they are at risk of trading insolvently. It is a vicious circle situation because if they can't compete with the up to date tech etc students go elsewhere!

Maybe their solution should lie in developing their Arts offering and not doing lab-based sciences at all?

It is a great base to offer things like Geography from and all the English students can be inspired by the scenery!

More seriously, if they weren't struggling to meet debt repayments then they would have the capacity to charge less per head in tuition fees, low accomodation costs and create an arts centred environment that could actually attract famous authors etc

I'm really not sure why universities feel they have to be comprehensive in their offering these days. Isn't there several hundred of them? It was different 50 years ago when there were so few, naming them all could have been a pub quiz question.