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

Next year I’ll have 1 doing A levels & 1 doing GCSE’s and GCSEs is going to be much harder this time round (as in ds walked out of some of his year 10 mocks harder, even his favourite subject.

No uni open days for dd but I’m hoping to take ds to some college open days to look at music courses, I don’t think he’ll be up to A Levels.

A lot of firms are automatically putting their graduate trainees onto apprenticeships at the end of their degree. They will end up with exactly the same professional skills and qualifications as those joining from A level, just 3 years and a load of debt later. I've seen a definite increase in major employers taking on more school leavers and fewer graduates. That route is definitely not to be sniffed at for tech, engineering & finance roles.

Forgot to say that my DC has a place on an outreach scheme in London in July. They hadn't considered looking at London universities because of the living costs, but the scheme will definitely contrast with their other choices.

That's a law place in London BTW.

Numbers - happy to answer any questions re law if you have any at any point.

Thank you!

DC's uncle is in a fairly niche role and simply says don't do it!

Just been looking at the higher education threads again & I hope we'll stay snuggly over here in FE for another term or so in a less dog eat dog, more supportive atmosphere.

How did all the AS and end of year exams go?

Glad we've got to half term and end of tests. DS1 gets a week off (we are finally going away on holiday - not been abroad since last summer). One test result back and very positive. Official predicted grades released in July.

Next half term will be manic with Parents evening, prefect ball, concerts. We'll need to squeeze in UCAS application somewhere!

Yes, some of the threads in HE are very scary! I am avidly reading the 25% Oxford one which has become very heated.

Still waiting for exms here - no AS but internal exams for predictions in late June.

So have all the prefects been Year 12s? We don't have sixth forms within secondary schools, so we had all of that last year.

It's looking increasingly hopeful that my DC will get the predicted grades they want, which 8s a bit of a relief. It sounds as though they are not up for negotiation,regardless of how many jam doughnuts the students buy their teachers!

The London outreach place looks as though it will be great fun. They have tickets for the theatre, walking tours and trips to relevant sites, as well as taster sessions at various colleges. It looks as though they are pushing the "loving London living" side of things as much as the universities themselves.

Numbersaremything the London outreach thing sounds like a valuable experience whatever they decide to do.

The variants are health (not medicine), digital tech, politics & law and sports science. Maybe people are reluctant to commit to London prices for those subjects.

Relieved to get to half term. DS1 now has 2 weeks off because his AS levels are over and there are still some exams after half term.
It's really difficult to tell how he's done apart from suspecting they went better than the mocks! He said OCR English paper 2 was weird (and from what he's told me it was!) but he got on with it and otherwise I think the papers have been OK. Or "not disastrous" as he likes to say!
I like being on this board.

Having just looked on the HE thread, it sounds like A level English questions have also been pretty weird, not to mention some of the GCSE! What's going on?!

Off-topic but remembering some of 'our' kids' iGCSE Eng Lit fiascos last year...it's happened again!
bbc.in/2HvXqO5
I find it extraordinary that teachers/heads/exams officers wouldn't double check these things...

This happened in one of our local schools 2 years ago. They had studied the wrong Shakespeare and discovered the mistake on the Saturday before the exam. I knew one person affected and told them to not bother reading the correct play but to find a copy of York notes and read those instead. Somehow she scraped a pass.

I understand that the specification for iGCSE is open to being misread, with some texts being dropped some years. In a position with that much responsibility, I would have contacted the exam board for confirmation, especially after something similar happened last year.

"Y12: thinking about what comes next" or similar
would include those who are planning to apply for apprenticeships or jobs, as well as potential UCAS applicants.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/further_education/3596763-Year-12-4-The-one-where-theyre-pondering-what-to-do-next

I've combined your ideas but I have a horrible feeling that it's removed my punctuation.

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