GCSE'S 2019 Done, Results Received, Moving on to 6th Form and College

[ArthurtheCatsHumanSlave]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3671029-gcse-2019-support-thread-6

New Thread for all our DC's moving on to 6th Form and College to do ALevels and BTEC's, and anything else exciting and new.

Ah here you all are!

It's ds's first proper day at new 6th form college today. I think he's feeling a mixture of excitement and apprehension, but luckily there are quite a few friends going with him and he will have History and Politics lessons with a girl down the road he quite likes 😁

PE is Weds afternoons and he's already done football trials so he's hoping for a place in the first or second team.

ROZ we've not had exam board certificates yet, just school printouts.

I guess we have to wait until all remarks are done and dusted.

DS starts college today. he's looking forward to it, the college did a few taster days for the DC who had accepted offers(on condition of grades) so he's met a few new people already, plus a friend is doing the same course.

Unfortunately we've moved about the country a bit so he is well versed in starting afresh and is confident in it. But I wish he'd had the stability of going through school with friends from the beginning, as DC who haven't moved about seem to have more self confidence in general.

Ds1 gets certificates in december.

The grades need to be verified first.

maud I think our dc are doing the same a levels!

Dd got a piece of paper with school logo. Believe we're invited to a certificates evening in November...
Moobaa try not to worry about how many times dc have moved schools. At least they know they do make friends at the new place... Dd has been with some of her so-called friends since reception. She is desperately looking forward to making new friends with a bit more oomph - her lot are a bit staid, boring and flakey about meeting up!

Well that would stand to reason hoooo given their mums think so alike on so many things .

DS has chosen an 'Early Modern' route for History, which surprised me a bit, but it sounds interesting; Tudor England, French Revolution, US Civil Rights. I see many Hilary Mantel books in his future

His third A-level is Media Studies which I was a bit unsure of but he is excited about, and god knows kids need a proper understanding of how the media works these days. Well, we all do...

Ds has gone for geography as his 3rd.

His friend is doing media :)

Just to say ds' GCSE print-out was just that too, no school logo or anything. College accepted it ok, I think they may have received the grades separately anyway.

Does anyone know re remarks if there was a major discrepancy with how a paper was marked eg English changed by say 12 marks would all the papers marked by that person be changed or re-examined?

Has anyone got there English exam remarks back yet? I'm only interested because dd got a distinction in speaking but a 6 overall, 6 marks off a 7. She doesn't want to risk a remark and it hasn't affected her A levels but it was her strongest subject. If news filtered through re Mark's drastically changing I might persuade her to go for a review. We've got till the 19th to decide.

She had her first full day yesterday plus a fair bit of homework. Loves her French class, less sure about Psychology. A fellow student informed her that her Mum was making her get drug tested and did dd have any tips on how to not get found out re smoking weed. Dd was 😱

I never understand the negative attitude to media studies. I would have thought media and comms are incredibly important in today's world.

I requested my Dd to do media studies but she said it’s frowned upon but it’s the future with all this social media stuff!

I’ve asked her to drop sociology .

She is doing psychology and BTEC business will it look too soft if she does media ?

Our school advised the kids to pick A Level subjects that they enjoy but with a mind to what they wanted to do at the end of the 2 years.

Universities/Employers aren't generally looking for applicants who spent 2 unchallenging years acquiring 3 soft A Levels, although naturally it does depend on the Uni course/job role.

They don't come out and say that Media Studies is a soft option not well regarded by Universities but they definitely steer the brighter students way from it.

Do Sociology and Psychology not sort of complement each other ?

My dd has no idea what she wants to do.

They compliment but also getting a bit confused and heavy going.

My daughter had her class lists online the day before she went back and was pleased to see another student was in all the same classes. She'd had occasional wobbles about whether people would think her subject choices were strange (maths but no sciences), but not being the only one doing them, plus having met an older student on a summer course who had chosen the same combination, has reassured her that it's a good set.

Working out that her maths class was all students who'd done Additional Maths last year was also good news - she doesn't want to do Further Maths, but had briefly worried about getting bored if she was in a class where a lot of the Add Maths content had to be covered first.

Just rowed with dd - first real row (I know - Very lucky) about priorities (because when something is time sensitive it needs doing now.......especially when my name goes on the email that sends back the info). She has worked hard this holiday, don’t get me wrong, but a week for her to send a text message (apparently she was always busy doing something I’d asked her to do —apart from the text which i’d Asked over and over about— and on night 13 finally switched on her laptop to discover 2 months of updates so she couldn’t print down the forms needed for day 14........ ?

So of course I’m the worst mum ever because she didn’t do fun things (err yes you did!) just helped me........so despite shelling out a small fortune and getting her ready in 2 weeks whilst I worked full time I should be more considerate.

I give uo

Well ds has come back with his timetable. He's got Monday mornings off, and Friday is free until 3pm when he has one lesson - he's not sure whether to be pleased or not about that...

He had a good day, really enjoyed it, and is now sat upstairs getting stuck into his first lot of A-level homework! Then he's off out for the weekend and may grace us again with his presence on Sunday afternoon...

I got a phone call today from his learning support mentor at his old school who is passing on all the info to the new place - she said how much she missed him, sweet!

Ds1 has nothing til 1.15pm on tuesdays and fridays.

Daughter is doing maths, philosophy and English literature.

The timetable gives her Thursdays off, which I am pretty sure will not be used totally productively.

DD2 did well in her GCSEs but didn't want to stay at her school and do 6th form. She has ASD and dyspraxia and exams were stressful for all of us!
She's decided to do a L3 BTEC in Creative Digital Media Production which is 3 days a week and is going to work part-time in a local children's nursery for the other two days.
She's only just 16 and sees this as a way to step out from under the shadow of her very academic elder sister so I'm very proud of her.
She's had her induction day and met the two other girls on her male-dominated course but doesn't start until next Wednesday. She's come from a single-sex school so this could be interesting!

@FiveHoursSleep I'm impressed with your DD filling in her non college days! (DS plans to practice his BMX skills)

@fabtasticmrpox I think all papers from a school are looked at if 10% of papers are marked incorrectly. This means at least 10% of papers would have to be reviewed to ascertain that. I think

My DSs school is claiming a high % of grades at 4 and above in a certain subject. It's a small school. I know several of DSs friends received a surprisingly low mark. I am asking for DSs paper to be reviewed as I cannot believe his highly academic friends genuinely deserve the grade awarded. I accept DSs grade is probably accurate, but if his friends grades can be so seemingly askew, I'm willing to risk £50.

Lynette, she started at the nursery for some work experience as she wanted to do some babysitting and had nothing to go on her CV.
They were so impressed with her they offered her some hours during her non-college days. She's only on 7 hours a week so it's not too strenuous but she'll end up with £50 a week which will be a big deal for her!
Also she can do more hours during holidays.

Wed PM is sports for most colleges as that's when they have matches against each other.

DD2 is completely shattered, struggling to type up her notes and do her homework, but has now discovered that Google Docs does voice to text so that takes a lot of the work off her. She's put together a plan for keeping on top of things whilst managing to pace herself, and she enjoyed her first psychology class, which she wasn't expecting to.

I imagine it’s a hell of a lot to take on board ..particularly if they’ve moved into a new school or college. Dd seems tired- she came home and did some homework and research but went to bed pretty early.

Fos sorry to hear about the row. It’s a stressful time..hopefully a bit of a rest over the weekend and it will all be forgotten