Thread 30 Covid Cohort, Mad March Hareing Towards Exams

[OrangeCinnamonCroissant]

This is a thread for supporting all young people post GCSEs 2020, regardless of their educational setting. It is respectfully requested that all are supportive and helpful to each other. If you want to start a debate, e.g state vs private, please don't within this thread. Please also be sensitive when responding to threads about grades.

Some of us have been here since first thread back in yr10, some will be new. Everyone has been friendly and helpful in the past. Everyone is welcome. It is hoped this will continue.

Our DS/DD may go down various paths (such as employment, apprenticeships, higher ed) We have decided for anyone interested they will most likely find us within the Further Ed board.

previous thread 29

I've made this one a little bit earlier as things are so busy, at home and on thread, so please feel free to use up previous thread first

I think the difference is Birmingham isn't first come first served.

Thank @crazycrofter. Hasn’t it been open for a while? I am sure DD picked her 6 ages ago.

Ahhh I see! That does make a difference, how sensible!

@mummyinbeds not inside but we walked past it and it looks the same in age and design to Rutland.

Had our last ever parents evening tonight - all still online. All DDs teachers were very pleased with her progress this year, and extremely happy with her mocks.
We are going up to Norwich tomorrow for her offer holder's day at UEA on Saturday, and then hopefully she can make her final decision.

2/3 mocks are now A*s for DS, still waiting for Physics, but he feels it went well. I am so proud of the way he is managing his rejections, just focusing on A levels and (more importantly for him?) his ridiculous power lifting targets - he can now deadlift 220kg - so much more important than getting university offers?!

Even if I think it is a bit ridiculous, I think it is really good for mental health to focus on what you can control, which for him right now is his body.

Great mock results @Monkey2001! And he sounds so sensible about the rejections too. Funnily enough I was talking to ds last night about twins we know, one of whom does better academically. I thought that would be hard for the other one and he said ‘it’s not all about school you know, maybe the other one can bench 100kg’ But he’s right, there’s lots of other important things in life. If your ds has to take a year out I’m sure he’ll really benefit from whatever he ends up doing.

@crazycrofter, absolutely. I am afraid I am completely unexcited by the fact that DS can bench 130kg (I have only just managed to get his numbers into my head as they was over me when he talks about it) but it definitely contributes significantly to his happiness!

@Seeline we have our last one tonight. The last 7 years have flown by! Enjoy Norwich - we were up there two weeks ago visiting DS. I also can't believe he is in his final year (assuming he passes 😃) - he has loved UEA.

Thanks @GoldenRuby - that's good to know your DS has enjoyed UEA. We have holidayed in Norfolk for the last 2 years and love Norwich. It's currently DDs first choice, so hoping the offer holder day confirms this ..... Need a good look around the accommodation while we're there. We saw the Ziggurats last time we went and DD was not impressed!

@Seeline they are marmite! My DS was in the village, which worked really well for him.

The Village is definitely on our itinerary for Saturday 🙂

well done @Monkey2001 DS, it does sound like he's good a great head on his shoulders. I've no idea re bench pressing but assume that's a good weight to lift and great he has other focuses. DDs involve hockey and going out, oh and going out some more ;-)

@crazycrofter re you're comment previously about taking breaks, DD has been ok in some mocks to put her hand up and leave, but not in other exams. It seems to depend on where she is sat in relation to the door and how stressy she is finding the exam. She has managed about half and it helped, although I've got to wonder how long she wastes thinking about leaving etc but at least she got to trial it.

Good luck with visits over the weekend. Funny to think I've had my last parents evening - it was a while ago now.

I'm off out out this morning to meet a friend for breakfast before I go to work later. DH is in bed as he was really sick in the night, DD is in bed as she doesn't have her last mock until 1.00pm (apparently she told DH she wants to go into school around 11.00am so will be interesting to see if she manages that..

@Monkey2001 same here, I just asked ds and he can bench 100kg, which means nothing to me but I’m guessing is quite good for a 15 year old?!

@Seeline hope the offer day goes well.

@heifer dd is in a separate room too (also at centre’s discretion) and she doesn’t leave the room, she just lets the invigilator know and turns over her paper. I think if she had to walk out in front of a large hall of people, that would create even more anxiety!

@crazycrofter I think benching 100kg at 15 might be "insane" in the modern lingo!

Haha @Monkey2001 it probably is! He’s put a lot more hours into his gym regime than his GCSEs though Hopefully that will change!

@Oblomov22 just remembered that your ds took roaccutane and hated the side effects. Ds is similar - constant nosebleeds, muscle aches which impact his workouts, headaches etc, but he’s determined to complete 6 months and he’s nearly there. His skin is good! How long did it take for side effects to wear off after your ds stopped taking it?

Great results Monkey and your DS is doing wonderfully to stay focused.

@Piggywaspushed I don't recall DD having anything to do with predictions - just given by school via the reporting system in the normal way without input from us. They are saying its what she should achieve (at parents evening a couple of weeks ago) although I doubt the chemistry. Seems a daft system, if they are being inflated to get kids offers they then won't reach?

DD has just been told that she now has a Biology mock in two weeks, including a topic they've not done and have just been told to learn themselves on top of the homework. Its a flagged topic on the list so not unimportant.

Need to talk to DH about his loans etc if he needs those details for student finance. Seems odd that parents loan details are required?

Lots of schools suffer from masses of pester power form students and parents in terms of UCAS grades. It is indeed daft but we can't be seen to be holding back kids form their futures.

I heard today of a parent who sued their DD's school because of the TAG s!

Thanks for the empathy and advice about DD. It’s so helpful to have this space to unload my worries about her.
I’ve tried to talk to her about helping her, which she agrees to but then blows her top when I suggest how she might revise. It’s a common theme atm - she offloads her worries and anxieties onto us, but then refuses to listen to anything we might say to help, telling us we don’t understand, don’t know what we’re talking about, she hates us, we’re annoying etc.
Every day with her is a psychological wrestling match. It’s exhausting.

Last night, as an example:
She demanded that I buy her York notes in Hamlet, so I looked on Amazon. CGP notes actually get better reviews, and I know that they are more engaging for someone like her than pages of dry text, so I suggest buying them instead. She argues that her English teacher always gives out pages from the York notes, to which DH quite reasonably suggests that the more variety of study notes she has, the better…at which point, DD told him to shut up because no-one had asked for his opinion, and then told me not to buy either book, because CGP is childish and she wished she’d never asked me and that’s why she won’t let me help her.

@Piggywaspushed thanks for your explanation (several pages ago!).

Notts people, do any of you understand how the accommodation booking will work? I looked at it the other day and it seemed to say you need to register before you can book. I tried to do that but DS didn't get anything confirming registration. Are you meant to do it all on the same day?

@Alsoplayspiccolo I'm sorry you're having to deal with all this, it sounds just so exhausting. I get a much milder version of this from DS2 when he is stressing but it's not as relentless. Deep breaths and gin?

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn DS registered for Nottingham accommodation. I have no idea if he got an email but if I go on to the accomodation pages and click apply now, it lets me login (as DS). It then has an option to create an application but this can't be done until 4th April.

Thanks JustHere. Relentless is exactly right.
I've almost, almost got to the point of walking away and leaving her to sink or swim in the exans; you can take a horse to water and all that. The only thing that stops me is knowing that she will almost certainly sink, because she just cannot get on with things in an organized way in the way NT kids can. If I've done everything to help her, at least her results will be what she's capable of, good or otherwise.

I apologise if they may appear to be a dumb suggestion Piccolo. I have a daughter who I believe does not have, thankfully, ND traits that many of you here experience. But she has the usual high performing, highly strung, competitive but self loathing cycles that come with many, especially girls. And at times right now, she acts worse than a 13 year old on a bad day.

Before you either withdraw or keep trying to offer your DD support that she regularly rejects, have you ever written to her? I mean writing about why you so what you do as a parent, and how she makes you feel, and ultimately, what does she want in the way of support from you (or not)?

The challenge, if she doesn’t see, at calm and rational moments, is that you will not be able to support her in the same way next year unless she defers, or worse, doesn’t make her entry offers as a result of her spiralling. She’s clearly bright, just feels out of control.

It can’t be easy if you get little respite between her attacks, so if you are able to put the onus on her, step back and see if she responds constructively, it will give you and her some measure of actions and consequences, treat it like a contract. Which may mean sink if she doesn’t play ball, but hopefully not if she can see and be drawn back to the terms…

Before DS started A Levels I'm sure I saw a chart showing the link between GCSE results and A Level results - so if you got a 7-9 GCSE then how many percent went on to get an A, B, C etc at A Level?

Has anyone else seen a chart like that? I've tried googling to no avail. I wonder if it was one of our old threads that I saw it on