Thread 31 Covid Cohort - Hopping through Easter and Revision

[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 30

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've found the timetables for last year - looking at Biology, it seems the 1st 2 weeks are a kind of introduction and welcome info re Biology & the uni.

www.nottingham.ac.uk/studentservices/welcome/school-and-department-welcome/life-sciences/undergraduate/biology-group/index.aspx

So no Freshers week with nothing to do except party - which is probably a good thing. A few 9.00am sessions to get to but mostly 10.00am - 4.00onwards and doesn't look too onerous. I only wanted to know so I would know when DD would be leaving.

That looks good Heifer, I have never been convinced by a week of nothing but freshers parties. The neuroscience timetable looks similar, except they also have a neuroscience pizza party

Yes the FB page is by an external company which organises freshers events and puts prospective students in touch with others. I think it's probably joint with NTU - they have a separate welcome week 16-23 September so that might explain the earlier start.

Looks like moving in days will be 22-24 September then, which is good for us because I am away with work from Sunday 25th.

I was listening to dh discussing booking tickets for the festival of revival at goodwood in sept. He will stay with his dd and family in Brighton Friday to Sunday. Then I looked at the weekend new students move in at Sussex university...it's the same weekend. Typical. That's going to be complicated with 2 dogs and ds3 to think about.

It’s good to know the move in date now isn’t it, so we can at least try to plan! Who knows where we’ll be living by then!? Well, we’ll have to be living in new town as ds will start sixth form there. Our house is going on the market this week. My father in law’s funeral is this week too. And we have a busy weekend at church for dh with the Easter services.

Ds has committed to doing two hours revision a day over Easter for his GCSEs, which is a huge amount for him! Hopefully he’ll be able to increase that a bit during study leave but he’s not convinced. I also finally managed to get him an ADHD appointment this Thursday - straight after the funeral. I’m leaving dd to do what she wants.

Good luck with the house sale @crazycrofter. Have you started looking for a new one yet or are you disciplined and won't start until you've sold???

Don't take my word for the move in date - you know how that worked out last time! ;-) Only joking (sort of, I won't be sure until we actually see it in black and white, which tbh probably won't be until the week before - I remember last year seeing lots of students having no idea what their move in date actually was untl the very last minute....

Haha yes you’re right, but it’s bound to be around that weekend isn’t it. I remember I moved in on 25th September 1994

I’ve been looking at rightmove for months but things go so quickly, it’s only been to get a feel for prices/areas etc.

Question for you all. What social media do your teens use / how do they keep in touch with friends? My two are fairly solitary creatures and so far only use whatsapp but I think they will at some point need to. I use FB, Insta and have twitter and tiktok accounts but I am a lot more sociable than either DC. DS (ASD) doesn't cope with group chats very well and worries about misunderstanding / saying the wrong thing. He doesn't do online gaming either. But I'm worried he will lose touch with friends when he leaves school.

Also I keep reading about students setting up group chats now for halls etc and worry he'll get left out. If DS struggles to use SM with existing friends it will be even harder with strangers.

Mine mainly use snapchat or instagram to contact friends.
I find it very odd that they don’t have the actual phone numbers of some of their closest friends!

Ds talks to his main friends all evening on Xbox live, even when he’s not actually playing Xbox - whilst revising for example He has Snapchat but doesn’t use it that much, ditto Instagram and TikTok. I don’t think he can be bothered with the faff of texting messages, he prefers just to talk!

Dd uses Snapchat most, I think that’s where she has various different groups. She also uses Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, texting/imessaging etc but not Facebook really. She sends voice notes a lot and FaceTimes her closest friends.

DD’s speciality is socialising/maintaining huge numbers of close friendships though She is regularly in touch online with around 15 or so friends from school, a similar number from her old school and I’d guess around 20 other close friends from various youth groups and camps. She occasionally complains that’s it’s very tiring maintaining so many close friendships

I’m thinking for boys who might worry about saying the wrong thing in a text, xbox or PlayStation socialising is the way to go? I’m not sure they necessarily even have to play together or play games at all, as long as they have xbox live they can chat.

We do have xbox live but the xbox hasn't been switched on for months, neither DC really uses it any more and its in the front room, which was deliberate when they were younger (neither has a TV in their room either, they've never asked and they don't have a lot of space). I don't think DS would have a clue how to start connecting with friends through it and is jnlikely to take it to uni. He uses a Switch but I don't think knows how to connect with friends on that either apart from through bluetooth when they are in the same room, I don't know if you can chat through that. He texts his friends occasionally but group chats (whatsapp) are limited to groups from sport clubs etc.

DD just isn't interested either - she texts friends occasionally to arrange to meet up but doesn't chat.

I'm the opposite, I chat every day with various groups so it's not as if I'm against it and haven't let them, they just haven't been interested. Although mine's all SM, I have zero interest in gaming.

Ds 2 is chatting all evening on his Xbox. He shouts and laughs. He also does snap chat. He is very social online. After the first lockdown I suggested meeting the only other lad in our village in his year for a walk, he asked what was the point when he can chat online. I know he will keep in contact when he goes away.

Ds1 was given a group chat to join on Facebook for his first university accommodation. But it was 9 girls and 3 boys, the 3 boys didn't join the chat group. Ds said all they spoke about was hair, make up and outfits for the various freshers events. So he didn't join in the chat conversation much. One girls arrived at the accommodation a day earlier than the others as her parents were going away so she'd asked to go a day early. So she was walking about filming everywhere for them to watch.

Ds2 doesn't have Facebook because he says it's for middle aged woman.

I agree about FB being middle aged. I have asked younger colleagues what they use and it's a mixture of insta, whatsapp and messenger. I think FB is useful for following organisations and events and then you can use messenger. Plus post the odd photo for grandparents etc. I wish I knew what his friends use. I guess ultimately its up to them, I can't make DS chat online, I'm just worried about him losing touch once he leaves school.

The full horror of the Nintendo sign in has just come back to me. DH bought the switch as a family thing when they first came out about 5 years ago and set it up on his own email/account. Then forgot about it all and last time we tried to look into this to find the gamer ID it was a complete shitstorm of forgotten passwords and userids (DH has form for creating accounts and then losing all trace of them 🙄). Need to get him to sign it all over to DS I think.

Oh yes, they’re a nightmare when you forget log ins - dh sold a wii u recently and had a lot of palava getting it wiped. Does he want to keep in touch with school friends in future? Ds says he thinks he’ll only stay in touch with 2 or 3 when he moves for sixth form and those are the ones in the Xbox group. They do also go out most Saturdays /in the holidays though. But I can’t see him keeping in touch with friends who don’t have Xbox as he won’t be bothered with the faff of texting.

In terms of new friends, it will probably ease DD’s nerves to have chatted online with new hall mates in advance, but if your ds finds that stressful it’s not going to help him. They’ll make friends in real life once they’re there.

I think what I want to do is just get him in the position that if he wants to stay in touch he has the means to do so, so set him up with snapchat/insta/switch so he has the usernames to exchange with friends / fellow students if he chooses. I don't want him to get to the last day of school and find they are all swapping snapchat etc details and he hasn't got an account. He doesn't have to stay in touch. Its just different from my day when we actually had people's addresses and landline phone numbers and everyone knew everyone else's mum.

Also, the switch is a bloody nightmare. DH set up that and the DS and the Xbox with just accounts in his own name years ago and promptly forgot all logim details as at that stage the DCs were a bit young for online gaming. Never set them up their own sub-accounts which meant that they were both interfering with where each other had got to in games etc. He really just saw them as consoles that you plugged into the TV and needed to have logins for updates etc (DH is a bit of a luddite). I have not taken over as I do pretty well all the other household admin but I really wish I'd done it now. Sorry, thread takeover.

In short, I am going to set DS up with snapchat maybe insta and FB/messenger to use or not as he sees fit and nag DH to sort out the Switch. Thanks for listening!

That makes sense - ensuring he has the option when the time comes.

We have never enabled wifi on our XBox. Only one we have is in the kitchen anyway, currently with ninety billionth broken controller! It still has a ridiculous password for no apparent reason.

If your dcs are really into gaming I would strongly recommend they don’t take the pc or device with them at least for the first term. Otherwise (especially if shy) there is a temptation to just stay in their room & not socialise f2f.

I was so glad ds1 agreed to this. He has really come out of his shell. He did take an old wii with him in 2nd year but this was to play games as a household during lockdowns.

I just looked on Facebook. Ds does have an account. There's no photo and it's all locked up so I can't see if he has friends. But the dc's have a double barrelled surname that I don't think anyone else has, so I'm sure it's him. So he has one if needed if the university does set a group chat up. I typed in their surname and all 3 of my dc's came up. I knew Ds1 was in Facebook. I didn't know the younger 2 were. I like the fact no one else has their surname. There are several with my name and even more with my maiden name.

Before DS set off for uni in Sept 20, he ended up on group chats for his college, both of his departments (joint honours) and the rugby club. Mind you, this was after the first lockdown when they were all just desperate to chat to anyone different!

@Decorhate yes I agree. Out of ds1's first year the only lad who had an Xbox spent most of his time in his room. They did all knock and tried to get him to join them, he did occasionally but much preferred to stay in his room.

Good point about the games consoles making them tend to stay in their rooms. That's why we never had the xbox upstairs in the first place. The Switch is better in that it's portable, DS takes it to school sometimes and some of them play together in the 6th form common room using bluetooth.

I have been quite surprised that Facebook gets used by some Unis/clubs as ways of controlling membership to private groups. When my DS's accommodation was allocated at UEA a couple of years ago he received a link from the Uni to joint a group with other people in his block. Most of the Uni clubs also seem to use locked down Facebook groups to communicate events (eg each of the hockey teams have a group and organise who is playing/driving). DS also has a house FB messenger group chat. So it may be worth setting up FB accounts if they don't have them. DS uses Snapchat and WhatsApp though to chat to mates/arrange to go out.