Thread 32 - Corona Cohort 'May' the Mumsnet force be with them for their venture to 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 31

CONGRATULATIONS ZEBRACAT !

Thanks Shimy my DD is loving it too and I have a soft spot for it as also went 🙂

East pudding - rhubarb and ginger syllabub. Couldn’t be easier, make in advance and totally delicious (and seasonal - rhubarb dead cheap at the moment if you don’t have a stand). Nice recipe in BBC Good food and I like to swap some cream for Greek yoghurt but up to you!

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/rhubarb-ginger-syllabub

so easy you can mumsnet at the same time

I always make Nigella's Tarte Tatin for family parties. I often substitute ready made butter puff pastry instead of the home made Danish pastry for ease of baking. Or Pavlova as someone else has suggested. My sister always makes Delia's Trifle and there's never any left over.

My youngest phoned me an hour ago in a panic. He forgot to tell me he has his first GCSE today & he needed his extra time - colour coded card for the exams🤦🏼‍♀️. So I duly did the 40 mins round trip - 3rd time today.

🤞for anyone still waiting to hear from their Uni. Choices.
Does anyone here know anything about Igcse's? I'm wondering whether they will be marked in line with the UK ones. I've been told they won't be applying the more lenient rules unlike the normal Gcse's this year.

Is your DS in with the rest of his cohort for exams, Cantonet?
DD has small room invigoration, so doesn’t have an extra time card; I think she’s in with all the extra time people, plus she has rest breaks.

DS has done iGCSE German - final paper this morning - but I have no idea how they might differ from standard GCSEs. Given that it’s a MFL and they were unable to practise speaking or listening during the lockdowns, it seems a bit rough if no concessions are being given to grade boundaries.

How do I find out what grades unis accepted for their courses last year? I've searched generally but don't know where to find this info.

@Alsoplayspiccolo grade boundaries move every year, determined by grade statistics. So of they decide 10% will get an A*, if 10% get over 80% that will be the grade boundary and if only 10% get over 50% the boundary will be 50%. So if a whole cohort is affected, the boundaries naturally change. Of course the issue is that people are not equally affected.

@NCTDN Discoveruni.gov or search FOI requests on Whatdotheyknow, or you can put an FOI request in yourself.

Well, we finally have news. A rejection from St Andrews. DD is a tiny bit disappointed, but she was beginning to worry that she might find it too quiet or be sent to overflow accommodation in Dundee, and she can really see herself at the college she has been allocated in Durham, so all good. Even if she gets an Edinburgh offer I doubt she will prefer that to Durham. One step closer ...

Hi all. Haven’t posted for a while. Can’t believe exams are starting in just over a week!

@Volterra Ds1 (who is at Bath) goes to Cardiff regularly to see a friend who is doing a placement there this year & likes the city. He feels accommodation is more reasonably there too. I liked Southampton uni too when we visited!

I seem to remember a discussion on writing pens a while back but can’t find it. Has anyone got recommendations for comfortable pens - Ds has 6 essay papers!

Aw @GoldenRuby i can’t believe they’ve made her wait so long for a rejection. Glad that she’s enthusiastic about Durham though.

Thanks, Monkey. I understand that, but how does that translate to this year’s boundaries being midway between 2019 and 2021?
I was assuming Cantonet was worried that iGCSEs may be in line with 2019 boundaries, hence her comment about “more lenient rules.”

@Alsoplayspiccolo i think it just means that if 10% got a 9 last year and 5% got a 9 in 2019, this year 7.5% would get a 9. That probably also translates to mean that if 90% was the boundary in 2019 and 80% in 2021, you’d need 85% this year - but that relies on the difficulty being roughly the same so the scores are distributed in the same way. If the papers are a bit harder or easier it’s not so easy to predict what the boundaries would be.

@Decorhate DS2 likes "uni-ball Eye Fine Rollerball Pen 0.7 mm Line Ub-157 Black Pack of 5" from Amazon. DS1 liked them a bit thicker, but these are easier to read.

@GoldenRuby sorry to hear about St A, but great that she is happy about Duham. I think the St A numbers are going to be super low this year as I have seen so few offers. Maybe DS1 can get back into halls because there aren't enough first years to fill them! At least you are not going to have the awful battle to get accom in tiny St Andrews after first year, Durham is not the easiest, but St Andrews seems impossible - still doesn't know where he will live in September. On the other hand Cardiff seems brilliant for private accommodation.

We have sort-of-news. DS is still waiting for medicine at Newcastle, but they sent out an email saying that we should not expect to hear soon, but will hear by 19th May. DS gave me his UCAS log in last night so that we could apply to Sports Science so that if the medicine offer doesn't come through he has an offer, so can apply for accommodation. He got an offer this morning (AAB) - took 2 working hours compared to the 216 day (and counting) wait for medicine! If a medicine offer does not arrive before August, he will pull out of Sports Science on results day and hopefully switch his accommodation if he gets a results day offer for medicine. He definitely won't actually do Sports Science. Complicated, feels like a strategy game, but better than being left with the last dregs to choose!

@Alsoplayspiccolo yes, @crazycrofter is right, they don't control the boundaries, they control the statistics. The grade boundaries are derived from applying the agreed statistics.

In CC's example we might expect the boundaries to fall further because the level of learning is reduced for this cohort which has missed out on so much teaching. 90% was the boundary in 2019, and 80% the nominal boundary in 2021, it might still be lower than 80% in 2022 because all the marks are down due to lost teaching. A big guessing game!

@Monkey2001 Thanks I’ve ordered a selection from Amazon. I found a thread on pens & one recommendation was to switch pen types during exams so I’ll ask Ds to try that at home first!

I hope Newcastle comes good for your Ds. It would be lovely for him to get good news before the exams start.

Ds says they have still not finished the Maths syllabus!

My DS hasn't finished syllabus either, both maths teachers trying to get through the end of the pure syllabus.

@Decorhate DD is in the same boat as all of her papers are essay heavy along with translating and critiquing literature from their original languages
She’s quite happy with basic BIC black ballpoint pens but has requested lots of them!

@Monkey2001 Does Newcastle not realise the 19th is but one week away? I hope there was a vestige of an apology for being so incompetent slow.

@GoldenRuby Sorry to learn it was a no from St A. I hope someone does a FOI in the autumn on overall % intake from RUK for this year. Don't know anybody even anecdotally who received an offer (except on MN).

DS has finally finished the maths syllabus but not got over the line for physics yet.

There are two girls from DD's school who have St A offers, both for English Lit. They got their offers in December, but these are the two stand out academics at the school and one has an Oxbridge offer. She knows many more with rejections though.

Hello, I hope you don't mind an interloper at this late stage?

I have dipped in and out of the threads and posted under a different name previously, but haven't managed to keep up.

I have 1 DD. Studying Maths (predicted Astar), Further Maths (predicted A) , Psychology (predicted A/Astar) and English Language (predicted anywhere from B to Astar).

The English teacher said she is capable of an Astar as she has excellent technical understanding of grammar and sentence composition, but she needs to practice including it in her answers. DD thinks she has no chance whatsoever of getting anywhere near an Astar and would be very happy with a B and to see the back of English! She hasn't had her mark back for her English coursework yet.

She had applied to study Maths at Birmingham (offer AAA), Edinburgh (still waiting to hear!), Lancaster (offer ABB-ABC), Nottingham (offer ABB) and St Andrews (unsuccessful).

For a long time St Andrews was the favourite (closely followed by Lancaster) but then Birmingham really impressed at the offer holder day and seemed to have a lot positives that meant the by the time the rejection from St Andrews arrived it was met with a combination of crushing disappointment (short lasting) and relief that she didn't have to make a difficult decision between two excellent universities that appealed in completely different ways. She's waiting to hear from Edinburgh, out of curiosity really (I know it's unlikely at this stage but I'm still hoping she'll get an offer for the confidence boost) but has discounted it now. She will accept Birmingham as her firm and Lancaster as her insurance.

I've read the first 6 pages of this thread, going to read the last 4 now.

@GoldenRuby Good to know some got offers.

@mango0 Welcome back! Delighted your DD has offers that she is looking forward to taking up.

Now that things are looking serious and not long till September () I've got questions about what they will take. I don't remember when I went to uni how much stuff I took.
Will DD take the majority of her clothes or a select few? What's the norm?

DS has a huge wardrobe , so we've suggested to him to take half of his clothes, then when he visits he can swap over to the other set. He did clarify if that meant I'd be doing his washing

I remember that conversation about pens and I bought a pack of the ones recommended - These Pens.
They're fantastic!

@Decorhate See my previous post re: pens