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 !

@shimy I'm sorry your ds is going through such a hard time. I'm a bit horrified by your stories of his Prep School though. That was awful of his teachers to say that in front of the class.
DS is lucky that he has another boarding friend who is also on ADHD meds. So they do look out for each other.
I'm amazed though your Ds doesn't have extra time. I'm not really sure how it works with ADHD as Ds was awarded his on the basis of his Dyslexia.

My experience of schools & learning difficulties is that they totally ignore it.
Partially because they just don't have the funding, especially in Juniors. I got my own diagnosed independently & in fact ds1's dyslexia coordinator never said anything about ADHD to me in all the years of extra help. I think most teachers would rather say a child is stupid or lazy, rather than say they might have a learning issue.

I must admit I've always been pretty honest about these issues, because I just don't see the stigma. But I'm aware that certain friends who are of different ethnicity are pretty secretive about this sort of thing.

The orthopaedic issues for your Ds and @Ealingwest's DD sound really troublesome & very distracting as well. Not what you want when you're doing an exam.

Ds2 is flagging a bit in his Gcse's.
I couldn't get him out of bed today, as he couldn't sleep last night. He still is meant to go in every day in between exams. Chemistry on Friday and then the half term break.
Though I'm so over coercing the two boys into revision over holidays.

@shimy reeling from the "silly pills" story!!

I know we are all deeply immersed in A levels and want to make the path smooth for our DC, but I think the truth is that even if they get a grade below where they should be because of neuro diverse issues, I think most find themselves later and may benefit from being top dogs on a course where they are among the most able students. I am feeling really guilty about not picking up DS's probable ADD and just thinking he was always dreamy and rubbish at time keeping, but I think that in a couple of years I will realise that it probably didn't matter - that is how it felt with the things I got worked up about for DS1.

I have just persuaded him that he will not work effectively if he stays at a desk all day and am sending him to the gym with his brother - he always comes out more energised and needs to give his brain a break.

@Cantonet It’s not me that’s worrying about stigma, far from it it’s DS and I have to respect his privacy until when he feels comfortable enough to share any of his medical history but it does make it difficult when you need to volunteer information in order to get support in place or other opportunities and he just refuses. Another example, I saw an advert by Deloitte I think it was, inviting anybody with neuro diversity to apply for a one day internship thing to help them get into financial sector of consulting. Excitedly passed it over to DS to register and as soon as he heard that it’s targeted specifically at people who were neuro diverse he said a flat no, thank you. Registration now closed. I don’t know what to do really to make him see things differently , I’m genuinely open to advice.

Thanks again for all the support everyone it really helps. We’ll get through this.

so happy also to hear about all the dc doing well so far. More grease to their elbows! We can do this, we’ve got this far on this thread and we’ll complete the course & complete it well.

@singingstones my DS was diagnosed as severely dyslexic (2nd percentile for reading) when in Year 4, by the local authority EP. It was a two line report and when we spoke to him to ask what support he could expect from his school we were told to manage our expectations, and that he would only get more support if his behaviour became a problem. He actually suggested that DS threw chairs around to qualify for support. Fortunately we were in a position to move DS to a specialist independent school, and he went from not being expected to get a pass at GCSE English to now being in his final year at Uni having handed in a 10,000 word dissertation. It is so frustrating that state schools don't have the resource to do more to support kids with additional needs.

That’s such a shame @shimy and I’m shocked at the prep school too. Ds was really embarrassed about his diagnosis when he got it at the start of year 9 and hated having to walk into the SENCO’s room for reviews in case anyone saw him, but after about a year he began to see the positives. There’s lots on social media about how ADHD is a superpower and he recognises that he can really hyper focus and progress very quickly, so I think that’s helped - especially when the hyper focus allowed him to become super strong in a very short time due to his commitment to the gym! Maybe you could seek out some positive peer role models on TikTok/YouTube?

@singingstones What an amazing achievement for your DS. Congratulations! That is complete turnaround from what was predicted.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s either a state or private thing because DS is in privateehete you would think they can afford a bit more. The SEN coordinator in our case was awful and it was the school nurse that we leaned on throughput his time there. An amazing nurse. I think the biggest problem is neuro diversity is an invisible problem. People can’t see it and what people can’t see, they tend not to believe in it. So even when faced with medical reports etc school is still looking at the dc and thinking, he/she looks just fine!
Then there’s the hurdle of once they believe something is wrong, how do you help school to understand how it presents? what is naughty behaviour and what is the condition?

@crazycrofter I totally understand your DS & his needing to visit the SENCO for reviews. That’s totally DS. We can thank God that they’re 18 now, more self aware and their school days nearly behind them and can have more privacy.

still haven’t heard anything about today’s paper, I’m hoping it went well. Did anyone do EDEXEL Politics?

@crazycrofter forgot to say thanks for the TikTok/YouTube’s role model suggestion, I’ll try that once exams are over.

Just waiting for DS to come home, he'll be here in a minute. Twitter feedback is that AQA further maths was really hard (although apparently Edexcel further maths was really easy). DS sat AQA so am expecting a grumpy him any minute.

I am so hoping that it hasn't put him off. He has done so much work for today, a disproportionate amount compared to other subjects. I hope he feels it paid off. Fingers tightly crossed...

@22Newnames Fingers tightly crossed that it’ll be good news.

DS just texted to say exam went well. Phew!

Fingers crossed for today’s exams. Ds says GCSE English Lit went well 😮😮 He even finished it, so his timing issues are definitely to do with reading lots of new material.

He can do Sport and Business together next year but not with Psychology or Sociology. It’s looking like his options are Criminology, Economics or History (I think definitely not History). Or Maths!

Oh dear 22Newnames, that doesn’t sound good. I don’t think DS will be finished yet, his is 2hr 40 plus extra time. Not sure which board he is doing, the code on timetable looks like maybe it was OCR possibly.

Good news Shimy 🙂

Unfortunately my fears were right, he came in and was very subdued, he's shattered and he and his whole class found it really hard. He just looks beaten😕.

To be fair he did say that it was better than it would have been a few weeks ago, so his work wasn't in vain but he was still not a happy bunny at all.

It's only the first of 12 exams, I am dreading the week with 4 in.

Physics tomorrow which is his better subject but he has only done half as much work for it as he's been focusing on today's further maths...

Sorry to hear that 22Newnames . Hopefully given most of Twitter found it was hideous then the grade boundaries will be low. OCR sounds as if it were half way between AQA and Edexcel. Am worried about physics tomorrow. One day at a time ...p

@22Newnames oh no! So sorry to hear that. These poor kids, I thought the idea was they were going to go easy on them because of the pandemic & lost learning? It doesn’t seem like it at all. Hard working dc looking bereft after their exam.

is it a paper that comes in two parts? Let’s hope he can make it up in the next one. Good luck for tomorrow’s Physics.

@crazycrofter That’s fantastic news!

@Volterra Thanks. Next one on Friday.

DD seemed reasonably happy with her business exam this afternoon. Nothing for 2 weeks now, so we've just been to our 'local' wool shop to get some bits for her next crochet project. She's got lots of little tiny animals to make in breaks between revision.

We have OCR physics tomorrow, what board is yours @Volterra

haha, note the "we", I feel like I'm sitting them with him. It won't just be him celebrating when they've finished!

@Shimy Three papers in total for Further Maths, but all on slightly different areas.

DS said they all came out and just wondered why AQA had made the paper so hard

Well done to all that sat exams today!
DDs ‘unseen Greek verse and prose’ paper was truly hideous!
Lovely prose extract but the verse was appalling.
Lots of unhappy bunnies in the group chats among those that attended the Greek summer school DD went to last year- some were in tears during the exam…
It’s done and dusted now though and only one paper among 4 for them
To all that endured similar papers today, put it behind you: Onwards and upwards! ⭐️

Sorry to hear it was hideous Proggy 💐
22Newnames I will absolutely be celebrating when over! WJEC for physics. He still has 3 more FM papers to contend with .

Sorry to hear it was awful today too @ProggyMat.

@Volterra yes I guess officially DS has 3 more further maths papers too but two are on the same day so I have lumped them together in my mind.

So really he's only done 1 of 13 then instead of 1 out of 12 😕

Oh @Volterra DS has WJEC physics tomorrow. He's worried about the last question, 20 mark comprehension type thing. Apparently the average score for their class on that question is 5/20 🙈
He's very antsy today

I don't like the sound of that question one bit Singingstones , fingers crossed for them.
22Newnames I would count the 2 together as 1 personally! Ds's on different days so they seem separate.

Feedback from DS on today's politics exam - it was fine, the questions were nice but as always he didn't finish (barely started) the last essay question. He says he was writing for the whole time and doesn't know how he could possibly have finished in the two hours 🤷

No more exams until 6th June for him but DD has her driving theory test tomorrow. I'm not sure how we managed to book that for exam season.

Sorry to hear about tough exams, I really don't see the point of doing that to the kids and then having insanely low grade boundaries. Just tough on their confidence.

I'll be interested to hear about OCR Physics - DD has Chemistry and Biology with OCR so I'm hoping they will be reasonable.

I'm doing my best to pretend that I'm not feeling sick with worry about these stupid exams.