Thread 35 - Covid Cohort from GCSE 2020 'What They Did on Their Summer Holidays'

[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. It's all relative!
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 continue down various pathways ( employment, apprenticeships, higher ed) We have decided for anyone interested they will find a thread within the Further Ed board.
Possibly a move to Parent of Adult Children Board in future? Post Results?

Previous Thread

@Monkey2001 it was a sun motif at top of hip/thigh about size of 10p. I couldn't see the point tbh. It looked so plain I am concerned that it.might be the start of something ...as if it was just the beginning. I just dont want her to regret anything further down the line.

Worse she doesn't want us to tell her Nan, but I feel like I'm keeping a secret (she won't be impressed). The nose is a bit meh too ...in my opinion obviously.

I'm biting my tongue and sure it will all look nice as long as it heals properly etc.

We’re picking dd up from the airport tonight. She seems to have had a fantastic week in Spain, I’m sure we’ll hear more later… I’ m convinced she won’t come home with any piercings or tattoos, they are not her style at all, DS in a few years might be a totally different story!
Whilst she was there, she had an e mail confirming her accommodation at RHUL, she’s been offered her first choice hall but does know anything more specific yet. She’s really not convinced she’ll her the grades anyway but, we’ll see.

DS 1 just sent a text , ' Alive and well. Bit burnt in places.'

DS is now absolutely convinced he has failed dismally and does not want to talk about it so we are skirting carefully around any mention of A levels and university. Eg on holiday in France, realised that a little speaker by the pool would be good, should have brought the one from our kitchen but never mind, there are Amazon lockers at the supermarket so I bought a cheap one and it came the next day. I thought to myself it would make a nice little going away to uni pressie and he agreed "it might be useful for you at some point in the future, DS" 😀

More positively DD got a distinction in her piano exam (130, exactly the mark required 😅) and I got a distinction in this year's OU module (likewise can't have been with much to spare) so we are on a results roll. So far.

Brilliant results Singing, Well done to you and your DD!

I think it’s really natural for them to start envisaging the worst outcome, now that we’re in the last 4 weeks before results. It’s all feeling so real. Exams seem so long ago too.

Hah, tattoos. Mine said she always liked them until she came here to live. I really don’t like them. She says she now feels she will never have them and couldn’t have a relationship with someone who had them as she would want me to approve of any partner. I’m really not that intolerant! But I didn’t tell her that!
Its interesting that she’s not the only one convinced she’s really stuffed up the exams. Maybe it’s just nerves. But she is absolutely avoiding any commitments beyond next weekend when she is away for a few days. Will not look at accommodation. Driving us nuts, we can’t plan. Ah well, we will know in 3 weeks.

I'm dreading the accommodation part if dd gets in at Bristol. They've openly said that 1 in 5 don't get any of their 9 choices...

However dd is very blasé about the whole thing and thinks that going on holiday the day after results of a good idea. I don't want to be pessimistic but think we need to keep options open.

Dh absolutely hates tattoos. When he sees someone with tattoos he's asks why they've ruined their bodies. I tell him not to be so silly. I'd love to get something drawn on my skin that looks like a real tattoo, just to see his face. I'm not sure what he'd say if the dc's had a tattoo. But I don't think they would.

I don’t want a tattoo. I came close in the late 90s/early 2000s when it became more mainstream and a couple of colleagues had them but I don’t think they add anything. I think they look messy and interfere with clothing lines!😂

But I don’t mind them on others, they’re just not for me. I work in primary school and only me, one other teacher and the head are tattoo free.

I change my mind about things so often that a tattoo would not be a good idea for me 🤦‍♀️

Haha, did you read the thread about someone whose MIL tattooed the name of her baby on her arm, but they changed their mind about the baby's name!

Well done on the batch of distinctions, 130 was always the favourite mark in our household - no wasted effort getting more marks than necessary!

Well done @singingstones and mini !

I did see that thread Monkey - hilarious!
Yes, as DD says, no point in getting 131. She just asked if she now has more UCAS points than DS so that has gone down like a lead balloon 😬
I'm sure his ropey AS levels must count for more than grade 6 piano though.

Well done Singing on piano. Ds is totally not interested in tattoos. Most are poorly done. I only like them if they are well done. My eldest brother waited over 9 months to get an appointment with Darren Stares in Portsmouth.

Ds has rejected his job / apprenticeship with BD0 in Guildf0rd. They wanted him to sign contracts for his training ie his ACA papers to become qualified accountant. It was his back up. I urged caution. To say yes to everyone and play them all their own game. But no. He wants the Del0itte assisted Degree at N0ttingham and is hopeful that he'll get AAA when he only needs ABB. He has no lower insurance. What can I say.....

My attempts to get him to go travelling seem futile. I took a year out pre Uni to go Italy, Turkey, Israel,Egypt, Russia, but he shows no interest. He's almost booked to climb Snowdonia in a group though. That and 15,000 skydive is celebration enough.

Yay to the distinction grades singing. It goes the other way too and DD was gutted to miss out on a distinction by 1mark on her grade 4 Ballet exam - it was her first proper ballet exam as she stated dancing late so she did amazing in my view but I get her frustration. However she got High Honours in her Musical Theatre exam (94%)so was delighted with that.

No tattoos here and not likely to get any either. Only has one ear lobe piercing but... today she has bought a fake nose ring so who knows if that is her next venture and is having a tryout before committing.

Can i please ask you wise mumsnetters on this thread a student loan query: DD's bf is off to Uni this Sept and I happened to say how lucky it was that they had the loan for 30 years (repaid from c£27,000) as DD was going to have to repay over 40 years (repaid from c£25,000). They said that they would have 30 years to pay back the first year but that as you reapply every year then for years 2 + 3 they would have 40 years to pay back that loan. Is that right? DD is having a gap year so I haven't even gone down the applying for student loans route yet - will do it next year. It's a very interesting concept and not one i had considered. Also they got a maintenance loan of c£4,000 and both their parents earn really well and submitted their earnings so is 4K the minimum maintenance loan you can get? I assumed they would have got around 1K which is what I has assumed DD would have got next year. I'll be delighted with 4K.

Hope DS's sunburn calms down Piggy and that he has a great time.
Oblomov22 A skydive sounds amazing. Very high octane.

@singingstones Congratulations to you both!

I don't like most tattoos as they seem to end up sludgy colours. The nail in the coffin was was working adjacent to a laser tattoo removal business. They made a fortune on people's regrets and by all accounts it was a painful treatment.

@Oblomov22 Yikes to skydiving! I do like the original Point Break film though.

@AnneOfCleavage I think that once you sign up to a loan, future years on the same course are funded by an extension of the same loan. Here is the table of what they get, all students are entitled to fees +£4,500. See www.savethestudent.org/student-finance/maintenance-loans.html

@EwwSprouts Me too, what's not up like? Keanu & Swayze - how can you go wrong!

i hate tattoos. Personal choice obviously.

DS1 (21) came home from a lads holiday at 18 with a small very easily hidden tattoo. As tattoos go, it was as ok as you could get (if you dislike them that is). We told my parents who absolutely hate tattoos and it was sort of laughed off although I could tell they weren’t impressed.

@OrangeCinnamonCroissant He has since got a full chest tattoo, we haven’t told my parents. He has not asked us to keep it quiet. I have not lied about it but have not brought it up. I know they will be disappointed. I didn’t think too much about it as it hadn’t come up until I was about to show them a pic of him on holiday and then decided not to as I couldn’t face the tattoo conversation. They definitely look down on my BIL for his tattoos so I just can’t be bothered with it.

This DS is working long hours in a job DH got him but is being paid very well (hourly rate £15 going up to £27 for weekend overtime!!). He will be loaded at the end of the summer.

He also has a lads holiday booked in a couple of weeks which will be tattoo free I’m pretty sure!

I don’t think this is the last summer either, they have a few summers at uni. DS doesn’t have a regular job he will come back and do each summer so he will have some freedom.

Congratulations, singing and to your DD.
Im sorry your DS is feeling so despondent. Does he have a plan B, in the event of his fears coming true?
The waiting for results isn’t much fun, is it? DD refuses to think about them, but I am struggling with the feeling of limbo, knowing that there’s a lot to sort out after the 18th August, whether it’s good news or bad.

DS is away on a youth orchestra course and DD has just come back from a week away with her BFF. She’s barely been here since school finished but is pretty difficult when she is.
DH and I were meant to be having a night away in a gorgeous hotel in the Cotswolds tomorrow, with dinner, drinks etc - I actually won it in an Instagram competition - but I’ve had to cancel it today, as DH is really poorly with some non-COVID virus that seems to be doing the rounds. 😢

Not a fan of tattoos here either, although I follow DS's football team on SM and they had a post last week of close-ups of the first team players standing waist deep in a swimming pool and most of them were heavily tattooed and very easy on the eye . DS said a while ago he likes them but he is a very cautious type. Neither of mine have ever shown any interest in piercing.

Back from France now, no bother at the channel tunnel in that direction, I did feel sorry for those going the other way.

I wonder whether tattoos will go out of fashion in the next generation. I guess it depends on whether people have them because they think they are beautiful, or to rebel, or show that they are tough. Do kids of people with lots of tattoos follow their parents lead? It certainly shows commitment to spend hours in pain and lots of money (£1,000?) to have something like a chest tattoo. Is it a bit like smoking - cool and edgy? I get the impression that more than 50% of people under 40 have at least a small one.