Thread 38 Covid Cohort, After Results Day

[CinnamonOrangeCremeBrulee]

ALL our children are heroes of their own stories, they have thrived through a once in a century catastrophe and they will succeed

This is a support thread for our young adults post GCSEs 2020, regardless of their educational setting, and their results (life updates for those who went into work or have had results earlier). 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 Sept?

Previous thread

www.mumsnet.com/talk/further_education/4613457-thread-37-covid-cohort-2020-results-thread-heroes-of-their-own-stories

Fantastic GCSE results all round - well done, everyone!

Delphi, we love a bit of Bjork here, but I wonder how off the wall her DD might have been to live with? Great dinner party story, regardless!

Its just me and DS at home today and tonight. He is absolutely unphased about results and won’t even indulge my want to look at grade boundaries.
I’ve suggested dinner out - he declined.

He hasn’t shown one iota of reaction to any part of results, leaving the school, saying goodbye to his friends (he hasn’t said goodbye to them, as he hasn’t arranged to see them all summer).
I can’t get him to talk about anything going on in his life or his head.

Ive just driven to Waitrose to buy a bottle of champagne and ended up sitting in the car park, sobbing.
Everything feels too overwhelming today.

Forget to add - I had a WhatsApp message from the mum of one of the girls DD has gone to Teading with, to tell me that their tent didn’t withstand last night’s torrential downpours and she’s had to phone around all the shops in Reading to try to find them a new tent.
I feel awful, as the tent they were using was ours, bought for £40 from Asda and obviously not up to scratch for the weather we didn’t know was forecast.

Oh piccolo, I’m so sorry you are feeling so sad about all that. The teenage years are SO tough and sometimes they just won’t throw us a damn bone, so we can’t really know what is going on in their heads.
if it helps, my DD1 was like that for several years but became much more communicative as she matured and since graduating we’ve had a great relationship. Give him time. Xxx

Re tent - all part of the reading adventure! Who the hell knew it would rain when we have had 7 weeks of drought?!

@Delphigirl massive Bjork fan here, thanks for that, very cool in my book.

Congrats to GCSE parents and kids.

Fab story, @Delphigirl! And congrats to all those getting GCSEs!

I still have a student whose uni place depends on a review of marking from AQA. There's literally nothing we can do at this point other than wait. But the parents are in regular contact with me and I'm trying to be nice and calm. A little bit of a downer on my own mood, though!

Aw @Alsoplayspiccolo I’m sorry you’re feeling overwhelmed- I know the feeling too. There’s a lot of change for you coming up; I expect your ds is in denial a bit and doesn’t really know what he’s feeling. I know my ds doesn’t really anticipate things at all and then sometimes he’s taken by surprise in the moment when he feels nervous or something.

Bad luck re the tent! Dd and friend arrived today which perhaps was good timing after all. I think the rest of the weekend is forecast to be dry?

@Alsoplayspiccolo, we've gone through uncommunicative phases too. It will all be OK, I'm sure! Fingers crossed for Reading... my DD was slightly shaken by getting on a bus which doesn't normally stop at "our" stop (due to a diversion in place) and ending up on the wrong side of town, which isn't really in the same league!

@singingstones omg that’s a lot of exams, everyone has done so well. My DS did really well mostly 9’s with a couple of 8’s. So all set for A levels...

@Alsoplayspiccolo your DS sounds like one of mine, it was tough in lockdown as we hardly had a word out of him. He’s much easier now. Just keep being yourself and he will get better. Rain is bl@@dy typical for Reading.

@Alsoplayspiccolo Ds is also at Reading in an Argos tent - but it’s 29 years old! He said it was a bit wet when I messaged earlier.

May be the last outing for it. It was often borrowed by my siblings back in the day and has been to Reading several times with my kids & Glasto earlier this year!

Delphi, your comment about not throwing us a bone is exactly how it feels. The school photographer was taking photos of everyone today but DS point blank refused to have his taken, despite various teachers imploring him; at one point, he actually said, “ No. I’ve done so much for you already, I won’t do this.”
By “so much for you”, I assume he means he’s endured my help with maths, answered my questions about how his days have been, acknowledged DH and I when we clap at his performances…

I suppose my fear is that he’ll go off to boarding school and I’ll never know whether he’s happy, sad or just ok.

Its reassuring to hear he might come out of it in time.

DD sounded surprisingly cheerful when she rang to find out how he’d done - “that night at Reading” will be a great yarn in the future!

They clearly don’t make ‘em like they used to, Decorhate! 🤣

I'm always a bit salty about sons and daughters of famous celebs going into celeb world. Like the Beckham boy who has just got married and wouldn't look out of place working in Sainsbos . She seems v talented though.

In other news Dd is less salty about Southampton rejecting her , paper reviews and remarks are afoot. Her English teacher quite urgent about it.

She has been allocated the furthest away accommodation in Cardiff up by Roath (University Hall) shared bathroom (bit grim apparently). Has found 11 flatmates though. Actually singing in her bedroom now so I know she feels better about it all.

Well done everyone on the GCSE’s!

I was at University Hall about 30 years ago! It was a bit of a trek to get to lectures but there was a great sense of community and I made friends quickly. I hope she settles in well!

Wow @Delphigirl , but would be weird living with someone in such a different place in life.

@Alsoplayspiccolo music specialist schools are very nurturing, he will be drawn in socially and you will go over for lots of concerts. He will appreciate you in time, just might take a while. My DSs GFs have made them realize how lucky they are, your DS takes for granted what he has always had.

Sounds like a good crop of GCSEs. Most people I know have had some up and some down on expectations, but pretty happy. Phew!

Does it cost to get an a level paper remarked ?

Thanks, Monkey. I’m hoping he’ll be forced to be a bit less insular when he’s living with his peers 24/7, and a bit of distance will make him realise what he has had at home, as you say.

cinnamon , Roath is a big student area and the park area is lovely.

Yes, about £30-£50 depending on the exam board. You get a refund if the grade goes up because of the review of marking. It has to be done via the school.

@NCTDN exam papers remark - the price @PhotoDad has quoted is per paper so if you have 3 in a level it’s £120-150. If close to next grade then school may pay but often you have to pay. If grade goes up then money is refunded.

Someone put up excel spreadsheets for the data on remarks. Approx 55,000 remarks in A level each year and 220,000 at gcse. Approx 20-23% go up by a grade so 4,000 to 5,000 A levels. Some go down by one grade but out of 22,000 it was about 30-35 so not many. About 65 went up by two grades.

Yes, sorry, should have said that's per paper!
I find it shocking that one in five reviewed grades are found to be wrong. The stakes are so high that you'd expect the exam boards to get it right. I know they're under pressure to mark quickly, and examiners aren't paid very well, but that shouldn't be an excuse.

Right and wrong are a bit subjective, though, in lots of subjects. Every examiner is checked in on but there is a tolerance (which can be quite wide) for 'inaccuracies'. This gets removed on a review of marking which works in a student's favour. To be entirely fair, there are probably also lots of papers that are overmarked - but no one puts in a review of marking if they are pleased with their grade!

The review of marking looks at whether the examiner put the work in the correct mark band. I have dealt with these personally and professionally over the years . The success rate of reviews was high in English Lit GCSE in its first year of the new grading. Otherwise, there has been little success to be honest. DS1 had his A Level Spanish upped but none of the GCSEs we tried.

My one bit of advice, based on years of anecdata , is if it's A Level history - go for it. That seems to suffer most from undermarking. Research does back this up.

That's an excellent explanation, @Piggywaspushed. The cynic in me thinks that the review fees (which are retained by the board in 80% of cases) add up to a massive amount of money, and that if the grades were consistently accurate first time around, that revenue stream would quickly dry up. But I don't know how much the examiners get paid for doing the review, so I might be completely wrong there!

It is definitely a problem that exam boards are businesses competing against each other. They do get paid for reviews but they are only done by examiners at a certain pay grade. Poem of those are salaried full time exam board employees. My friend does reviews. I'll ask her what she gets! I suspect the same mark as she gets per script normally.