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

When we had Ds's DSA assessment we were asked whether we wanted to share his info with the university & the sports science dept. We said yes at the time & that was checked again by the advisor.
@Alsoplayspiccolo there will be a contact number on the confirmation email from the DSA office. This comes out normally about 10 days after the DSA assessment. DS said he didn't have this email & I had to Google the contact number. The person I spoke to said she had loads of parents phoning up asking for them to resend the email! As it might well have gone into their kids spam & subsequently been deleted months before.
I didn't have to supply any extra information to Surrey as they read the report during the online chat with Ds the other day.

@Alsoplayspiccolo the government fund the equipment but you have to contribute £200 per computer if needed.

@crazycrofter your DD will need to sort IT before they get there. The latest email (I think, I know I read it somewhere) mentioned they will be sent IT details approx 3 weeks before they start, they will then need to activitate IT account and get email address before they can do loads of other stuff, but they can't do anything further until they hear.

I sorted everything with DSA and then later Nottingham Uni contacted me (DD) to complete more forms and send proof. DSA don't deal with things such as extra time in exams etc. I only got a receipt email back from Disabilities team at Nottingham so far saying someone would be in contact, but that was only a week or so ago.

@CoffeeWithCheese thanks for this and thanks to @PaddingtonPaddington too - super helpful x

Yes, we had to provide proof of exam allowances as both DC have a quite unusual thing in place due to an uncommon condition. It helps that they’re both going to the same Uni so we did appointments at the same time with the same people in disability services and DSA

Ok, so what I’m confused about (bear with me - next door have been having an outdoor karaoke party since 3pm, so I can’t hear myself think…) is that the DSA has sent uni the report but uni haven’t contacted us and nothing further has come from the DSA, eg suppliers details etc.
When DD called the disability support people at Birmingham, to find out what she should do about the accommodation allocation, they told her they had the DSA report, which mentioned the en suite recommendation, so they forwarded it to the accommodation people, who then gave DD a specific halls (she didn’t get to choose).
The uni disability support person did say something to DD about sending info to them, but they didn’t say what or how.

So, have I understood correctly that equipment is one thing, to be chased up with DSA, and reasonable adjustments, exam arrangements etc is a separate thing, to be chased up with the uni?
I guess I’m confused because it was all dealt with during DD’s online DSA assessment, so I thought that was all that was needed.

Thanks @heifer. Hopefully dd will keep on top of things once she’s back, as once we’ve moved she’s going to be staying in this area with a friend until going to uni. We’re staying with friends in the new town and dd doesn’t know anyone there so thought it would be awkward. I can nag her from a distance if need be though 😂

Has anyone thought about when / whether they are going to pay their DC a visit?

Hoping to see DS early oct for my birthday, he's only going to be 40 mins away so easy enough to pop up without interfering for too long

@singingstones DD may be coming home after 3 weeks (middle of Oct) to attend a social event so we will probably visit her about 4 weeks after that. We will go and watcher her play hockey (if allowed, if she feels she is playing well etc) and then go out for a meal etc and home again. That is what I will suggest anyway and go from there. If she wants us to come sooner/later we will do. I want her to know it will be up to her when we come to see here.

My DD will be 4 hours away by car, or 3 by train, so we can't easily just pop down! But she has two long terms rather than three shorter ones, so it would be nice to see her before the Christmas break. We'll be guided by her, but would be nice to make a weekend of it with DS15 as well, as she's going to a very touristy town, and just meet her for dinner or something.

DS will be fairly local and I suspect may want to come back occasionally at the start for the weekend .

DS will be 90 mins drive away and has said he plans to stay for a few weeks but wants to come home for a friend's birthday in mid October and has noted one or two hockey fixtures he wants to come back for. We may pop up after a couple of weeks, we'll see.

I have been thinking about Birmingham's new accommodation system. There are really quite basic flaws in it!

You were supposed to be able to see wo was already booked in, and what their interest etc are - but no one filled that in because no one realised you couldn't go back and add stuff once you had looked at the rooms!

You can't look at it now either to find flatmates or check a party animal wasn't thrown in.

You also can't go back and check that you didn't accidentally request an alcohol free flat : there were some notes as you were selecting rooms but in the mad rush to select the one available rom in the desired building, no one will really read that too carefully

If you had a relatively early slot you can't know what has come after you in terms of gender mix

Because students are choosing themselves no oversight form the uni is happening in terms of gender mix - DS could end up in a flat where he is the only male, I suspect...

I am sure UoB isn't alone in this but I'm not sure they really thought it all through!

Their various friendly Facebook invites haven't led DS to finding anyone either. He's not that bothered, but I think he would like to know that there is a male somewhere near.

Of course, no one got any choices back in the day - but I feel this is the 'illusion of choice'. How do other people's unis work?

We are taking DS on the 1st Oct and have booked to stay in Cambridge for three nights. We are planning on having a lovely mini break with museums etc just the two of us, and are going to leave DS to sort himself once he is in the room. If he needs us he can ring us but they seem to have lots of organised stuff to do so hopefully we will see him once before we head home on the Tuesday morning. We weren’t planning on visiting him again until collecting him as only 10 weeks. Think he has to empty room each term so we will have to go and get him as so much stuff.

Room allocation, certain rooms are just for new freshers. There are 130 of them. He picked which price band - just high medium or low - and then finds out mid September which one. He isn’t fussed as long as not too expensive.

Ah yes, but that's college based so he knows what accommodation he is in so less fussing I guess? I think the Oxbridge/ college system is pretty ideal for getting people settled in to a new lifestyle really.

We are heading up to the North East at half term - visit DC at Newcastle + Durham, do Lidl runs for both + take some time (just the 2 of us) to walk that amazing coast!

I don't think we ever went to visit DS1 - he came home to us. This was mainly because of DH's golfing and football watching schedule!

I think DS1 came back for a weekend about 6 weeks in to term. He wanted to drop out in the first fortnight so we had to be pretty firm about not coming home until he had settled.

DS is 3hrs by train or probably 4hrs by car away, in an expensive touristy city (Bath). We plan to go down for the weekend after 4 weeks so we can check he’s doing ok and take anything he’s forgotten.

In reality I suspect that will be more for me than for him.

Not sure if he helps or not that Bath was my old uni and DH and I love it there so would be happy to visit for a weekend away and just see DS for a short while.

We were planning on staying locally overnight on move in day then taking him shopping/ to lunch the next day but I suspect he will now just want to get on with it. (We will confirm when we know actual move in date).

DS has now been added to a group chat of 6 people going to Bath from his school (although he doesn’t know 3 of them as yet). Originally the only person we knew that was going was what we would call his “girlfriend” (but who is not official “girlfriend” 🙄) so it’s nice that he will have a few other people to explore with as well as house mates.

DS has lots of friends staying at home for another year so maybe he'll come back every now and then. If not, I'm thinking of popping up to take him out for Sunday lunch maybe three or four weeks in but we'll see, I haven't suggested it yet. I think he's getting quite nervous and "see you in three weeks" might make the beginning of term a bit less daunting (for us too!) We also have a family occasion near Nottingham in November so will see him then. And then his Christmas hols are four weeks long 😱

@Piggywaspushed yes much easier. He has seen some photos and they are seem to be fairly quirky rooms but at least he knows where he is. With insurance choice of Lancaster he had to pick several choices - five I think - but there was no guarantee of accommodation if insurance choice which was really worrying him. He definitely didn’t want to be off campus as that was the main reason he had picked Lancaster. I don’t think he’s ready yet for off campus living! This is a good halfway to leaving home step.

We're going to visit in October half term as that's one month to settle and it's my birthday then.
When we take dd, we're going to stay overnight but expect to just help her unpack then leave her to it till the next morning when we'll have a catch up before going home. I can't decide whether to take food basics with us from home or say we'll go shopping once there. She's catered so won't need much but obviously still needs basics like drinks and snacks. I have a feeling that she will just want us to leave her to settle in without us, but it's more to fit in the car if it's bought from our end.

I won’t be visiting DD as Oct- Dec is the busiest time for me at work.
Im taking her on 1st October- 5 hour drive- staying overnight and coming home the next day.
I think she has plans for her bf to visit a couple of times over the 8 weeks she’ll be there.
@craggyrat DD has to clear her room each term and I’m looking at ways for DD to send stuff home before EOT so that all she’s left with is a suitcase to bring home on train.
Ill take her down at the start of each term.

Weirdly, out of me and my four siblings, the only one who didn’t really settle or make many friends at uni was the Oxbridge one, so the college set up didn’t really help him. But that probably says more about him than the set up. He was very studious, not really used to socialising and quite anxious. And he came home too often. And of course the terms were shorter so less time to settle.

It’s dh’s 50th in Sept so we’re thinking of having a family do maybe mid-late Oct so dd will probably come back at least for the Saturday (I can already imagine her moaning at missing some uni social event to come back!).