Post GCSE’s 2022 - Year 12 2022/23 General support thread

[Rollergirl11]

This is a thread for supporting all young people post GCSEs 2022, regardless of their educational setting.
Our DC’s may continue down various pathways ( employment, apprenticeships, higher ed)
Everyone is welcome!

That's great to hear, @NameInUseAlreadyAgain you must be so pleased.

As you should be.

Colleges can have fabulous restauraunts.

@NameInUseAlreadyAgain That's fab, so glad it is working out well.

@NameInUseAlreadyAgain - that sounds fantastic. Well done your ds. It is wonderful when you know they're just in the right place isn't it??

DS continuing to enjoy his 6th form although he mostly spends time winding up dd about all the yummy things available to buy in the 6th form cafe which she doesn't get being a lowly year 9. Apparently the mint aero hot chocolate is particularly good!

He has assessments starting in a couple of weeks so I hope he's revising!

DD is 2nd year at college but doing a level 1 course (having done a slightly easier L1 course last year). She's not managed a full week yet, but this week has only missed half a day so that's an improvement.

I daren't look at her attendance figures online, especially as they count lessons not hours so a Monday counts 2/12 for 5 hours whereas a Wed counts 4/12 for 5 hours.

DD is having a mixed time at the moment. She has changed one of her A levels and now starts Sociology on Monday and will have a months worth of work to catch up on. She also had braces fitted and has had a hard time coping with the pain. Finally she started waitressing part time, which she is finding very challenging. She has asd so Im just waiting for it all to come tumbling down. Ive given her advice about taking things slowly but got ignored, so she has to find her own path.

Does anyone know if you get official certificates for GCSE's? We just have a slip of paper for one and an A4 page for the rest. I just assumed rightly or wrongly we would get a certificate.

You'll get certificates, but they only print them once all reviews/remarks etc are done. DD's old school holds a 'celebration' evening in November to hand them out.

Thanks TeenDivided - I hadn't really considered the timescales involved for remarking.

My DS is finding his A-levels enjoyable so far after being allowed to switch one after the first week.
He is struggling with his part time job though and their ever decreasing demands. It's only supposed to be 7.5 hours a week but it's been more like double that. He's not happy about it at all, especially as they are constantly changing his shift times.
Anyone else's DC having this issue? I think it's just what retail is like these days and part of the problem why companies struggle to retain staff. They seem to expect you to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Grrrr obviously meant increasing not decreasing

My DS had this issue when he worked in retail. He was meant to work 12 hours a week but he ended up doing a minimum of 16 and they were always asking him to do extra and refused to take "no" for an answer. Even down to things like he'd finished his shift - they asked him if he'd stay for longer and he said he had to get to school - they then asked him when he started and said he could stay for an extra half hour and still get there on time! He ended up giving up, because he said he needed to stick to 12 hours as it approached exams, but they just rotaed him in for a bunch of extra shifts regardless.

My advice is that they have to just say "no" to everything extra. Claiming school work/commitments was the one thing that they didn't argue with - DS did this a lot!

DD thankfully hasn’t had this yet in her job. She’s doing 11 hours a week and so far they haven’t asked her to do anymore. But then she’s still in her probationary period so maybe that’s why….

Went to Royal Holloway open day today. Amazing campus straight out of Hogwarts! Really liked the vibe but there were very few Stem courses. Think we'd like to find somewhere with the same campus feel but differs academics.

*different

We probably need to look at a few places next month, there aren’t all that many that meet her dual criteria of offering a degree in Game Art and also having a roller derby team.
We had a wobble a few weeks ago about Art a level, she’s bored with how they are revisiting the fundamentals. I pointed out that art is pretty fundamental to a game art degree and she should just do more outside of her classes. She does pottery classes in the evening already and could do more.

DD's school said ideally the youngsters shouldn't have jobs as it impacts too much on their study/life balance. To some extent I think they have a point. DD's tutoring job is in the balance because the timing of it breaks up her study flow. I think jobs that are one seven hour shift (or thereabouts) are tenable but anything that requires doing eight to 12 hours a week over two or more shifts starts impacting too much on free time.

DD has been poorly with COVID again. So she's been back at school for 4 1/2 weeks and had three days off already. And not well enough when off to be doing any school work, so a lot to catch up on already.

DD has a 'distance learning day' today which is always stressful as she hates online stuff and not knowing when/if the work will be set. She's already a bit worked up and it's only 9.20. I have said work on a previously set assignment for 45mins and then check back.

@TeenDivided that sounds tough. What is the purpose of distance learning days out of interest.

The teachers use time in the distance learning days to review progress of learners and other stuff.

Anyway, I went out and came home at 12:30 to discover DD was all under control and had done most of the work so that was a relief.

At DD's college they have a 'flying start' programme where they keep a close eye for the first 6 weeks and if needed bump students up down or across courses. i think this distance learning day is the sort of review that people are where they are mean to be.

That sounds constructive @TeenDivided .

Hope your DD is better now @LouisCatorze Welcome @bubble2000 and well done to your DS @NameInUseAlreadyAgain - sorry for any news I've missed, been away from the thread for a while.

DS seems to be settling down and enjoying sixth form life, says he has lots of homework (and also "prep work" they have to do before each lesson) but he gets on with it and I think is getting it all done. He did the SMC yesterday morning (in his Further Maths class) and enjoyed it. He thinks he has done pretty well but not sure if he will manage to qualify for BMO1 this year, think he will probably end up with Gold and Kangaroo again but hopefully will be happy with that.

My only gripe is that they don't seem to have got many of the clubs and societies up and running yet, I guess it takes a while at the beginning of the year to get things underway but it is now only two and a half weeks until half term! I think they like students to run them and the year 13s have had "assessments" this week so perhaps more will get going from next week? DS has "assessments" in mid November so that will be interesting.

IThinkIMadeItWorse, dc usually gets gold&Kangaroo, but will at most get bronze this year. Found it hard....

My ds did SMC too and said it was hard. He does maths a-level but not FM. We'll be happy with a bronze!

Ds also did SMC and found it very hard. He didn't attempt quite a few of the last questions so unlikely to get a high score. Wish he had a bit more confidence with maths.