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!

Cor @NameInUseAlreadyAgain he's a star in my eyes too...incredible!

That looks delicious @NameInUseAlreadyAgain. Well done your ds!

My DS's assessment week is done. Tomorrow he's off to a local primary school to help with their science week. I need to encourage him to crack on with his EPQ now. Not long left....

Wow, that looks great @NameInUseAlreadyAgain! Would love it if anyone in our house had amazing cooking skills like that.

Thanks all. I’m quite impressed too ! We off to eat there again in a few weeks :-).

We have half term next week but so far nothing planned. I think we will be mainly chilling at home. Has anyone got anything more exciting happening? Not sure how much work DS will be set, hopefully he will not leave it all to the last minute. He got the rest of his results back and was really pleased so that's good. I think they have more assessments in March and another parents evening in April (2 parents evenings in one year - not had that since primary school!) I think that his end of year 12 exams are straight after May half term so I guess we won't go away on holiday that week, they will use those exams to do his predicted grades so pretty important.

The end of the week message from college says that for students in year 2 (so upper sixth or year 13) there are now only 10 teaching weeks until the summer exams start!! Eeeek!

Half term here too. DS is going on a ski trip with school to Banff & Lake Louise in Canada. It's an amazing opportunity, hope he enjoys it.

The last school ski trip was 3 years ago & DS came back (from Northern Italy) with a cough...we were blue-lighted to the regional hospital car park where a PPE-clad doctor administered the first of so many covid tests (it was negative)...

Interesting to see that timeline @IThinkIMadeItWorse - no exam dates from DS's school yet although he is doing Maths AS in the summer term, not sure when the AS exams are.

Hope everyone has a relaxing half term!

Half term here too, although DD has come down with a cold at the worst possible time.
She’s got 5 hours of Team GB roller Derby training tomorrow and then National Pool Lifeguard Qualification training Monday to Friday with the assessment next Sunday.

Thankfully she is completely up to date with her art coursework so doesn’t have to squeeze that in as well.

She’s going to skip her league roller derby training today and try steaming her sinuses so she can manage for the rest of the week.

Gosh! No trips for ds (bit sad, banff sounds incredible) bed with wifi beckons.

No half term for us until the week after. My dcs are going abroad. First time they are travelling alone. Flying out to visit family. They are familiar with the local airport but not the one they are flying to. They are both very excited although ds is trying to play it cool.

He's started getting his results back from assessment week. A stonking 93% in pure maths which he was thrilled with. Mechanics equally good but stays pretty bad although he said he didn't revise.

More importantly he has improved in chemistry which is the one I was worried about.

Dammit. Stats. Not stays. An edit button please Mumsnet !

Sorry to hear about your dd's sinus problems @MrsPnut - hope she recovers swiftly and enjoys the break.

Ds seems really tired - we're off for a short walking holiday up north. It'll be good for him to be in nature.

I think we're coming up for a tough time with exams after Easter, open days etc. he's sort of questioning his uni choices too but school are having a UCAS process night after half term. I would fully support a gap year but the rumour is this is difficult for maths based subjects.

DS has got four days of work and a driving theory test and has an assignment to finish

practice mock tests just done.

oh and we got him a car at the weekend and he’s been driving me round in it for practice. A few stalls and my foot going through the floor braking but he’s getting better each time !

Half term here too. DS currently having a driving lesson, test booked for next month and seems to be doing ok so far. I can definitely relate to the foot in the floor breaking @NameInUseAlreadyAgain !
Assessments coming up after half term for DS for everything learnt so far so has been doing some revision.
We’ve been looking at uni open days and have signed up for a few. Managed a Lancaster uni online campus tour yesterday which was good.

We can't wait for half term. DS is so tired. He has his EPQ presentation early next half term so it's all go trying to get that finished. He was thrilled this morning to wake up to a reply from some random physics professor at a university in America that he'd emailed about some propulsion theory that this man had written a paper on. I was impressed that he'd had the initiative to contact him and very appreciative that the professor sent a prompt response.

DS is thinking seriously about taking on AS level further maths which he can do once the EPQ is out of the way. We'll probably need to check in with school to make sure that it won't adversely impact his other grades though.

Hope all those who are on half term are having a good one.

Half term next week here, but no rest for the wicked as DS is on a work experience thing and needs to be there at 8am every day. I have mixed feelings - it was a competitive scheme and he's done very well to be chosen and I think he will enjoy it, but he has exams at school the week after so it's going to be tough to fit revision in as well. Plus he is doing another voluntary week with a very prestigious company in the first week of the Easter hols. He is really lucky to get that opportunity and I'm proud of him for taking the initiative and being chosen, but both schemes together mean that he won't actually have had a break between Christmas and Easter, and he worked (for money that time!) a lot of days over the Christmas holidays. Good practice for the real world I suppose, but a lot at his age.

Theory test passed first time. Ages til practical. But at least he will have plenty of practice by time it comes round

Good to see all this news. We seem a way behind on uni thinking- ds hoppng between various possibilities with no real info apart from uni websites. Are your schools using unifrog? Ours doesn't have it. Is there any alternative or how are the young people sifting through all the info? I feel woefully ill informed!

DS hasn't got a clue what he wants to study next, probably if he wants to study or go down the apprenticeship route, nor which sort of university he wants to go to. We got grades from this terms progress review (online chat which parents can dual into) so I think there are lots of, probably too many, options.

Hi all, hope everyone is well. Gosh lots of DC’s very motivated with work experiences, driving lessons and uni research!!

DD is doing well. She had some assessments just before half term and she is happy with her predicted grades. No driving lessons here just yet as she’s not 17 until April. She has to get her resource list for her EPQ in by the end of next week. She has also had an email from the colleges Oxbridge candidate scheme about early applications and I think they have a meeting to kickstart the process in the coming weeks. Other than that I don’t think DD has thought too much about uni’s. The college does use Unifrog. There is also a post 18 Higher Education fayre at a local school that Year 12 are all going to that has over 50 universities attending so that will give her food for thought.

Other than that she’s trying to sort out her work experience week for June as that all has to be organised and signed off by mid March.

To be honest we’re not seeing too much of her. I think DS is missing her a fair bit! Between her work and going out with her friends and seeing her boyfriend she is out a lot. This weekend her and a friend have gone to Bristol to stay with friends older sister in her uni accommodation and go and see Inhaler perform at the o2 academy. It’s lovely to see her happy, secure and sociable within her friendship group. This time last year was it was a completely different story!

@aramox1 I think you can sign up to Unifrog yourself. It is a useful resource but I find it a bit hard to navigate. For those whose dc are not sure about what to study, the Morrisby career profile test was useful also but there is a cost - it was about £70 I think.

UCAS info meeting was useful - ds school will be starting the process after Easter. He really needs to pull his finger out with the science work experience/wider reading as he's thinking about very competitive universities. The school want a draft personal statement by June and currently he hasn't got much to put on it although he's waiting to hear about a prefect and a science society role.

I am nudging him towards less pressured university environments as I'd like him to enjoy his time as a uni student after the pressure of the last few years with covid then GCSE's. I think he's decided that he'd like a campus university closer to home so sadly we'll have to rule out Durham and St Andrews and possibly Lancaster too - all of my favourites! Having said that, he might feel more confident about being further away by the time his application has to be submitted.

Forgot to say that I'm finding there is a lot of support out there for those that are eligible for contextual support. Sutton Trust, UNIQ, Target Oxbridge and the competitive universities offer subject masterclasses and residentials where contextual candidates are prioritised. We don't meet the criteria but thought it might be useful to some on here. Generally criteria include dc from under represented groups, free school meals, been in care, household income under certain levels etc.

DS had a very good half term on his work experience scheme and was graded "excellent" in all domains on his feedback. He had to give a presentation to the company directors on the last day which I think will prove a very useful experience for him. Unfortunately he is now panicking that he hasn't done enough revision for his school exams next week, which us probably true. He's had very good grades for everything so far though so I'm hoping that if these exams don't go brilliantly it won't impact on his predictions too much. There is also the added complication that he is supposed to have 2 exams on the next strike day. He's been told to come in but it's not clear exactly what is going to happen.

DS has three cooking assessments coming up so has cooked for us this weekend and it was delicious. This is what he cooked at the restaurant this week (people pay for it!) - goats cheese tart. I’ve asked him about Uni but he says he’s not interested. Wants to get a job and then decide what he wants to do by the time he’s 25. Chip off old block that one. No idea what he wants to do but I still don’t at my old age !

DD is currently (slightly) panicking about her EPQ presentation. It's in 2 weeks time. Is this normal? It seems ridiculously early, and I do think they must be disadvantaged if other schools give them longer or let them take into Year 13.

She's also starting her first NEA for English Language. Again, seems early to be starting an NEA. My older child did more scientific studies, so I'm very surprised in the workload/expectations between these and English/humanities subjects.

On a third note, she's started looking at universities. She has no idea what to look for. I've suggested she needs to think about course, strength of subject at that university and whether it looks like a place she wants to live :) Anything else to add to the list? Doesn't help that she has no idea about predicted grades - again very different to maths/science where the work gets harder, in English/humanities the work just gets broader so they should hone their skills as they go along.

@sheepdogdelight I think re; university maybe look at graduate job prospects for the particular course. Courses are so expensive for parents and students alike so I'm looking at value too and things like face to face teaching (some courses are still online). Campus or city uni might be another thing to consider too.

There are some university guides like The Guardian one or the Complete University Guide but I haven't looked at those yet. I'm finding it all a bit overwhelming and ds is not really engaging with the process still.