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!

DD started yesterday; great excitement was leaving the school site at lunchtime to walk to Tesco. Seemed to go well, chatted to a few new people, which is nice. She's sticking with her gang of girls for the most part, but I hope she will make some new friends too.

At DD's old school (y7-11) the prefects (around 1/3 of the year) are allowed to leave the site at lunch. Prefects are initially appointed at half term of the summer term of y10. There is always a crowd of them in town for a couple of weeks until the novelty starts to wear off.

Ours is the 6th form of a school so registration morning and afternoon which they have to be in for. Not sure about policy on free periods (STUDY PERIODS as I keep telling ds!). They can go out at lunchtime though. We've paid for school lunch and ds seems quite happy with that so far.

Homework started on day 1 but ds seems to be doing most of that in his study periods so not much needing to be done at home yet.

Induction day yesterday here. And 2/3 of the summer work completed now. DS1 was only a few minutes late for his tutor group meeting.

Not sure he's ecstatic about this timetable, he's got 9am starts on 4 days, including Monday where he's got a tutor group 9:00-9:05 and then two hours off, 1 hour lesson, two hours off and 1 hour lesson. Still once he's got going he can catch up for the week in these gaps. In my dreams. I know he'll head into town for breakfast instead.

DD can’t leave the grounds during the day, is expected to be there from 8:30 to 3pm but can use the school gym during free periods. She is also taking art so once they get in the swing of it there will be much time spent in the art department.
She has offered to help coach the Year 7 girls rugby team, she has played since she was 4 and one of her team mates in in Yr 13 and also will be coaching.

They also only get 35m for lunch.

So strict! Ds is at a school sixth form but apart from some supervised study they can go in and out as they wish!

DS is getting his head round calling his lecturers by their first names which he says is just weird but loving the freedom of college. In 3 days a week. ‘Lessons’ due to start next week but it’s a practical BTEC so he starts cooking next week and he can’t wait. The chefs gear turns up Monday - photo opp for the album!

Rather irritatingly, DS’s school is going onto online mode from Monday, because of proximity to the queen’s funeral. Has affected two schools locally. I think I have lockdown ptsd 😀

@Revengeofthepangolins why are they doing that? Are they involved in the funeral?? I was reading that schools might not even close on the day of the funeral so I can't see why they would shut more than a week before. I wouldn't be happy with this if I were you.

@Revengeofthepangolins that's a bizarre decision & disappointing for your DS I'm sure...are they expecting transport/travel problems? Surely those would only affect the day itself, or at a stretch one day either side?

I can't believe that schools won't close on the day of the funeral.
I am busy hoping (probably in vain) that it won't be on the Monday as that is DD's practical day, the day she lives for each week.

Going online from Monday sounds a real pain. Perhaps the whole area will be security tight and they can't have a load of kids toing and froing the whole time?

That seems to be the implication - lots about catering supplies can’t come in and the area will be congested so better to close physical now in an orderly manner. All a bit disappointing ting - far from having a ring side seat, they have no physical school at all!

DC settling in slowly. Only 2 of them in the Physics class which was described as 'utterly incomprehensible' afterwards but with a smile, so I hope it'll be OK. They have one of the world's best teachers ever (seriously) and if anyone can get them through this it is this teacher. Other 2 subjects are OK, one in a class of 3, and one a class of 15. A lot of homework already. And a lot of free periods too, allegedly.

Decent week here for DD although she was shattered last night and went up to bed before 10pm!!!!!! Met lots of new people, some new to school and some who have been there all through but never really talked to........she has a small group of good friends but none of them are really into the same things (football and gigs) so was really looking forward to seeing if there were like-minded people now that there's no uniform and she can scrutinise t-shirt choices 🤣.

They have to be in every morning for registration but can leave during frees as long as they sign out and if that's at the end of the day can come straight home. No uniform, but can't have ripped jeans, too much on show or any offensive slogans - we were a bit worried as the student handbook says no slogans at all and all DD has to wear is jeans and band tees (or football kit!) but when she checked those are ok.......Still not completely sure of Physics rather than English Lit but needs to decide by the end of next week

@Revengeofthepangolins that's a very odd decision and so tough so early in the term when they're still finding their feet. We're expecting school to close the day of the funeral itself but if it's Monday we're supposed to be at a gig in the evening so not sure if that will go ahead

Hope everyone has restful weekends after busy first few days 😊

@Revengeofthepangolins is your DS at Westminster School? If so, you can understand why they'd need to go virtual until after the funeral. It's right next to Westminster Abbey isn't it? Almost built into the grounds? Presumably that whole area will be locked down now to make sure it's super security safe. Total PITA for your DS and the school though.

A physics class of two will be like private tutoring! That's jolly good luck as long as there's a great dynamic between the teacher and young people.

DD hasn't done a great amount of out-of-school work yet (not that I've noticed anyway) but spent yesterday afternoon sorting out all her folders. Apparently they have to be presented regularly for inspection!

Her school doesn't allow the sixth formers out at lunchtime but on the other hand, if the have frees in the afternoon, they're allowed to leave and go home.

It now transpires that the 'business dress' for sixth form is rather more relaxed than the school's website would imply, certainly in terms of what they can wear under the dark jackets and skirts/trousers.

How many of your DC have part time jobs (I mean the ones in otherwise full time education)? It seems that virtually everyone DD knows has a job or is looking for one (and this was the same in my older DS's year as well), but comparing notes with my SIL, she was saying that having a job in Y12/13 was really unusual at her DC's school - they just focused on their studies.

My DD has just started a job at Explore Learning (tuition centre). It's not the most well paid (retail pays much better) but she's saying she really enjoys it and, as she is possibly consider primary teaching as a future career, is hopefully useful experience.

DS has had a job for the last year or so, washing up in a pub. Used to work Monday and Friday nights - I wasn't crazy about it when he was yr11 but he used to be home by 10 both nights, and he had no shifts during his exams. He worked a lot during the holidays and usually until gone midnight. He's not going to take any shifts for a couple of weeks while he settles into 6th form and then see how it pans out. His 'friendship group', already spread across 10+ miles as they were bused into school from villages, is going to different colleges all over the place so he currently seems quite keen to spend evening's meeting up with them. Not sure how long that will last - he seemed surprised that he didn't know anyone in his tutor group. I suspect he isn't going to know anyone in his classes either so he'll just have to settle in. My only concern is that he's chosen the more academic college so I think his work load will be higher than some of his friends, so how long he'll stick it out before asking to transfer colleges remains to be seen.

DD isn’t very happy with the size of her classes. They have had the most external students join ever this year and the site simply isn’t big enough or equipped for the number of students enrolled. There are 28 of them in her History class whereas in past years it has been at least 10 less. She says there were not enough chairs in the classrooms for every single lesson she went to last week and not enough room for everyone in the common areas. I guess the numbers will drop slightly once everyone has dropped their 4th subject after half term but DD is concerned about the impact on the teaching.

Wow that is a big class for A Level Rollergirl! I think DD said her history group was about 24(?) and that is her biggest class.

I guess it's an unfortunate number as not big enough to be able to justify (cost/staff wise) splitting into 2 groups, but too many for the group to be comfortable. Hopefully you may get some drop the subject in pursuit of other options.

My DS's smallest class is 11 for PE. I'm assuming there will be close to 30 in both of his other subjects as his brother did the same subjects and that seems to be the norm. Big subjects like maths, and for some reason, psychology, have 2 classes but they've definitely got over 20 in each. Their school is a net importer of pupils for 6th form so the year groups are slightly bigger than lower down the school.

DD started sixth form today. Her first class wasn’t until 10:15 but she was there for 8:30 with a friend who had earlier classes. She used the time to find where the student hub was as she’ll have to go there for some of her untimetabled periods. Her timetable itself is very varied with most days having 2 or 3 classes and lots of study sessions.

I don’t know about class sizes yet but hoping they Lee not too big.

I think there are at least 4 History classes but I don’t know the sizes of the others.

The issue is that there was a new secondary school that opened in the area that started with this cohort that became part of our academy. The scho does not offer a 6th form. I think our school guaranteed places in our 6th form for these students so we effectively have an additional bulge class to cater for. But not the space or staff to easily facilitate it.

DD has 5 in her Spanish class and around 15-18 I think in her English and history classes. There are issues with the amount of space in the 6th form common room as there are over 300 in year 12 and 13 altogether but as there are staggered lunches I think it’s ok

DD's other class sizes are 12 in English Lit and 16 in English Lang.

I was surprised that there were more taking English Lang, though not sure why I am surprised ...

Rollergirl's sixth form is clearly much bigger than ours (which is one of the biggest in the area). There aren't 4 classes for anything (think 2 is the maximum and that's only subjects like maths).