Year 13 2023/2024 - General support thread

[Rollergirl11]

It’s now the time for our young adults to sit their final year at sixth form/college. Everyone is welcome!

Great news on the inteview and the mocks not being too bad @Rollergirl11
And congrats to all those with offers coming in.

DD intended to submit her UCAS form this week but then had a meeting with the Head of English which has prompted her to hold off for some reason I'm not quite clear about. Think we are nearly there anyway!

She's now mostly busy on her NEAs (she has 4!!!!) so I think UCAS has taken a back seat in her mind.

Congratulations on all the offers and the interview. We were at Birmingham today and it was nowhere near top
choice when we set off but it is now after visiting. It was a perfect Autumn day though. DS PS is still to be done. I think he was getting bogged down with it at college but thought he had to do it there with no help from us so that's tomorrows job. @legosunqueen I also have an irrational fear of no offers left so I want him to get it submitted asap.

Congrats @Rollergirl11 on DD's Cambridge interview. Does she have a long wait?

We're still waiting on Bath. I don't think they are an early offerer so might not be for a while.

Ds has booked in some interview practice with his head of physics which is good. He's off to CERN next weekend which he's really looking forward to. Hope it's not too cold!

@chocolatenutcase we were very impressed by Birmingham today (Business) & it is now joint second choice for DS whereas it was a long shot before today.

I thought the accommodation let it down a bit with very little communal space in the hall that we looked round compared to some other unis, but DS brushed that aside.

The glorious weather helped, & we popped into Birmingham on the way home so I could look in Selfridges for a late lunch, & it was buzzing!

@sheepdogdelight Four NEAs!!!!!! What subjects are they for? DS2's single one is driving me to distraction as a witness of carnage. He kept changing the question and rewriting it from scratch. Due in tomorrow ....

She has 2 for English Language and 1 each for English Literature and History.

Four NEAs would be hellish. DD has half of an English one to do and most of her geography too (she was ill on the field trip so off to a 'great' start with that one!).

Well done to all of the young people already with offers in hand.

DD hasn't submitted her UCAS application yet. Still deliberating about universities. I've told her to leave the fifth option open but she's adamant that the school won't allow an empty space on the form. I think often she interprets things too literally!

My son’s school wouldn’t let him submit with less than 5 and he was an early applicant. I think they worry the students won’t remember to add the extra choices before the deadline.

4 NEA’s would be awful. My DS got the limited feedback they can give last week on his history coursework and thankfully there isn’t too much he has to fix.

Great to hear of so many great offers coming in. We will be waiting a while for anymore news, which doesn’t of course stop me from checking the various spreadsheets!

I had a bit of a wobble moment in the car earlier. Had done the Tesco shop and saw Lindt advent calendars so grabbed two for the dc as they both love Lindt chocolate. I was halfway home before I realised that I won't be putting out two advent calendars next year and that I'll have to post DS's to him wherever he is.

This year is full of lasts isn't it? Quite sad really.

Yes its unsettling to think they won't be here this time next year - good that they have progressed but will miss DD QueenMabby Though atm she's only applied for 2 which take around 5% each so we may get an extra year of DD. Not heard from either other than acknowledgments but one gives rejections first and other is still processing.

Thanks Lego DD hasn't mentioned it again so hopefully its all calmed down now.

We have kitchen done now and painting of outside of house finishes today so we will finally have nobody working on house for first time since mid August tomorrow. Love the work they have done.

Good luck to those sitting mocks / MAT2 and to Ithink for BMO1. One of the lovely ladies on the cancer thread with me has been given a few days to live with a young child, very sad and making me think about things as well as feeling bad I can't stop that happening. DD is very capable and would manage fine. DS there's still no way forward. But currently I am all clear still. They don't seem to have a clue with DS and appear to be walking away.

Very sad to hear about the woman on the cancer thread @Silkierabbit and totally natural that her situation has brought up these feelings for you. I can't imagine what you've had to go through but thinking of how the kids would cope in that scenario must be very hard. Hopefully you'll continue to go from strength to strength. Sorry to hear the latest about your ds - has there been any progress.

I’m not 100% sure that Dd will go to university next year. Pretty sure if she gets into Oxford she will but I think maybe if she doesn’t that she will either defer a place or withdraw completely and apply with grades hand. DS had a year before going and I think she can see the benefits of that.

But we shall wait and see.

Thanks very much Light Not much progress on DS at all but rest of us things are pretty much fine for now.

Yes think DDs the same Miranda Oxford she will go next year, otherwise a year out. But its only 5% for her course and she keeps working. Which is great for the bank balance but not so great for A levels and getting uni places though hope she pulls it off. She got all A stars predicted and can get that if she works at A levels but keeps getting distracted by money. Though I think a gap year can be really good and I know DD would do well at one.

Ah @Silkierabbit - that's so sad. And awful about your ds too. It beggars belief that this lack of support and joined up thinking is considered an acceptable response to a child who doesn't fit the standard mould.

Yes its a really stupid system. Old area supported him well via school and got highest results in school and had friends. New area refused to even assess him for SN for almost 3 years and refused pretty much all support, when we already knew exactly what was needed and what had worked. It would have cost them about £10k a year. But nope they refused sent him into crisis then they all washed their hands and tried to pass him round for a year or two with nobody spending any money again with me telling them exactly what they need to do. Then they force him into hospital in handcuffs, during my cancer treatment incase he runs away and drug him and put him in like a coma (catatonia for months) and so have to keep him there which must have cost £300k so far and meant no qualifications and atm I don't think he will ever recover from it. At first they denied everything as well but thankfully a honest doctor has now admitted what happened. They had to take him out of hospital early as they thought he might be being sexually abused in there. So we've had him home but all he's capable of is eating and drinking. Can't speak, write, read, show any expression, can't leave house, needs help dressing and now they appear to be shrugging shoulders and walking out. Well they phone me once a month so they can claim they are doing something. So sad seeing his sister who he was on exactly same path as and had they followed my advice would still be or at least not a zombie. Its scary to think what will happen when we are not around.

That's bloody horrific, how old is he?

Has he any diagnosis?

He's 16 now. 15 when it happened. We do have diagnoses now - asd with depression / anxiety (which they said about 75% of asd have at this age) and then catatonia from anti-psychotics wrongly given at first hospital, they gave him an anti-schizophrenia drug, 4 security guards sitting on him and handcuffed to do it. We only found out in the March after given in September. We knew about handcuffing and security guards as husband was there but not what had been given but noticed he could not see, eat, write, move, walk after it - he was literally stuck with an arm in mid air. We can at least get PIP for him now. And it was good to know in March what had caused it but very angry we were lied to until March, and all the reports miss out how he was though we did manage to sneak some photos. But they are clearly terrified of being sued over what happened. They deserve to be sued but as so many of them covered it up I am not sure if we would get anywhere. A second hospital called in told us the truth. I knew it had happened as it started day of the drug but first hospital said maybe he came in like that. 🤔And then lost his weight thing which said he wasn't underweight on entry. We thought he would die in there as he got so skeletal. He hates them so much, normally the most gentle boy ever, but once he could move he kept taking out all their fire alarms and alarms etc.

Oh @Silkierabbit that sounds so terrible. Your DS has been so let down, I'm so sorry that happened to him (and you). Also sad news about the lady on the cancer thread. unmumsnetty hugs

Thanks for the BMO1 wishes, he is doing it tomorrow morning and doesn't want to talk to me about it so I think he's a bit nervous. He has done some past paper questions over the weekend and it doesn't count for anything so I just hope he enjoys it.

It's not so different from what happened with my DS when he was 10/11, except for the hospitalisation part. He has co-morbid ASD / and anxiety and highly intelligent. He was so burned out in the end he couldn't function for any of high school until year 11 when he was finally on the right dose of sertraline for him. I educated other as he couldn't cope with school. Has your son missed the whole of year 11?

Gosh @Silkierabbit what an absolutely hellish shocking thing to happen to your poor DS. What an evil bunch of b*stards!! To just lie like that to cover their own arses! I am so sorry for you and your family. I remember when you used to talk about DS and his favourite rabbit a few years ago.

Honestly, it sounds to me like they deserve a massive lawsuit dropped on them!

Please consult a solicitor about getting justice for you son @Silkierabbit.

I am so thankful that my son was diagnosed shortly after his 3rd birthday largely due to his hyperlexia. We have had plenty of battles, but compared to you and @lifeturnsonadime it has been plain sailing.

Not correctly supporting all children with SEN to achieve their potential is so shortsighted and reforms always seem to be about saving money rather than improving outcomes.

Opinions please

as you probably remember DS is doing a BTEC in hospitality and isn’t going to Uni

so today he comes home from college mumbling something about a career fair the local Uni is holding for hospitality careers.

It’s called “Hospitality, Tourism and Events Careers Fair 2023 where you can explore career opportunities and network with experienced professionals”

he said hadn’t signed up to go. We said why not and he couldn’t give a reason just shrugged. What then ensured was me giving him a good talking to about future and what is he planning on doing because as it stands he’s gonna end up doing his current part time job as full time which has zero career prospects. I said it’s fine if that’s all you wish to aspire to but I don’t think it is

it turns out that he’s just nervous about going alone. He’s very much a quiet child unless he’s talking about gaming and then we can’t shut him up !

so anyway he asked me to sign up and go with him. As limited places I’ve signed up. However I haven’t actually decided whether to go yet. It’s tomorrow. He’s signed up independently of me. So own QR code.

opinions please. Is this like a Uni open Day where parents can go or should he be going alone. I honestly have no idea and don’t want to be a helicopter parent and make him look like a twit and they remember him as the kid who had to take his mum. Or is it normal to go as moral support ??? We went to one when he was in year 8 which was lots of companies and education stalls but not jobs and every child had a parent.

but I get the feeling this is different.

shall I drop him off so he’s not ‘going’ there alone and then go for a wander round town or a coffee nearby. Or should I go in too?

i thought he could take some sheets of paper to hand out like a quarter of an A4 size with his name and contact details and a bit about himself if they had any openings he could interview for. Almost like a business card. This would be either whether I went or not

please be kind - I literally have no idea what one does. I went from college into the family business so I didn’t need to do this !!!

thanks :-)

I'd go with him if he's asked you to. It's not a job interview it's just looking at options for careers. Some students will be alone some will be with friends or families. If you go in and he doesn't want you there, you can always suggest you are going to go for a coffee at that point.

I doubt they will take student information for interviewing purposes so I wouldn't focus too much on that. They will more likely give him information to follow up on if he wishes to.

Good luck to your DS.

Thanks !

Or maybe just some slips with his name and email address because if he is asked the Wally will probably go to pieces ha ha. This is what I deal with on a daily basis. At the pharmacy last week they asked if he was still in education and he looked like a rabbit in headlights !

the hotels that will be there actively recruit from his college so he needs to make a good impression. The hotel it’s been held at is on his hit list for a job already !