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!

Excellent news - well done to your son. We won’t get the result until August even though the final submission was made just before October half-term.

Wow A levels in a year is amazing- good luck ! Ds ploughing through mocks. He always seems to work hard and gets indifferent results - I often wonder if his revision technique is at fault or maybe he's just not at the A/A* standard or missing the point somewhere along the line. His offers are quite high too. Cold exam halls not good for morale!

DSs ex GF did As in a year and did v well - now at first choice uni. It was quite intense with no half terms and long days but did the job! All the best to her and welcome here @WriterOfWrongs

congrats to DS on EPQ @MrsAvocet I’m sure the skills will stand him in good stead for uni.

neither of my DC are interested in learning to drive. I sway between wondering how I’ve failed as a parent and pleased I am not worrying about them driving out there solo in the big wide world. Public transport is v easy where we live so I guess that lessens the need but still makes me feel crap!

Another A grade EPQ here. Really really pleased for DC, especially as a lot of their friends made the decision not to do one at all.

Well done @MrsAvocet and @Aaarghthepancakes on a great EPQ grade! Must be a weight off having one grade at least in the bag. DD’s has been submitted and she has been told by her superviser that it’s an A but she was emailed just before Xmas to say hers has been randomly selected for moderation so fingers crossed she retains the grade.

And now she’s on a mad frenzy to pass her driving test and has decided that she needs a car to practice in (ours is automatic). I think even more of her cohort have come back from the holidays driving so this has given her some incentive to get it done before her A levels.

@Rollergirl11 DD's Welsh Bacc coursework is in the sample as well, but her work's been 'randomly selected' most years so she's quite blasé now.

She has no interest in driving till after uni. I have to do a lot of taxiing, but I think it's sensible financially.

My son is interested in driving, as he has developed a keen interest in motor sports over the last couple of years, but there really is no point learning at the moment. We live in central London so don’t need or have a car and if he learns locally can imagine him sitting in traffic for most of the lesson. We chatted about it the other day and he will probably wait until the last year at university to learn although he might get a train out to the suburbs for a trial lesson just for fun.

He has his last official mock today (they are doing a Latin translation paper in class next week) so he is looking forward to largely taking it easy until their mock exam results day on the 2nd February, which is convenient as his 18th is between then and now too. Except for the first maths paper he feels reasonably confident - personally I hope he has done OK rather than really well so he is more likely to knuckle down and work from February onwards.

He has his history coursework to submit after half-term but it is just finishing touches as he got very positive feedback after he submitted the first draft thankfully.

@MrsAvocet and @Aaarghthepancakes - congrats for your dc on the great EPQ results.

@Rollergirl11 - that's a frustrating extra step! Will she know of the score changes?

I meant to ask. For this that have been through A levels before WITH dc - when's best to start the revision for the a levels proper? Feb half term? Easter?
The exams are later than I expected - DS only has one this side of the May half term and the others are all in June.
TIA

I’d say there isn’t a one size fits all approach.

Some schools teach curriculum faster so there is more time for revision, apart from the obvious variances in subject as well. Add into the mix the type of school DC are at and the support they get etc.

@QueenMabby i know it is slightly irritating! I don’t really know how it works tbh. She was given her raw score and grade by her EPQ supervisor so I assume when they get their grades back in March she will see if it’s changed.

As for revision, I think DD will probs start in earnest after their 2nd lot of mocks after the Feb half term.

No idea when they are submitting final drafts of English and History coursework. She sent first draft in just before Xmas so is awaiting a response.

Regarding revision, my DS has ensured his notes are adequate for revision from the outset. He's done his set home work first then ensured this since the start of year 12.

He is worried about retaining the information for the summer exams so I don't think he will try to start learning the fact heavy psychology content for a while yet.

He tells me he has two more sets of mocks for psychology and one more for his other 2 subjects, so I suspect he will start revising in earnest after the second lot.

My understanding of EPQ is that it's likely that a few from each centre will be moderated and, if they are deemed not to be "correct" then the results of everyone in the centre changes (that's how it was described to DD anyway!).

DD has also been revising and creating notes as she goes along.
She's got mocks in a couple of weeks so is refining them as part of that. Then I think she will focus on her NEAs and it's unlikely that she'll pick up home revision (sure they will revise at school) until much closer to the exams.

I had a vent last week about whether dd was going to apply for uni this year or not. It has moved on nicely - she has narrowed down her choices (just to finalise which place for 3 of them for one subject, other 2 are figured already, and PS nearly finalised). Honestly, vent was useful for me - dd2 was an early applicant, and dd1 applied in October even though she wasn't early applicant, so this is a new experience. DD3 is a chip off her dad's block...

But this week she discovered that her UCAS account, set up at the same time as everyone else's, is not linked to the school. DD has tried to do this, then school asked her to phone UCAS (stressy for a 17 yo!) who say school need to fix it and phone them if they can't. Am sure they will get it sorted, but is a pallaver!

There was no reason she would realise hers was different to anyone else's and doesn't know how it happened. Friend noticed that dd's had a 'reference' button that she didn't have before she submitted. Just thought I'd mention it in case anyone else has an up-to-the-wire applicant - get it sorted!

School deadline is Monday, but she knows they will be ok if a few days late as she is mid-mocks. It's a small and supportive school and only a few left to submit.

I believe you have to add a buzzword specific for your school to have your ucas linked to the school. Can’t remember how he did it, but check under marketing preferences and check with the school.

I am sure it can be sorted and least she almost have her choices decided.

@theinnergame my DS set up his ucas. I am not sure he did it properly but when he came to get his application and choices checked off with school it wasn't linked. School sorted it out and he didn't need to contact ucas.

I had a long conversation with DS last night about revision. His mock results have been underwhelming. He says he's going to revise and then when he gets his results he says it's because he didn't revise enough/properly etc. he has got revision resources that he's made. His memory is good. I'm going into gentle encouragement (nagging) mode but I realise he's got to do this himself because if he's at uni next year he won't have him mum nagging him! I'm hoping there's lots of revision type homework set from school that will help but it's good to hear when other DCs who are maybe more on it than my DS think they are going to start revising.

My ds will say (if results are not good) that he doesn't understand why as he revised. He's done a max of two hours a day over the Christmas holidays for these mocks and refuses to believe that most of his peers will have done at least twice that. I just can't seem to get through to him that exams test hard work and not purely innate ability!

At least if these mock results are not high enough then he's got plenty of time (as in additional hours each day!) to increase revision from what he did for his mocks. Silver linings....

Great to hear about all of the amazing results for EPQ's. My ds didn't do one as his school advised 4 A levels or 3 A levels plus EPQ. They look like hard work so congratulations to them.

Ds revises for about 3 hours a night but it's in dribs and drabs with a bit of gaming in between. He writes flash cards with the important stuff on as he goes along. This seems to work for him to help him to retain the information. His friend uses more visual methods - mind map type stuff.

Ds school said that, in their experience, mock grades can only go up by half a grade (?) to the real thing? This wasn't true for ds for GCSE but maybe A levels are different. I would have thought there's plenty of time to pull a finger out and improve if the dc are motivated.

@chocolatenutcase @Jaxx UCAS account is now fixed, by the school. So it's in her court now... probably over the weekend. Her German teacher helped her lots yesterday with advice on where to apply for that (depending on course content etc) and her personal statement.

Her other options are Sports Tech and Architectural Tech (or somesuch) which she'll email separate PS for - has checked that is ok with those unis by emailing them. These latter two are what I thought she'd go for more as German stresses her out in a way that D&T and physics don't! But she can picture what studying German would look like in a way that she can't for the others.

I'm quite for risk-taking (in a controlled manner like this!) so happy to see what comes out of it - she can turn them all down and take a year out, or change in clearing (maybe) or defer. She'll know better how she feels when faced with 'real' options, I think.

Effective revision techniques seem to vary not just by learning style, but also by subject. DD's school had a session this week with techniques that work well for STEM but not useful for essay subjects. She has a complicated system of colour coded post-it notes, makes notes and flashcards as she goes along, timelines and mind maps for key facts, and does endless practice essays. Occasionally I also have to help with testing French vocab; always fun, since I dropped French at 13!

I get to help with testing Spanish vocab - having never done Spanish before I decided to start learning it through Duolingo nearly 2 years ago so I can be a little more help 😃

Ds does maths and sciences. He does countless past paper questions which should be effective but he often doesn't mark what he does thus rendering the work useless as he doesn't know if he's got it right!

When he does practice papers at home usually his score ls just about enough for an A (using the relevant year's grade boundary) but that doesn't seem to be getting better with the revision he's doing so then I think either he's not revising or it's not effective! He says the Y2 work is harder than the Y1 work which I do get, but still struggle with this.

Both DH and I did essay subjects for A-level so this is all anathema to us!

Just shows how different they are. Mine has copious notes but insists they are useless for revision and the textbook/online stuff is the only thing. Not that I am convinced by this but he is obstinate.

@aramox1 my ds says the same. I think it depends on the subject. Lots of topics in the sciences seem to just be lots of calculations so reading those through seems a bit pointless when in reality you'd be better off practising them with different questions. But for something like history or other essay subjects I can see that class notes would be very helpful.