Y12 2023/24 - support, discussion and looking after each other

[BonjourCrisette]

GCSEs are over and we are beginning the next stage. Let's hope it's a bit less stressful than this summer has been! All welcome to discuss, share experiences and support each other as our children move into Y12/BTECs/apprenticeships and start a new phase.

hi all, my DD seems to be settling well in her new sixth form. She has, however, decided she doesn't want to continue with Spanish A level and is swapping for Economics. It has just been confirmed that the swap can be accommodated so she is now doing Maths, Economics and Govt & Politics. I'm slightly concerned it removes options of joint honours with MFL degrees and did discuss this with her (as much as she would let me!) but ultimately I think it needs to be her choice. Anyone else's DC swapped subjects? Her sixth form allows within the first 2 weeks, subject to availability.

DD swapped from Philosophy to French and is really happy with her choice.

As I predicted, my DS isn't happy. He literally picked his courses at enrolment because he had to pick something. He hates German and says it's really hard. I did warn him it was going to be a massive step up but he never listens to me. There's absolutely nothing he wants to swap to so he's going to have to suck it up. I do sympathise with him, he doesn't want to be at college at all and his heart really isn't in it. So we shall see what happens, but I can't see him sticking at it.

German seems quite a hard one to keep going with if you hate it. What are his other subjects and does he like them more, @closethedrawer?

His other subjects are late modern history and law. He's ok with those, although not particularly enjoying them. He's only done one full week at college so it's early days. He also hasn't done any additional study, as I also predicted would happen. Study periods are being used for sleeping or hanging around with his mates.

@closethedrawer my Ds didn't complete half of his homework to be submitted this week which I found in his backpack. Upon asking Ds said he got confused and sent message on Teams to the lecturer. She replied that they will
do again in class !! Has only been for a week to college which comprises of 3 days and a day of induction. So hopefully he will get there and hope these are still early days

Is he considering changing at all @closethedrawer? If he’s doing law and modern history might he consider English? English language or the combined English language and literature if he’s not keen on the reading? Or economics might extend some of the subjects he’ll learn about in history?

I think there is a real adjustment that they’re all making at the moment in term of workload and expectations. Particularly, maybe, if they found GCSE fairly straightforward and didn’t need to work that hard.

@FellowClassicsMum
It was many years ago now but I did a Combined Studies degree (basically liberal arts) - I chose Manchester - at that time the course had a flexible modular approach. Newcastle offered the chance to study 3 subjects for the whole degree and I think they had courses designed for Combined Studies students - the drawback at Manchester is that sometimes we were studying bits of other courses which weren't brought together very well - I did a course as a first year which was meant to be a 2nd year option (and would probably have got more out of it that way round). I didn't particularly like the course coordinators - academics, although the secretary was lovely. At Liverpool most applicants didn't really want to do a Combined honours degree, but they weren't going to get the grades for English Lit, and that put me off (not the grades issue, but people who didn't really want that type of course), plus students only did more than two subjects at the beginning, so it was really more of a slightly different joint honours degree.

@Changes17 he won't consider changing, he considers German to be the least worst option.

Getting him to revise leading up to GCSEs was a major battle and he didn't knuckle down until a few weeks before the exams started. He was predicted 4s and 5s but ended up achieving much better results than any of us expected. He's got the ability but not the desire to achieve.

My daughter is finding the English lit homework requirements heavy already (and this is a girl that loves English)

Also very glad she didn't take Classics after all as her friends doing it say the art element is like history of art which she hated.

Eng Lit does seem like quite a lot. DD is also quite surprised by how much she has to do atm - it is partly her own fault for too much extra-curricular stuff but it is definitely quite a step up.

@HairyMaclary @FellowClassicsMum my dd has just started her second year in liberal arts at Bristol. Still can't explain exactly what it is though

@NCTDN 😂- that’s brilliant! Is she enjoying it though? Would she recommend Bristol?

She loves it and loves Bristol! She has turned into a party animal though
They do need to be organised for the course though as potentially it's with one group of students then the next lesson might be a completely different group of people.

@NCTDN That is my main concern tbh - without Dad and I there, will they organise themselves enough. Also I’m concerned about them not building up the same level of relationship with lecturers etc as they would if they were studying a more traditional single/ joint honours degree.

Can anyone clarify if personal development at college is compulsory? Ds is doing A levels and he has 1 hour of personal development late one day. He finishes subjects at 11 and then has to stay on until 4.30. Thing is, so far it hasn't been anything helpful. Today it was on extremism, very much like the schools lessons they went to. Actually some of the stuff they talked about was really strange.

@Letskeepgoing Ds has to do two tutorials a week which cover the sort of thing you've mentioned plus progress. They also have to do one enrichment activity per term which takes place in the lunch break on at least one day

Personal Development is once a week and they can pick up to 2 enrichments.
Dc abit confused as apparently being against animal testing is right wing extremism? I wonder if he's taking it out of context 🤔

DC1's college has twice weekly Form Tutorials, which seem to be business/admin focused. They then have weekly RE as it's a Catholic college (we're not Catholic so it's new to us). No compulsory enrichment, but the music teacher has signed her up for a few ensembles so she does feel a bit obliged to attend. I'd rather they had more free periods for study TBH, but DC1 chose the more structured college.

My son has 2 periods of compulsory enrichment a fortnight but he’s not had any of these yet as they didn’t happen in week 1. Will be interested to see what they are - hopefully something useful.

@Letskeepgoing hanging around for hours for that sounds frustrating and somewhat pointless…

Well we got a school bus!! Still got to drive ds to it but it is half the distance than normal!! Will make life a lot easier!!

DD has been complaining about her Mondays - in at lunchtime for an hour long tutorial, a two hour break then RE. RE isn’t one of her chosen courses but compulsory for all students at her Catholic college.

She is doing GCSE English resit and has been allocated a place on an advanced numeracy course for enrichment. Once she’s (hopefully!) passed her English resit in January she can add another enrichment activity, probably dance or sport, although there are some creative media activities that she’s also interested in.

She’s in at 9, finishing at 4 with a big gap in the middle Tuesday - Friday and while she’s annoyed it’s not quite long enough to come back home, she’s been using the time to do homework.

Glad the general feeling seems to be that people are settling in - if adjusting to the step up.

It feels like DD is finding a rhythm. She's definitely feeling busy and challenged, but I think she's thriving, and getting used to the long commute. We suffered an unexpected bereavement last week - I think it has been hard for her because she's with new people who she's still getting to know/trying to show the best of herself rather than her close friends during the day. She has got lovely group of close-knit friends though, which ultimately will help her.