Year 12 - 2024/25 - Support, Discussion and Looking After Each Other

[BlackBean2023]

A survival thread for Y12 parents (24/25) now that GCSEs are over and our young people move onto KS5

My dds college does flipped learning, but its nothing like @bluefineliner experience. They are given a booklet, told which video to watch and to answer set questions. However its completely optional, and they are taught everything again. Its the idea that information must be repeated 7 times before it is in the LTMS, so the next 5 is up to them

@bluefineliner ,

‘ETA at no point did I assume the teacher was useless. I have huge respect for all teachers, I could never do it, I have no patience. I just need DD to know I am listening to her concerns from the start and will support her if she needs to address it at school herself.’

Like all professions, though, there are plenty of useless teachers! Some do lack subject knowledge and some have no patience.

Some older teachers are just burnt out and going through the motions until they collect their pensions.

So, while you should never assume a teacher is at fault, they could well be! It is worth patiently doing some research and making sure to politely query things that bother you.

Although I detested rude and demanding parents, parents are the canaries in the coal mine and are often the first indication that teachers aren’t doing well. So, don’t go in all guns blazing, but do politely query things and escalate if things don’t improve,

Talking of costs, I vetoed DD doing one of those fundraising and go and build a school type trip. It required a direct debit of £250pm for 18 months and the idea is the student fundraises and pays back their parent 🤨
Instead I have suggested after a levels we do a bucket list trip, with a tour group, together, for slightly more £ but it pays for two of us to go. Massive stretch financially but so exciting!

@Countrylife2002

We did similar, it sounded like a fantastic experience but it's a hard, hard slog to fundraise £4000 at a time when they are already very busy. The tour companies are very quick to tell you that the fundraising is doable and that most DC raise the majority but I'm not convinced. DD worked out that it was the equivalent of her p/t job income for nearly a year which put it into perspective.

Your post-A Levels trip sounds like a great idea. Something to look forward to for you both.

Conversely we are poor and my eldest did one of those trips last year and paid for it all themselves via a job…. I will admit I was very sceptical and it was really hard to find the £250 a month before she sorted out her job. It was difficult to manage alongside GCSEs but she’s now 17 going on 45 as a result.

On the other hand I am still getting regular missives from friends recommending x and y hotel or place or experience or trying to arrange joint trips which are about ten times what I could afford as a single parent on a very middling income with a big mortgage. Everyone here seems to have cleaners and be able to afford to get people in for the most mundane DIY like painting or hanging pictures up.

Those trips are ok if they pay for it themselves. Expensive way to do it though. And you have no chance of getting any of the money back if you change your mind, unlike other holidays. I really object to the idea of ‘fundraising for it though. Makes me 😡.

That’s a really impressive achievement by your DD @Messen. I am grumpy this weekend with both my DC for having turned down amazing non-onerous opportunities in favour of (so far as I can see) more time glued to something crappy on a screen. So I find your DD rather inspiring. Hats off to her.

I’ve left it open with dd that I won’t book until next year, she can do something with her mates instead if she wants (at her cost). Her two best mates are doing the trip though, so I’ve made this offer of a big trip with me and it stands for anytime not just after a levels.

Just wondering now that everyone should be more settled in - how much work those doing a levels are actually doing?
I can see mine doing the homework and sometimes something called Level Up which is extra study but it does not feel like a huge amount. Interested to hear what others' children are doing.

Expectation is 15 hours a week private study and I think dd is doing close to that, maybe a bit less, it’s difficult to tell as she is mostly working during the week when I’m working, gone are the days when I’m much help! She seems to be getting on and quite relaxed that she’s on track and not overwhelmed. Time will tell I guess. Thankfully she’s quite driven without being overly anxious to get everything right all the time.

DS seems to be working pretty solidly. He's finally taken some advice and has been doing work in the afternoons when he's come home at lunch due to free periods rather than leaving everything to the last minute as he did before.

Does anyone else have parents evening soon? We've got one just before half-term which will be good to see how he's settled into 6th form and doing with the work so far.

We don't have parents evenings. Any concerns then the Teachers contact the parents to arrange a teams meeting

Gearing up for the first lot of exams to determine predicted grades and Ucas points.

First lot of coursework due in on the 1st December, this will be 35% of total mark.

Getting about 4 hours of homework a week but it's all done in school as lots of free time and can't come home as they have to stay in for the full school day.

DD is working hard and having a few anxiety wobbles. She gets 8 pieces of homework per week (2 in each of 4 subjects) and doesn’t have many free periods during the school day. She isn’t great at getting on with it after school unless it’s urgent either (being knackered and zoning out in front of TV). So weekends are pressured. Can’t wait until she can drop down to 3 subjects.

The work expectation seems very onerous for some of your children so early in the year. I hope they find ways to manage the workload and still have a life outside of school/college.

DS has had no homework and nothing has been said about how much work they are expected to be doing outside of class. It seems to be very much that the student has to decide for themselves. The students are expected to keep up with their revision notes from all lessons. It's hard to know, because DS is generally quite tight lipped, but he has said that lessons move to the speed of the quickest in class and everyone has to keep up. This is the exact opposite of his previous school which moved at the pace of the slowest. So far he is finding History to have the biggest workload and is spending a lot of time re-reading and clarifying his notes. They've been told to get lever arch files and keep their revision notes in these once they have been sanitised and re-written.

He does have a year 12 expectations and transition session this morning. These are happening in small groups before school every day this week. I'm hoping that this will clarify out what the school are expecting and how this term will progress. They have two weeks left until reading week, then half term.

DS is absolutely loving economics and is now muttering about economics at university. Unfortunately he is not doing maths A Level so I don't think this is a possibility. He could take something economics adjacent, like economic history. Alternatively, if he does decide he wants to do economics he could take a gap year and take maths A Level in a year, with a reasonable part time job at the same time to build up some money for University. But it's early days he'll probably change his mind many times between now and this time next year 😀.

@waspie lots of degrees with some economics, I applied to The Treasury after my geography degree, I think on assessment day it was my maths that let me down, it wasn’t terribly complex,I’m just not great at maths!

DD job hunting has taken a turn, poor kid has put in dozens of online applications for various retail jobs and been rejected lots for failing personality tests, which is so harsh I think! Anyway I sat with her and she got as far as reference requests for McDs, I messaged a friend who oversaw her volunteering last year, friend came back and said she might have a job due to dd a-levels, not entirely sure what she does, something to do with academic journals, part of me thinks service sector job is a right of passage, but seems DD may be able to do entry level publishing instead. The world has changed so much since I was a teen.

Thanks @wonderstuff, I think the civil service would be a good option for DS. He has no idea what he wants to do. An IB or Scottish highers model would probably have been a better fit for him. It was so difficult for him to narrow down subjects to just three.

Entry level publishing would be great, and possibly more flexible with hours than a service sector job. Fingers crossed your friend comes through with a job for your daughter. DS is doing some tennis coaching but that's not at it's peak in winter so I'm hoping I can persuade him to go for a temp. job over Christmas at the garden centre, which is a 5 minute walk down the road. They always take on lots of fit young people for the lugging around of Christmas trees!

It is hard to tell how much work DD is getting as she is very self sufficient doing homework. She does have quite a few study periods and does use these to work so I know she does a lot of work at school. Every time I ask her what she has to do at home she always lists off what she needs to do and does spend time every day doing something at home too. This is very much like how she tackled her GCSEs though, she was always doing something (but that could include Tik Tok viewing too 😂).

DD has been allocated a place on the school trip to Rome next year, which she is delighted about. 4 days/3 nights £1100. I feel it is expensive but reflects the cost of flying etc so we are ok with this.

Apparently last year they ran a trip to Malawi which most of the aspiring medics went on to help their 'CV' for med school applications. DD seemed to think she would be disadvantaged by these kids going on the trip as she hasn't been on any trips in secondary school at all (different school and there were none offered due to covid timing for her year). I talked to her about other things that make an application strong and how one trip is not going to sway a uni to offer a place and that work experience/volunteering would be just as important. Not sure she listened to me though!

DD also does most of her work in her free periods. She says they have 2x pieces of work per subject per week. I’m trying to stay hands off now as she did well in her GCSES and is enjoying her A levels so time to take a step back. She had her first benchmark assessment yesterday which she was pleased with.

I think they normally have a trip with history, so waiting to hear about that. My finances are very bad at present so I would like them to take their time announcing it!

DS school have asked them to treat school like a job and try to do 9-5 days. This and free classes means he gets most of his homework/coursework done then (he did do some history last weekend). So far this seems to be working well.
They had "deadline day" last Thursday, when they had to submit a big piece of work for each subject. They have been working in them all term.
No exams or similar mentioned atm..

@gingercat02 ,

I really like and agree with that approach. If students can do it, they effectively have nearly every evening and weekend free, which minimises stress.

It is really important for students to realise, though, how short an A level course is and how much starting well matters.

The reality is that it is September one year to May the following year, so one year 8 months, and that has lots of interruptions. There are normally meaningful end of year exams which go to set the predicted grades. If students aren’t happy with the results there might be more (optional or not) exams at the beginning of Year 13 to evidence a higher predicted grade. Then, at the beginning of Year 13: there is the whole uni visit and UCAS process, which is a huge distraction and, of course, most departments want to finish the course in good time and get revision done.

Because of all the above, the beginning of Year 12 is the best time to calmly cover large chunks of the syllabus.

I think it is really important for students (and parents if they want to help) to grasp how short the A level course is and how it intensifies in Year 13. If you decide on a lazy start (as many do, after the efforts of GCSEs), it is far harder to catch up than most imagine.

Hi all,
interesting to see different work expectations.
dd is finding it hard, but she does 9-5 days and does it all at school, that seems to be working up to a point, but she is slow in her free slots, she will need to focus more.
still having friendship dramas, and a massive melt down last night with her dad, which I think was her needed to explode and her dad got the full force, nit sure why she was so wound up.

But we potter on.

On the bright side, she is doing English language resit in November and teacher is very happy, says she should get a 5.
I think it is 90% mindset change from dd. She has decided THIS teacher is good and they are doing a different exam board and THIS exam is doable and her previous one wasn't, so she doesn't go into blind panic mode very time she sees an English book.

They have also assessed her and offered coloured overlays, with a sort of reading line on it. Dd is finding it so much easier to read and process with this. She has actually borrwed a book from the library and read it in 2 days, which is super fats for her, and she was so excited that reading was so much easier.

I am pretty pissed off actaully, she was assessed by an ed pysch in year 8 and she came out as very high in most areas and very low in language processing, but within normal, so school said she was fine. I now realise that I should have picked up on that odd low score and got her tested for more. But I didn't and it was mid covid, and it took so much to get them to get the ed psych in, and then the ed psych said she was fine, so school kind of said - I told you so she is fine.

Since then we have had an autism diagnosis and now it looks like some kind of visual processing of words on the page.

so daughter sends me a message asking if she should be enjoying her a levels?
I thought she was! She chats quite enthusiastically about them and shows interest in the content.
where has this come from?
I replied that I didn’t think she should expect to be waking up thinking yippee it’s college today but equally she shouldn’t be dreading it or hating it. Somewhere in the middle is good for most days but there will be hate/love days as well.
some days I hate my job and odd days I love it-
most of the time it’s ok- that’s life isn’t it?

Interesting to see the work expectations indeed. My DD has finally added her planned study hours into her planner - their tutor went though an exercise with them at school - but she isn't really doing that many... although she did well to prep for the baseline tests over the past 2 weeks. Total planned is 18 hours weekly across 4 subjects. I think that's great, but has yet to achieve it😁

Weekdays - frees & study periods: 1 hr daily
Weekdays - at home: 3 hrs Mon, 2 hr Wed

Weekends - home: 4 hrs Sat & 4 hrs Sun

There are more frees/supervised study in in the school timetable, but she is only really using 1 per day to study, rest is hanging out with friends. I think she planned too many study hours during weekends but... school ends at 4pm on Tue, Thu, and Fri, she has athletics on Tue and Thu evenings, and volunteering on Wed after school.

@Teadrinker81 I think your answer is sensible. They are adjusting not only to the new 'freedom', but also to the responsibilities that come with it. Changes are coming thick and fast in their personal and school life: provisional driving licence, going to GP on their own, getting NI number, first job, budgeting, post 18 plans, first relationships, etc. They are trying to become more independent, but it's all still very much confined within parental and school boundaries.

I'm glad your daughter is positive about the retake and has decided that this is an exam she can get her grade 5 (or more) in @steppemum Coloured overlays are interesting and can be really useful for people who have dyslexia too.

I told DS it was really important to love the subjects he chose for A Level, otherwise it's a long and gruelling two years, but I didn't expect he would love every moment!. As you say @Teadrinker81, highs and lows are just part of life and some days will be joyful and others miserable - and everywhere between.

I think your daughter's 18 hours per week target is amazing @anoukis

DS was dropped in the lineout during a school rugby match yesterday and landed on outstretched arms to break his fall. He was checked over by the school medic who said he hadn't broken his collar bones but his shoulders are very sore and bruised. Joining the school rugby team has been really positive for him in terms of mixing and making friends in the new environment but, excepting those who, like DS, play for clubs as well as school, they don't seem very experienced. Rugby is a technical sport which can be dangerous if players don't know what they are doing. I have asked that he consider dropping out of the team.