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

I knew driving tests were an issue country wide, but I had no idea lessons were.
DS isn't 17 until the end of July do ages yet. He's had his provisional licence for ages (for ID).
DH has a running friend who is a driving instructor, as is one of our neighbours so 🤞but we will get our shout in early!

My dd is being taught by an old college friend, she has to get the bus to nearest town and back out to access it so that’s adding a bit of travel spend but I know she’s in safe hands. My grandma left the kids a small inheritance and she’s using that for lessons, we have said we will insure her car when she passes.

Poor thing had her braces tightened last week, she’s having a really long complicated treatment as she has some missing adult teeth that just never grew so they are moving teeth to reduce some gaps and we’re hoping some of her milk teeth last a long time as eventually she’ll need implants (apparently they can last until 40s).

We had a house full of teens last night, they ordered pizza, watched love island and made slime! Much more wholesome than Friday nights when I was 17!

DS passed his theory test.
Thanks to comments on here I just messaged his instrctor not sure if he knew he was sitting it today. DS just used an app on phone for practicing.

I had several driving schools not respond. What eventually helped getting the callbacks was mentioning they had been recommended by one of their current students (i.e. I got your number from Cathy Smith, Tom's Mum...), possibly as they thought if they didn't respond, Cathy would badger them too!

@wonderstuff if it's any help I've still got a baby tooth and I'm in my late 40s.

DS doesn't turn 17 till August but has been having some young driver lessons with a local driving school and so hopefully we can book him in with one of their instructors but I think I'd better make enquiries soon just in case from what you have all said.

@wonderstuff The wholesomeness - is it a generational thing do you think? There I was imagining dragging my 17 year old home from unsuitable parties in the small hours. But she and her friends are all about chai tea and yoga and reality TV!

Anyway - she has her first set of “working at” grades: A, A, B. After summer exams these will be converted into predicted grades for UCAS. Her goal is to push each one up by a grade. She’s feeling pleased with her progress, and I’m delighted for her. She needed quite a bit of handholding up to (and through) GCSEs, but has enough confidence now to do it all herself and trust herself to succeed. Phew.

So a friend of one of dd friends mum is a roadie for Boyzlife, friends mum called while they’re all at mine, do they want VIP tickets for the show tonight in our town? They have no idea who Westlife or Boyzone are, but they say yes, they’ve spent the last hour learning some songs and have an elaborate story about how they were brought together by their shared love of westlife to retell at the meet and greet 😂

For anyone booking driving tests you need to go online just before 6am on a Monday morning I logged on a minute before and there was 7300 people before me by 6.05am as checked on my phone it was 12500 people before me. There was only 5 dates in July I could pick from too in our area. Driving instructor should give you his instructor number to make sure his car is not double booked.

@wonderstuff Can I ask which 4 in 1 app, please, as there are 2 in the app store?
I am in my mid-50s and also have a healthy milk tooth.

Congratulations to @Tebheag junior!

Thank you all for sharing your driving instructor-related experiences. I am dreading to find one.

@Wehaditsogood the one that guarantees you pass or will pay for your next test, come up first when I searched in the App Store. Good to know about your tooth!

dd is a sixth form college, so doesn't have to be there is no lessons so she comes home at lunchtime on Thursday and has a 1.5 hour lesson.
I take her out at weekends when I can.
It is really expensive.
I phoned and left messages saying they had been recommended, and got quite a few call backs, but all fully booked for evenings and weekends, hence the afternoon lesson on Thursdays.

I knwo someone said earlier that some instructors will only take them once they have passed their theory test. I think that is pretty hard as some theory only really makes sense once you have been behind a wheel.

Half term next week and I have the week off too - yay! Lots of stuff on DS' "to do" list - sort out work experience, do some driving practice (theory test booked for during Easter break), finish his LTA L2 coaching prep work, revision for his Economics assessment and reading the texts he's using for his English Lit NEA. He's also helping as assistant stage manager for his theatre group every evening so he's going to be busy. If there is time we're going to go to our local crown court and try and watch a few sessions from the public gallery.

The English Lit NEA work is going to be in their own spare time across Easter break and then supported by teacher in Summer term with the aim of having it finished and polished by September. He also has a NEA for History but they haven't spoken about this yet or given an indication of when this work is going to happen.

Is anyone else's DC doing A Levels with NEAs?

Hope they all have good half term breaks

Uni applications are sneaking up very fast! Dd now doesn't believe its worth moving out for anywhere other than london/oxbridge . I get her reasoning, manchester uni is a 10 min bus away and we live right next to the accommodation, plus her dad will 100% financially support her, no stress of rent , provide all food/clothes etc because in our culture thats the norm until marriage.plus she wants a city and not a campus. I think that maybe moving away would foster a bit of independence, but unsure really

A level choices

@PinkChaires I think that you have to go with what the DC wants if they want to stay at home. It would certainly be cheaper! DD1 is at university about 100 miles away and is happy in her second year and from June will be doing an industry placement year there. Initial settling in for her was hard but she loves her new city and may stay there long term. It hasn't been cheap though!
I think that it's much more common to stay local now, pros and cons really. DD2 is opting out of applying next year, she's going to have a gap year and apply with known grades. We'll look at university open days from now onwards though. DD2 would probably suit a campus university rather than a city one though which limits it a little.

So glad it's half term DS is definitely ready had most mock results back had As so far apart from Geography. Think he has more mocks again in Jun/Jul.
Need to get him studying for Core Maths As in May. Anyone else's kids doing core maths?
@Waspi DS is doing a NEA for Geography just done a mock one was a bit of a disaster didn't like doing it and he got a D. Not been given it back yet so insure where he went wrong.

Super glad for half term here, sitting in a bombshell of a house, I teach so I have a week of, much needed.

dd had a disaster yesterday, left her bag with course notes and graphic calculator at the train station. Bless her she was helping her friend with her art folder, friend has one hand so needs a little help, and completely forgot her bag. Cue phone call in tears, I don’t know what to do! Turns out you can’t phone stations anymore, how daft is that! Anyway after much running around and travelling back to Winchester she did locate bag, apparently she also ‘failed’ psychology test, I’m like sweetheart you’ve identified knowledge gaps, it’ll be fine!

She has now got a second job! Is tutoring a friend’s dd for gcse maths. They’re both super shy anxious types and we weren’t sure they’d be able to talk to each other but actually did and are both happy which is great.

DD taking a year before university, but wondering if it’s worth applying and deferring while we’ve got college resources to help with the process. No idea what she wants to do, well she thinks she wants to go to London, but I think she should look at other places!

We aren't on HT until next week, but DS is off to Iceland on a geography field trip at 3am (yes indeed 3am) on Thursday and they are out all day at the Amazon warehouse on Wednesday so he only has 2 school days left.
He's ready for a break, as am I.
Have good hols everyone

Yep dd is. Has a mock the week after next and so far paper 1 seems to be less difficult than gcse maths. She hates estimation questions though!

DS has had two full Maths mocks so far (one to go) sitting in with the year 13s - he is taking the real thing this summer. I think they went reasonably well but I think they were a bit of a wake up call so hopefully knocked back some of the over confidence and will encourage some proper revision.

Half term here next week as well, but in prep for exams there is a maths session that he has to attend on Monday. I'm getting GCSE flash backs.

Sixth form goes by really quickly and he has no idea what he wants to do as a next step.

Does anyone have any recommendations of where to look to learn how to use a graphing calculator? Jay thought his teachers would know - they don't! So it's being wasted currently..

@Techno56 No experience but maybe YouTube would be worth a look?

Thank goodness for half term. Not that I am getting any time off work for good behaviour!

In case anyone can bear to look, provisional exam timetables for summer 2026 have been published. DD gets going right at the start on 11 May with Economics (day 1, morning) and if the current timetable is confirmed, will finish on 15 June. A-Level results day will be 13 August 2026.

https://cdn.sanity.io/files/p28bar15/green/7ffc0eb771e92f7fd0355f8342a27cb240eb1ad1.pdf

Are we the only ones doing AS levels this summer? Way less papers to sit than last summer but still very important in terms of predicted grades.

Mocks were the first week back after Christmas and ds came away with all A grades so he’s on track currently. We get a full school report this Thursday so that’ll be interesting. We do need to look at open days, he’s going to a UCAS discovery day with school in April. He’s thinking of applying to Oxford and school / Seren foundation are being very helpful with that.

Another full week before half term here!

@Muchtoomuchtodo there’s very low uptake for AS levels in England these days, though I know they continue to be significant in Wales and Northern Ireland.

Added: what subject would he be applying to Oxford for, if you don’t mind saying?

Thank you for this. The OCR and Edexcel provisional timetables are out, too.

https://www.ocr.org.uk/administration/general-qualifications/preparation/key-dates-and-timetables/

https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/support/support-topics/exams/exam-timetables/provisional-timetables.html