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

@Wehaditsogood yes - thanks for those too. The Pearson one needs to be read quite carefully because exam codes beginning with an 8 are AS Levels and those beginning with a 9 are A Levels.

At a loss with dd.
She has always been ‘easy’ to parent in regard to school work. She was self motivated and hard working during gcse and got really great grades. I don’t think I’ve ever had to remind her to do homework or revise.
She is loving 2 of her a levels and receiving extremely positive feedback from her teachers- got a grades in both essays recently. However, she is hating maths and not doing very well. I’m not sure if she’s failing because she hates it or hates it because she’s failing. She’s never really experienced this before.
Extra help is in place at college and we have provided a tutor. She says all the ‘right’ things- that she’s going to revise every day over the half term and is determined to improve. (She would have to change all 3 a levels if she resits year 12). I just asked her how the maths work has gone today and she’s blanking me! I know she hates it but she’ll hate failing more.
part of me acknowledges that this is her struggle and she will have to do it her way but geez it’s hard! Any words of wisdom?

Hi all, have been quite a while off this chat but thought I’d come and see how everyone is getting on. DS is doing Maths, Physics and Chemistry, he seems to be doing well in Chemistry and Physics and has sat a couple of the ‘challenges’ for those subjects. Maths is OK but not brilliant. I am finding it very hard to motivate him into looking at uni courses or anything related to UCAS other than we are doing an Oxford open day this half term which I’m hoping might make him get a little inspired.

He is also learning to drive and has been since September. He has a test booked for April - earliest we could get from his birthday! - so I’m slightly dreading him not passing it. Our area has a less than 50% pass rate and a six month waiting list for test dates. 😬

has anyone had any luck getting work experience in the field they want to study? We haven’t been able to find anything but it seems you need to have done it as part of the ‘super curricular’ stuff. We’ve looked at the courses run by unis but they are prioritised for those children coming from more difficult backgrounds than DS’s which I totally understand but if we have no connections in the industry and we can’t get on a course I really don’t know what he can do to get any experience. He also had no luck in finding a part time job so all a bit rubbish.

What is his area of interest? My son has done some supra curricular stuff that doesn't restrict who can attend by disadvantage criteria
Some online, some we paid a small amount for residential/day sessions. Specific to engineering though..

@Teadrinker81 It’s so hard, isn’t it, especially when they get into a doom spiral with confidence and motivation going down the plughole together, and then somehow it is all your fault.

In your situation I think I might adopt the “good cop” role, since you’ve ensured that everything is in place to help her. So let her teachers and tutor chivvy her along, leaving your role as focusing on the positive. Does the tutor give you regular feedback? (They should). Then you can say - “Oh I hear you did really well on the statistics homework! Well done, that’s a great achievement”. (Or - she finished all her tasks before the deadline, or whatever good news story you can think of).

Even if you get a grumpy shrug, it will mean a lot to her that you are noticing and acknowledging her progress and her effort, and by showing confidence in her you will be helping her regain confidence in herself.

We went through a very difficult period with DD’s maths in Y10, but with a lot of support she turned it around in time for her GCSEs. I know A Level is a different kettle of fish, and hope you find a strategy that helps DD to feel better about it.

Dd definitely is finding maths difficult and not enjoying much of it. She has always been one to be motivated by competition and has I think got through so far by feeling proud of the bits she is doing okay in, she found mechanics more accessible than pure for example, she is finding there are lots that others can do that she’s really struggling with but also things she can do that most of the class find difficult. She’s resigned herself to aiming for a C, which I think is still a challenge (her minimum expected grade is B) but is hoping for an A in economics to balance that, I think this has helped her take a bit of pressure off.

it is really hard, and a real shock when you’ve always been good at something to suddenly struggle with it! I think support in readjusting expectations and celebrating any small successes has helped dd. She did consider dropping maths at the start, her teacher was very much saying if you’re finding this hard it’s best to do something else. At this point we talked about doing hard things and the advantage of staying the course (she has more options at university with maths a level).

I do think you’ve hit the nail on the head that this is her struggle. I would focus on being her cheerleader and supporting her when it’s hard, because it is, but isn’t lots of life!

@Techno56 he's looking at Chemical Engineering so if you could share any links that would be great, I don't mind paying for courses. Did your DC find it helpful?

I think it's helped him to narrow down what he does / doesn't want to do a bit as he's done some specific and some more broad..

https://www.smallpeicetrust.org.uk/momentum-events

https://www.bath.ac.uk/campaigns/step-into-bath/

https://www.etrust.org.uk/residential-insight-into-university

https://www.etrust.org.uk/programmes-age-16

My son has done a cyber first course at Royal Holloway, EDT Bronze (online) and is just finishing up EDT Gold (with school) and has a couple of things coming up in half term / summer through local universities. The Bath one I linked above - worth looking to see if any other unis close to you do similar as a lot of them do.

Thanks you for posting those, I shall forward to him now and have a thorough look myself. Really appreciate it.

@Teadrinker81 it is such a worry having to sit back and 'advise' in these situations isn't it. I really understand your concerns about your DD being used to being successful and learning to find things much harder. I don't really have any advice but hear you, my DD had had a meltdown this half term over her EPQ.

I saw it coming a while ago, she is a perfectionist, with no research experience who chose a difficult topic to find research on and which is now no longer related to what she wants to do a degree in. So all this combined with her stressing about not spending enough time on her A levels (preparing for mocks and predicted UCAS grades). She has spent a lot of time on the EPQ but it is too big a subject at the moment and she isn't getting enough guidance from school on how to tackle it unfortunately.

She wants to change the topic but will have to start from scratch and it was supposed to be mostly done by end of March. We have told her to leave it for now and discuss with school next week with a view to doing it over the summer holidays in her own time (which other students have done previously apparently). She just wants to give it up and do the 3 A levels but school insist they do them or a 4th A level so too late for any changes there.

Urgh, I actually sympathise with her though as I did a degree a few years ago and hated my dissertation in the 3rd year with a passion!

She'll get through it eventually but we've had tears and tantrums this week 🙄.

Is anyone elses dc still not gotten over gcse scores? She was disappointed- but unsure what she was expecting really because she only started revising properly a month before. Now shes stressing that none of the top unis would want her for law. I think they are perfectly fine ( 9 x 2 , 7 x5 , 6 x2) but she was disappointed that there was no 8s.

Ive been trying to convince her that gcses dont matter in the long run ( most definitely not after getting into uni) but its not going through.

@bluefineliner thank you for your kind words. That sounds like a really tough thing to be working through for your daughter. The plan to work on it over the summer seems a good option. My dd seems to be happier in herself right now but not being particularly productive work wise. I’m managing not to nag 😊😉🙈🙄

If it helps @PinkChaires, LSE just say GCSEs "mainly" grade 7 or higher. UCL, Oxbridge, Durham all want LNAT and don't specify GCSE grades, and the others don't seem to specify GCSE requirements beyond grade 6+ in a humanities subject.

DS' school require students to have 5 GCSEs grade 8 or above for their "Oxbridge+" track but I think that's the school rather than the universities who are specifying this. Might be worth checking with your daughter's school/college?

Sorry for silly questions but how do you know what ALevel board your kids are sitting?

Your DC should know. If they don't know they should ask!

Our school only use WJEC.

Lol he didn't even know what board he was doing for Gcses did wrong maths practice papers prior to Feb mocks.

He can ask his teacher. Or, his school might have this information somewhere on its website.

Thank you all I have asked him to message his teachers especially AS core maths which he has in May.

My DTs are working hard and thinking about Unis. I have no idea how they’re going to manage financially as we live hand to mouth and have zero savings.
They have both been proactive in applying to social mobility programmes so hopefully this will help. DTS is doing work experience this half term with a law firm arranged by Sutton Trust.
Studying wise they are both doing really well and getting great feedback. DTS finally has a part time job.
We are struggling to find work experience for DTD who wants to study medicine but she was at a seminar this week who said clinical experience isn’t necessary as it’s hard to come by. She got some good ideas for alternative routes.

Jumping back on this thread, my DS definitely lacking in motivation to revise for his mock exams in March , it sure if he wants to go to Uni. Just looking at those exams dates, looks like DS like have an exam on his 18th birthday, joy!

half term came at the right time for us. After lots of illness in Jan dd is now caught up and back on track and ready to go back on Monday.

Parent's evening was at end of Jan and much to our surprise dd is predicted and A in 2 subjects. I think she was a bit blown away as well. Unfortunately predicted a D in computer science and she does recognise that she has to buck her ideas up.
Their computer science doesn't require then to hand stuff in as they go, so she isn't doing nearly as much as in other subjects which have weekly deadlines.

Thanks for the link to the Step into Bath courses Techno56
Is there any advantage to them in the application process if they go on one of theses? dd is interested in Bath and Bath have a really good reputation for supporting ND students apparently

Hi,

There is no advantage at application for Step into Bath but there is for Pathway to Bath (but it's already started), Target Bath and Discover Bath. You have to meet their widening participation criteria for these and if you complete one of them you get a guaranteed offer.

We’ve made it to half term!!

mocks were in January so this can be a proper week of relaxation.

Oxford summer school application has gone in but we still need to look at which open days to attend, well DS does!