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

We did Admiral multicar.

Marmalade was best for ds1.

The type of car can obviously make a huge difference . Watch out for special editions - they can really hike the price up. Put the full registration plate in to get quotes, don’t just assume that because one Fiesta is insurance group 5 (or whatever) they all will be

Oh God, I feel awful. DD gets £20 per month. We can certainly afford more, but haven't felt the need to increase because DD doesn't spend.

I buy all her school things, pay for clothes she buys for out of school. Pay for her hobbies. Pay her phone. Take her wherever she needs/wants (no public transport here).

She never spends her allowance unless it's on the occasional outing with mates. She used to spend it on crystals but has outgrown that.

She's very good at budgeting and saving. She loves to track interest rates on her savings (built up from birthday money etc).

Thinking while I'm typing, perhaps I should increase her allowance by x and at the same time tell her I'm transferring her phone bill into her name/bank account.

And actually, when I think about it, she really likes fancy hair products that are ££. I should say that I'm happy to buy her Elvive (or whatever) but she pays for anything else out of her own money.

@Gazelda DS only gets £25 a month but he gets pretty much everything paid for too .he basically uses that just for snack or Warhammer!

Rural living has definitely got more expensive this year! Essentially it’s going to cost £80-90 a month for transport to college, no transport subsidy post-16 even though most people in the county are going to have to travel and because we aren’t in a town the only bus pass available costs £850 a year and because of the cap on bus fares it’s probably cheaper to payg. Then cost of food at college is more than at school, again not subsidised. I could start making packed lunch, but I won’t, I have adhd and I would really struggle with organising that! So that’s another £80 a month.. @Gazelda please don’t feel awful, I’ve chosen to live in a village which means transport is a big cost and school options are limited.

DD had a strop about allowance, and I get it, we’re spending a ton of money on her brother. So we’ve revised up a little. She did understand when I explained I was trying to save so she had options at university to go wherever she wanted. She doesn’t spend massively, but most of her friends are a bus ride away and without uniform she wants a little for clothes, she buys most of her toiletries and makeup as well.

I’m expecting about £1500 for car insurance when she passes, she’s been gifted a polo her uncle has stopped driving. I’ve told her she must have a job though because running costs will be more than the bus.

@wonderstuff I'm with you on the cost of travel living rurally.

DD chose a school further away from the last one and we do live out in the sticks. School have a mini bus to get kids there in a morning as there is no public transport at that time of day, that is approx £700 per year. Then DD has to get 2 buses home, £4 per day, so we are paying around £1500 per year just for transport. On top we pay for her lunches, but I have it on auto top-up so the amount varies, I guess she spends about £20 per week.

We give her £50 per month allowance which was supposed to cover things above the basics. It doesn't seem to have worked like that though and we still pay for pretty much everything! DD also has a job now which she loves and for now is working 12 hours a week so she is raking it in! I think it will need to reduce as the A level work ramps up but for now she is very well off. She does go on shopping trips to nearest city and can spend a fortune in Sephora and on clothes though so I am using it as a life lesson on how hard you have to work to get those nice things you want.

DD not 17 until April but we will have to buy her a car (ours are both autos) so are budgeting for that now and the insurance. We have been through this before though so knew it would cost a fortune getting her through school/uni etc 😂good job we are both working.

First proper day for DD this morning. Getting everyone up and out of the house by 7.15 is going to be a test of my patience (DD and DH are both v bad with time/organisation - suspected ADHD)!
She's quite shy and doesn't know anyone at new 6th form so I'm really hoping today goes well for her and she makes some friends.

First proper day today....is a very large school so she has a lot of walking around to do! No word about EPQ yet, which she really wants to do. Hard not to interfere in it all and start sending emails.

DS' friend (year above) has just passed his test and is now paying £2,400 for insurance with a black box . Not sure which company that is with. He has a good part time job which covers the expenses. His parents were paying for the private coach as his college is in the middle of nowhere, but that took about 80minutes each way so being able to drive is very helpful for him as there is lots of parking and will only take about 40minutes. DS will need a similarly good job if he wants to run a car.

Like @bluefineliner we're also going to have to get DS a car as ours are autos and he wants to learn in a manual. DS is getting the bus to school and that won't change even with a car as there is no parking on-site or anywhere near (all permit parking or double yellow lines). It's about 40 minutes each way but they are frequent and it's a flat £2 fare per journey atm, so £20 pw. We are reimbursing him for this. The bus can actually be quicker than driving as he's travelling into a large town centre and there are bus lanes which avoid some of the worst queues during rush hour.

Good luck to those starting today!

Oh dear, school didn't make clear now is week 2 so she missed first lesson.....

oh dear! Ours have to be in for registration even if they don’t have a lesson first thing so this wouldn’t happen .

Did she know that last week was a week 1?

Hopefully they’re understanding so close to the start of term

It's a multi school grouping so if first lesson is not at base school then no registration needed. Ah well. She was not only one!

Oh dear @felissamy! Hope they were nice about that (easy mistake).

Does she know what she wants to do her EPQ about?

Something in film aesthetics, I think. Not sure yet. Older DS did one that was research....but maybe she'd like to do something more practical/creative, eg screenplay??

Just wondering whether anyone has any experience of this situation. DS is doing Maths, FM, physics and DT and is already looking to drop DT as he can see it being really time consuming and that it's not necessary to do 4 A levels. However the school does Maths in year 12 and FM in year 13. So his A levels are spread across the two years.

From the limited research I've done (eg Oxford entry requirements for Maths) this does not seem to impact whether you get an offer but just wondering if anyone else has experience of this and whether it was a problem.
Thanks!

@SunblockSue they do the entire A level maths content in Yr12? That seems like a lot?

Yes. But it takes up two a level timetable slots as you are in theory only doing one other subject. I don't think it's that uncommon.

That’s interesting, I don’t know anyone else doing that.

Really positive start to college yesterday for my DTs! They both enjoyed it and are buzzing about the various opportunities.

@Gazelda I would transfer as much as possible to DD and give her an allowance to cover it. It's a good skill to learn to balance your own budget and doing it through 6th form will prepare her for uni if she goes.

Another detention yesterday for someone in DS combined English class. They are doing 3 books over the 2 years. They sent the reading list out so I ordered them on Amazon before results came.

Other pupil didn't have the books and said their Mom hadn't ordered them till Friday and are due be delivered this week.

Teacher said they need to take responsibility and she should have got her own books and not relied on her parents to get them so she got the detention for lack of equipment. DS said she was really upset after class and had been crying because her Mom had to wait till she was paid to order them. To make it worse, the first book isn't started until after October half term.

How much are you all stepping in to help your children? Or are you all stepping completely back and leaving them to it?

@YellowphantGrey that's terrible, poor girl! I really hate such pettiness. It shows lack of care and consideration for individual consequences and fosters blind obedience to rules 😡

'individual circumstances' not 'consequences', but it does have individual consequences too.

To answer your question, stepping back a bit here but only as far as wanted by DS and definitely not to the extent of expecting him to buy his own books. He's only just 16 though, maybe I'll feel different next year.

I think this is shocking. For equipment/ resources that need to be bought by parents, no school should be dishing out punishments to students.They don't know the parents financial circumstances and its beyond a 16 year olds control.