Vocational courses 24/25

[TeenToTwenties]

Would anyone be interested in a vocational courses thread for the new academic year?
My DD did 2 years at level 1, has had a gap year and is now returning to do a level 2.

Yes my dd is starting level 2 Criminology with resits.
I am a worried as she struggled with school.

DD is enrolled on a level 1 working with children course along with maths and English.

The main priority right now is to help her feel comfortable and safe enough to attend college. School has been a very frightening experience for her and her attendance was very low for the last 2 years.

I'm just hoping she finds college a happier place to be.

College was so much better for DD than school. Smaller classes on the level 1, and everyone is on level 1 for a reason and the teaching staff understood that.

The biggest issue DD had was sometimes MH of other students triggered her own issues.

DDs official attendance was at 70% in her first year, though more maths / English missed than her proper course. No one got cross about it.

DD has EHCP, only got in y12, how about others of you?

My son is starting a vocational media BTEC level 3 in Sept. He has an EHCP. Worked incredibly hard at GCSE and got 4s and 5s , and enough of them to go straight in at L3. It might prove too high a pace for him, so I know he might have to drop down to L2 if so.

@LastTimeLosingIt My eldest did a L3 BTEC back in 2015-2017. She has dyspraxia. What we found very helpful was to print out the spec for each unit to see what was required content, and then make sure assignments showed knowledge of the content.

@TeenToTwenties thank you, I will get him to ask for that

@LastTimeLosingIt You should be able to find it online if you know the course and providor, eg https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/qualifications/btec-nationals/creative-digital-media-production-2016.html
But he would still need to know which units he is doing.

For anyone who will need to keep an eye on their DC's progress I thoroughly recommend identifying the spec of their course.

Finally got confirmation of DD's enrollment, so it us really happening. She already has the PPE for practical days so is good to go. Even this year have bought blue plasters ready for practical days.

Just getting ends of hair dyed on Monday before induction on Wednesday.

My twin daughters are both starting college on Monday doing Performing Arts level 2 diploma and also Maths and English re-sits. Sadly they both really struggle with Maths and can’t ever see them getting a 4- hoping college will let them do Functional skills instead.

What grade did they get?
If a 3 then they have to 'work towards' GCSE.
If less then OK to do functional skills.

DDs college would do FS level1 followed by GCSE though, they don't appear to teach FS level2 (except to apprentices on day release i think maybe)

But it seems to be college dependent how they approach it.

They got a 3 in English lang (one twin was 4 marks from a 4😩). I think they will be ok doing GCSE re-sit for that.
in Maths they both got a 2 and a very long way off from a 4. They got a 1 in mocks so slight improvement!.
they were on school SEN register (K support) and had 25% extra time for exams- does anyone know if they get extra time for re-sits at college?

Yes you should get your access arrangements. Do you have record from school? If so you may need to pass them to the college exams office in due course? They may need to retest as they only last a certain length of time.

My DD now 25% extra time, rest breaks, reader/electronic reader, also small room, & green paper if desired.

Thank you. I have an email from their school confirming that they were entitled 25% extra time for exams as access arrangements.

good luck to your daughter for her level 2 course!

Pleased to have found this thread. My DS is starting a carpentry course.. it's level one as carpentry is skills based everyone has to start here. He is dyslexic and although liked school and his teachers in terms of the social element, he hated the academic side. He's come out with 5 GCSEs / BTECs including maths and English after we made the decision to throw everything at these (tutors for maths and English). He did practically no revision for anything and I am very glad I now no longer have to stress over school work! He also had a place for a L3 BTech however I don't think either of us could face another 2 years of deadlines and coursework!

He's hugely looking forward to college. I've looked at the course content and there is no way I'd manage it (I'm academic but not practical) but he's going to love it. There are some theory exams and health and safety work but it's going to be soooo much better for him. He'll probably then go onto the L2 next year.

He's only in college Monday - Wednesday with Wednesday a very short morning as he doesn't need to do English and maths, Monday and Tues are pretty long days. He plans to work for 2 days as well (has a job in the kitchen at his golf club). So lots to look forward to!!

I hope everyone's DCs enjoy their first few days at college!

@Popfan Welcome. I think you have made a sound choice!

DDs exams at level 1 (with City and Guilds) were 2 multiple choice exams, both of which could be sat 3 times. One was health and safety, the other was 'working in land based industries'.

As well as teaching there were quizzes online for the H&S on things like signage, lifting etc and I worked through them with DD until she was solid, and for the land based stuff she had a PowerPoint from college we went through as the subject was quite 'dry'.

He has done so well to get the maths & English. They are still a work in progress in our household.

Thank you @TeenToTwenties ! DS's course is also City and Guilds so the information regarding the exam bits is useful. What course does your DD do?

The relief at passing maths and English was huge. He actually did very well in his English lang mock and had very high hopes... he then found the texts for paper 2 hard (as was always the danger with his dyslexia) and was incredibly upset so the outcome was great. The pressure to have at least a grade 4 now is so hard on so many and the way the system is set up so a certain percentage won't get this is a whole other thread!

@Popfan My DD does animal care, and is returning to college after a year's break to do a level 2 work based course.
This year she did work experience and level 2 functional skills English (waiting result of writing paper). Agree the gcse with dyslexia (and dyspraxia, and slow processing, and mh issues) is a big ask.
What was lovely with the level 1 for DD was she kept being asked to do stuff she could do, rather than at secondary, where she kept being asked to do stuff she couldn't.

"What was lovely with the level 1 for DD was she kept being asked to do stuff she could do, rather than at secondary, where she kept being asked to do stuff she couldn't."

This really sums it up. My DD doesn't give much away about her feelings but when we were talking about the next steps she looked at me and just said "please can I just do something that is easy ". I could hear the pain in her voice.

She's spent so many years just simply not being able to do the work.

I'm hoping her level 1 is easy and she can get her confidence back. She'll have English and maths to do which won't be easy but hopefully the overall workload will be much less pressurised.

What DD found for her level 1 was there was very little expectation of work outside of lessons; she did focus in the lessons though and get on with work which some of the others didn't....

Minor rant coming.

I have just spent the best part of an hour setting up the IT stuff for DD for college.

Things never quite looked how they do on the pictures they sent, and I sometimes get confused between IDs, email addresses, account names etc and wonder why things aren't working.
Add to that sometimes the password reset doesn't seem to work from in the account so I needed to do a 'forgot password' routine instead at least twice.

Why me you may ask? DD finds all this stuff very stressful and she is getting anxious enough as it is.

Still need to see with her whether it works on her new tablet & phone, decide how we are providing money onto the online account and for her to do the 'enrollment activities' which we mentioned in fine print 2/3rds of the way down the letter.

Oh and port to a new laptop as the one I'm on has a rubbish internet connection that randomly drops out (usually when doing online banking or trying to buy something).

At least DD has been at the college before so understands moodle / 360 / outlook / teams / proportal and when to use whichever. Does my head in.

And breathe.

Dd only has 2hrs of maths and 3hrs of English on timetable for resits. Recommendation (non mandatory) for maths is now 4hrs. I guess they can't source / resource the teachers.

Otherwise timetable is nice, little trapped time, 2 days with a 2.20 finish which is fine as we were planning to collect her rather than use the college bus.

How is everyone doing?

DD has had her first practical day (toads, stick insects and a gecko).
We found another hour of maths on the timetable so that is 3hrs each
And she has her first assignment to do.

DS had his first days at college this week, he enjoyed it, helps a friend from school is in the same group and he can also travel in on the bus. They've done a fair bit of induction things. His highlight though seems to be the novelty of being able to go into town on their lunch breaks and buying Greggs / KFC etc etc 😂

DD had her first wobble yesterday (tiredness and overwhelmed), but her lovely key worker from college before helped her and has taken over now as key worker for this year, and they phoned me together for a chat too. DD was a lot calmer afterwards.

Thank you for setting up this thread @TeenToTwenties I have made a long winded post on year 12 thread for advice as DD not sure what she wants for anyone who wants to read it. @TeenToTwenties will report back when DD has been to college Monday and find out what advice they gave. Will have a read of this thread now 🙂