BTEC/T level/other vocational 25/26

[BTECnewbie]

Hello all. My DS will hopefully be starting a level 3 extended diploma in September (assuming he gets the grades). I know very little about BTECs having come through the A level route myself. So I’d love to have a support thread for parents of kids taking vocational qualifications this year.

My dd was desperate to leave her school.
She's looking forward to meeting new people.

Yes, SO similar to DS.. I hope she bounces home full of unknown excitement and all the potential to come after she starts! What day is her enrolment this week? Is it a college she knows well? Did older DD attend? I’m just wondering, because I had zero of DS’s ( aside from liking how the outside looked! 😈😹!) until I went inside, but he’d at least gone there for his interview. Just wondering!

How did her couple of days work go? What date does she start?

Oh, yes, the resit situation is astounding!!! The stats this year are shocking, I absolutely agree that for some vocational training/education, surely Functional Skills is sufficient? As I said earlier, my friends ND son has already taken and passed English.. apparently he could retake each section if necessary before moving on ( 🙏so much @TeenToTwentiesfor your kind info here!).. compared to the seemingly extraneous stuff in the GCSE that they are forced to learn! I don’t know. But, I do know how English GCSE affected DS mentally, and I bloody wish I didn’t have to see him going through that again… 🤯.. same as you said to the DC who resat, what was it, 6 or so times?! 🤷‍♀️🤯🙄..

You got great grades!! ( I don’t know anyone else who did Law!)… but the dyscalcula must be incredibly difficult….
The obsession with GCSE maths needing to be passed, when you, who are quite clearly intelligent!!, got a U, must really 🤔 annoy you! ….

@Sisublondie
😃
I can happily state my maths ability or lack of has never hampered me at all 😃
I can do what I need to do...work out %, calculate compound interest etc
I have never, in all my 50 years, needed the pythagoras theorem 😃
Enrolment is Tuesday but not sure atm when the term actually starts 🤔
Dd seems ok.
I seem to have a sinus infection 🤧

@Sisublondie
Nope, never even seen the building before!
Older dd went in the opposite direction - both geographically and subject/path wise 😃

I think I was a bit embarrassed wrt my maths grade for a while.
I was in top sets for everything else.
Nowadays - thankfully - it would be flagged up and I'd have got interventions etc but 🤷‍♀️
I went to a pretty rubbish school tbh...I'm amazed I got the grades I did!

Yes, I was just about to re-reply to you as I’d not got round to mentioning what happened to you at enrolment… that sounds like an utter nightmare?? The college screwing up like that! 🤯.. Your DD sounds like she ( and you!) dealt with it with aplomb….. I think you said she will now leave after first year with Level 2, animal biology (i think?) equiv to 4 GCSE’s?, which I think is absolutely excellent. I’m an August baby and I screwed up my first lot of A Levels and did four new ones in a year and got off to Uni then. That year didn’t make any difference whatsoever ( other than it taught me that you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off and crack on, even if you do pick the wrong subjects (maths, chemistry and biology 🙄) and nail all U’s!

I think it’s going to work out so well for your DD and it’s great she’s excited about it now! I wish this year, DS college were running his subject in Level 2… ( sometimes they do, apparently) I would much prefer that for him. I think this “ provisional 6 weeks” they have out him on sounds very much like the “ flying start” that @TeenToTwentieshas at hers?? , with a review after 5 weeks? Maybe they all do?

Sadly not the same college!, we left NW London when the boys were 3 and 1 with work, now in the touristy Midlands…. 🤦‍♀️😹… don’t miss it all…..😡😤🤯.. much!!

3rd! Not long! I’m not at all sure what we need to buy, anything at all, really. His starts 1st September for” induction week”…

They need to do something.

I was teaching students who had got a 1 in GCSE, in September and they would resit in November. It's crazy, there is no way you are going up 3 grades in a month of teaching.

That was college policy not government. At a grade 1 they could start at FS and resitting in Nov crazy and not required.

@Sisublondie No, DD isn't leaving after a year – she's now going to do three! One year at Level 2 to boost her GCSE equivalent and then she'll stay on to do two years at Level 3. And yes, animal care. She's really happy, it's like a weight's lifted, frankly. She's already said uni felt too scary to contemplate but now she's talking about doing the three years, taking a gap year and then going to uni when she's 20. Having read what someone put on another thread about ND children being three years behind their peers it now makes total sense to us how she's been feeling and struggling to cope. She needs these three years at college to catch up!

I think your DS will be fine and will fly through the six weeks. You just need to follow @TeenToTwenties' excellent advice – which I intend to do as well! – and stay on top of helping him be organised and do his best possible work for the best grades. It sounds like his mindset is already shifting towards feeling more positive about the course. What's he doing, btw?

The policy is wrong whoever sets it. On DD's enrolment day last week we had to go to the maths and English dept to have her results verified to confirm she didn't need to do resits. The room was packed with kids who did. It must be so hard to start a course and give it your all when you're having to cram extra lessons in. On results day DD sobbed with relief knowing she'd never have to take another maths test, the pressure has been immense.

Its definitely college dependent...
As I said, locally to me colleges have made the decision that kids within 2/3 marks of a 4 cam start the course with no re sits
Perhaps common sense is finally prevailing?

Do you mean 'with no resits' or do you mean 'no resits first, but resit in parallel'? I suspect the latter.

No re sits at all.

Hi everyone I have just seen this thread and thought I’d give any parents who are worrying some reassurance.

DD did a Btec level 3 almost 10 years ago after she missed her A level entry requirements at the sixth form she wanted to go to by one grade.

She walked away with all D* grades and went on to study at a Russell Group uni. She left there with a first and walked straight into a graduate position.

Btec was not her first choice but in reflection it was the best route for her as it allowed her to develop skills that aren’t explored in academic study. At uni she found self study much easier than many of her course mates who were much more academic than she was but had been spoon fed at sixth form.

To anyone worried that a Btech might be second best to A levels, don’t be. The skills they learn are just as important and valuable and even before covid, some of the best universities recognised that .

Thank you @timesaretough
That's so great to hear and huge congratulations to your dd 👏
My dd actually did pretty well in her gcses and could javelin gone to 3 6th formz to a A level.
Sadly, they have all dropped her passion subject and she's just "done" with school tbh.
So, we are hoping that the btec in a new city is the right decision for her 🙏

Good grief...SO many typos 😫

My ND/ASD DD16 just got good enough grades for the BTEC in Games Art she wants to do, all very exciting. She’s actually not been learning g in school since year 8 due to ASD crisis and rebuilding her world, and is so looking forward to college, they have a quiet room for ND kids which is on the same floor as her study rooms and it’ll be 3 contact days a week so not too overwhelming for her … she’s even talking about university now which was a definite ‘not a
chqnce’ for the last few years as far as she was concerned - I can’t wait for her to dip a toe back into the world again as she’s been so hidden away, her choice, but can’t deal with lots of noise and busy places as she gets overwhelmed so easily - but she’s managed to understand herself a lot more over these past 3.5 years so thinks she can cope with the help of the EHCP and the quiet room - good luck all those with kids making the next step, and also let those kids who need re-sit know that they can still achieve, I did terribly in my GCSEs and now have a degree and PhD in science and have worked in research for
many years ❤️💕

So many more people on this thread than when DD1 started her BTEC 10 years ago!

Very best wishes to your dd @chunkybear

Thank you @timesaretough, that's so encouraging to hear! I'm 100% certain my DD is going to thrive so much more doing a BTech than she ever would have doing A-Levels.

Hope your DD thrives @chunkybear my youngest also autistic fell out of school in year 8 and has been doing a creative imedia OCR games design course via distance learning and is really good at it so I’m hoping that if she can get her GCSE’s over the next 2 years the a BTEC in a similar subject would be amazing for her and give her the opportunity to integrate back into ms education.

Someone's pulling your leg...or they're doing Functional Skills within the course? Funding depends on students working towards a Level 2 (if they don't yet have one)

@sunnywolfie
Only what I've been told.
Post 16 provision seems to be in free fall where I live 😔

DD ditched the Javelin for Bright Lights, Big City?! 🤷‍♀️😈😻😹!! …… ( mine usually autocorrects to my usual chat! Hence, I asked my lovely Mum on Saturday night if she’d had a lovely “Shitty Shitty Bang Bang!”time with her friends!!)..

🤦‍♀️

@Sisublondie
😄😄