Year 13 -2025/26 - Support, discussion and looking after each other (new thread from y12)

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Hello
I have started a new thread following on from this one
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/further_education/5340007-year-12-202425-support-discussion-and-looking-after-each-other-thread-2?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn I had a brain haemorrhage at the end of October😬 very lucky to be here, I work in a big teaching hospital (non medic) & had just go into work - so very lucky indeed.
DD has her interviews on Tuesday & has just come down with a lurgy🙃 - not great timing, but what can you do?
Will be a relief for your son to get his application in I bet - I know DD said it felt like a huge weight off to finally be rid of it😁

@hels71 good luck today!

@Lalux hope you are all on the mend soon.

@GirlsInGreen congrats on the UCL offer! Hopefully DD has time to recover before the interview.

@Ventress I so wish DD had the ability to be laid back, it would make my life more calm 😂.

She had a cry on me last night about having to revise for a bio test (they have tests what feels like every week atm!) but needing to concentrate on interview prep for next week. She's been to see her teacher this morning (all teachers have agreed interview prep comes first) who has taken her file off her so she can't revise but told her just to do it anyway with no revision. The results literally don't matter and DD is not really in danger of dropping grades atm she is just an impossible perfectionist!

So much happening! Best of luck to your DD today @hels71 .

DD has been really ill (in hospital) with meningitis. Fortunately it was viral rather than the much more dangerous bacterial meningitis, and she is on the mend now. But - if you will forgive me a public service announcement - it is really important for our young people to be aware of meningitis and its symptoms. The most common bacterial meningitis is meningitis B, which our Y13s have not been vaccinated for as babies because the vaccine was not developed until 2015. (Many of them will have had the MenACWY vaccine as teens, which doesn’t cover MenB, but there was some disruption of this in the pandemic and my DD didn’t have it).

The parents of Meg Draper, a fresher who died this term, are raising awareness of the lack of protection from MenB in this cohort and there is a campaign for an NHS catch-up programme to cover young people born before 2015: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crrerl0pw9do

@GirlsInGreen oh my goodness, thank goodness you were at your work place!! I hope you are well on the way to recovery.
Dose DD up on vitamins and stock up on cold and flu tablets!

DS doesn't seem to be that bothered, it's me that's stressing out. 😂 Although once all his friends start getting offers he would get more concerned.

@Ventress if we could mix the anxiety levels of my DS with the horizontal not botheredness of yours we'd have the perfect mix! 😂

@JessyCarr how scary for you all! So glad she's on the mend and thank you for the warning, I will check DS's vaccine history and look to get that sorted if he hasn't had it.

Oh goodness @GirlsInGreen how scary. Super lucky to have been in a hospital when it happened. I hope you are recovering now
I think DS is trying to save me any worry by appearing calm and in control of everything (plus a smidge of teenage arrogance thrown in). I haven't even been told if he has an Oxford interview. Apparently, it's "need to know" only. Having to keep completely away from him while he has been ill means I can only communicate via text message. I realise it's his way of trying to help and take the "mum work" burden off me, but being the nosy parent I am it's frustrating and driving me crazy!

I hope your daughter is on the mend now @JessyCarr . How horrible for her, and you all. Is she resting at home now? Best wishes for a quick recovery

Thank you for sharing the information and the link. I had been talking to DH about the pre-university vaccinations at the weekend and it is on our "to do" list for the summer.

Checking in - sending positive thoughts to @JessyCarr, @GirlsInGreen , @Ventress and everybody else dealing with all the things.

DD has completed her mocks (no results yet). It has meant that history NEA has taken a backseat which is a bit of a problem as a deadline is looming with a word count and she has barely written anything!

hope your dd is feeling better @JessyCarr

I had dd vaccinated for men b when she was 8. I’ve seen a few stories recently and already have her booked in for a booster over Xmas, I thought she needed a fresh double set but Boots says no, just an optional booster. Will see what they say when we go in person.

Meanwhile we’re having quite a stressful time over here with Oxford interviews and the like. I shall be more glad than ever to reach the Christmas holidays! Thank goodness no mocks in Jan here.

@JessyCarr i hope your dd is feeling better soon. When I was at uni a student died of meningitis when we were in halls, he was over from America, must have been just awful for his family, apparently he went to the medical centre who thought it a hangover and advised paracetamol, a few hours later he was in hospital. I don’t remember if dd had a meningitis vaccination, I expect she’d know. Life can take scary turns sometimes.

Just popping in to say DS has submitted his UCAS finally. I have been nagging him for weeks but it’s gone in today 🙌🏼. Now just to wait for offers. I hear Birmingham are pretty quick so fingers crossed as that’s his top choice.

Whoop we have an offer. Leeds Beckett BCC

Lots to catch up on here. Hope your daughter is better @JessyCarrmeningitis is awful
That's terrifying @GirlsInGreen hope you're on the mend

@KellySeveride my DS got a Birmingham offer about 10 days after submitting his form so your DS shouldn't have to wait for too long. Which subject has he gone for?

@AuntyBulgaria he’s gone for integrated masters computer science/software engineering. He’s done Comp Sci at both GCSE and A-Level and he loves it. His second choice is robotics and AI engineering at Warwick. He’s put Exeter as his back up plan. Plus Bristol and Bath in the mix too. But UoB is his 1st choice for course and distance (we live up the road from UoB 🤣).

Lovely to hear of all these applications going in and offers coming back! Exciting times.

Parents Evening and driving test coming up this week……

Good to catch up on the latest with everyone. DS still hasn’t submitted his UCAS application - hopefully by the end of this week, as the school reference is done and he’s just finalising his personal statement. I keep telling myself it doesn’t matter as long as it’s before the deadline…

To be fair he’s been very busy, he picked up a temp Christmas job so he’s been working 16 hours each weekend which will carry on until early January. Mocks are mid Jan so he’ll have to get his head down over Christmas. And DS2 has GCSEs this year with mocks after the holidays too, so it’ll be fun and games all round!

Bath offer came in today, well 2 different ones for maths and stats with a professional placement / year abroad.

Either A⭐️ A A or A⭐️ A⭐️ B. The A⭐️ and A have to be in maths and FM, and the third grade can be either his 3rd A level or Welsh Bacc.

@Muchtoomuchtodo congratulations on the offers! Some of the offers for these maths degrees are a bit scary. Though I'm sure your DC is up to it. Your DC took TMUA didn't they - does that bring the required grades down at all?

Is Bath a favourite?

My son is doing maths and economics type courses and some of the offers are eye watering! He needs to work out which course he is going to have as a insurance - but even those are pretty high!

He’s not sure which is his favourite tbh @AuntyBulgaria . Bath don’t take TMUA into account but we thought we might be waiting a while longer to hear from them yet!

@Muchtoomuchtodo well done on the Bath offers!

Slightly off the A level topic but DD passed her driving test today first time! What a relief to have no more lessons, but now I am stressed at her going out on her own! A huge weight off her shoulders 2 days before her Newcastle interview!

Hope your DD is feeling better now @JessyCarr

Great news on the offers @Muchtoomuchtodo

@bluefinelinerwell done to her. Hoping all goes well with the interview too.

Great news @bluefineliner - have you managed to find her insurance without needing to remortgage?! Not long until ds’s now…..

Good luck for her interview.

We got some very reasonable (!) quotes from about 1.5k but when we looked into the black boxes and their restrictions we actually went for one without a black box that was just over 2k. We had budgeted 2k anyway (DD going halves with us) and chose this because there were restrictions on driving the car after 10pm on some. She has a job that finishes after 10pm some evenings. I've also read reviews on people getting insurance cancelled for odd reasons and didn't want the stress of this.

DD is a very careful driver (a bit too careful sometimes) so I am happy for her not to have the black box if it is affordable. Tbh nothing about learning to drive is affordable now but it's a must as we live so rurally.

@Muchtoomuchtodo have you looked for quotes?

Wow! That’s a lot @bluefineliner. What car has she got, is it registered in her name?

I’ve looked briefly but don’t want to get ahead of myself! What I found was around £1200 for fully comp with a black box but with no time restrictions. It would monitor speed, cornering and braking. That’s on a 1.2 Peugeot registered in his name with me and DH as named drivers but DS as the main driver.

Thanks for the good wishes for DD, @Lalux and others. She’s recovering well from the meningitis but has suffered a DVT as a result of being on extended bed rest. (She does have inherited thrombophilia, but for some reason the hospital didn’t think she needed blood thinning injections - hmmm. And she wasn’t well enough to insist on them, and nobody spoke to us parents about it at all). She will be OK but it’s been really tough.

So great to see everyone’s news! Driving tests, offers rolling in and so on. Best of luck to your DD @bluefineliner for Newcastle, and any other DC with interviews coming up.

Great news @Muchtoomuchtodo with the Bath offer - it’s DSs favoured uni currently. Not that he’s applied yet… 🤨

And congrats on DD passing her driving test @bluefineliner- great to have it done and dusted. I think we paid about 1.2k for DS as a primary driver, not black box, but it was on a very cheap car worth next to nothing (that now needs a new clutch!) - if you can take the pain of the first year it gets much better after that. Hope her interview goes well!

Cross posted @JessyCarr - really sorry that it’s been so tough for your DD, hope she’s fully on the road to recovery now.