Year 12 - 2025/2026: Support Thread 2

[QueenMabby]

A new thread for us to keep chatting on!

@achangeofnameisasgoodasarest
I totally agree, cant believe that we are nearly at the end of Year 12. And I am even more sad that as you say it all seems highly pressurised, whereas 30 years ago, year 12 was like year 5 or year 8 and 9, a bit of a mid / nothing year. sad really.

We are going to Portugal for a long weekend this weekend, ds2 is excited. He's going to go clubbing and drinking!! Which as a football loving healthy gym go'er is wierd because he's not really a drinker, but he's determined to have a blast in the Algarve! When he comes back he's got a week of work-experience, that I've sorted with my old employer at an ambulance place. And yes I sorted it, not him, Lord save me!!

We are still awaiting results of his Biology re-sit, - many of the children chose to re-sit. Biology HoDept is doing loads of extra work with him. All parents have a 10 minute check in phone call with tutor today.

Biology always seems to be random. DD’s first paper is a much higher % than her overall result. She says she would have needed to get less than 45% in her second paper for the averages to work out which doesn’t compute. A friend who has had both papers back says her mark on the school portal was 10% lower than the percentage on her papers. All weird.

I think I’m also going to have to chat to chemistry. Chem wasn’t giving A stars in the exam but won’t predict one either unless you go and request it and then not until September even though most will get it on request and UCAS grades come out next week. So dd will have an A on her UCAS grades form even though the chem dept knows they will give her an Astar prediction in September. She got 92% in the exam. It’s all bizarre.

My theory is that DD’s school want them to do some work over the summer. Resit exams are then. She got the same predicted as her grade in all subjects. One of her working towards’ grades was lower than her exam result 🤦‍♀️ Resits in September are basically as soon as she gets back from holidays. She also has prep for TARA and the SAT. She is going to be really busy.

What is TARA and SAT? I mean I know in theory what an SAT is but didn’t know we did them here.

dd got 79% in biology according to her papers. Her official exam slip said 65%….

I too am sad for DS1 due to how stressed and hard year 12 seems to have been in comparison to the old days .

His predicted grades so far are significantly below the grades needed for his chosen course . He gets more exams in September so hopefully he can pull himself up 1 grade needed in 2 subjects and 2 grades on the other . Needs to work though and I’m just not seeing it in the same way I did with GCSes . We are visiting 2 unis over the next two weekends . One at the top end and one at the bottom end of what I think he should consider in the current graduate employment climate .

I remember this time being quite exciting and good fun . My DS seems flat though and has through a lot of year 12 .

On the inconsistent gradings for exams - maybe they have been internally moderated ? Happened to DS2 on gcse mock - 2 marks off 9 became a 7

How weird @QueenMabby - it's not one of those raw/scaled score things is it? More likely to be a massive mistake I suspect!

DD2 now has all mocks back. Think we'll be Ok on the predicted grades though irritatingly her bottom mark was the subject she wants to do at uni. Ironically no problem with the surprise 'early' paper - she only dropped two marks across all of English Lit. Perhaps the shot of adrenaline helped.

Sometimes I wonder whether she's making the right subject choice. But music is one of these things where I'm not sure that the uni course is really very much like the A Level, where most of the marks she dropped seem to be because she can't tell the aural difference between Bebop and 'Cool Jazz' (no idea...).

She did the Cambridge online masterclass in music and adored it and declared 'if it's like that it's music I want'.

Also I'm not sure she has the right supercurriculars for english.

TARA is what Oxford are now using for some courses - Test of Academic Reasoning for Admissions. DD is doing the SAT because she is considering some US Unis.

The crazy dark arts of predicted grades adds unnecessarily to A- level stress.

DD’s school seem to benchmark them against the year average in the exam and then look at past years A level results and then come up with a grade for the mock exam. As it’s a highly selective cohort it works for them. By that I mean the majority of kids get all A and A stars. A B is more of a rarity! So if you are 5 marks above the year average you might well be in A star territory for the exam. But they do consider work ethic and performance in class during the year too. I think no schools with a lot of high achievers can be seen to overpredict if they want their cohort to get into the best unis. They are already considering the following cohorts and don’t want to lose credibility.

DD had some tests earlier this year which did not award A Star. She was informed that was because they were AS Level content past papers and AS Level does not award A Star.

Her end of years did award A Star. She doesn't take Chemistry but her friends who do say that A Stars weren't awarded.

@waitingquietly Im sorry your DS is a bit flat. That’s hard. It can be decreasing circles can’t it? And often only one thing needs to get better and then everything else does in turn. Both my DD1 & DD2’s A level grades went up from y12 to yr13 and the real results. BUT they both did a fair amount of work through the summer & were motivated to do that. So those grade increases can happen if he’s motivated to do some study - which is hard esp in summer!
DD3 is definitely finding it all a bit overwhelming. They’ve started writing their personal statement at school this week and I think it’s all starting to feel very real. And I’m a bit miffed that they really haven’t changed.

Yes. Chemistry grade boundaries are scarily high and I can see how easy it must be to slip from an A star to an A with a dodgy paper. The grade boundary is usually around 90%!

At @NotDonna thank you . I ended up having a chat with him last night about how he was feeling - it was really useful to read others comments on here in helping me frame the conversation . He’s been a bit neglected as DS2 has just finished his GCSEs and has needed a lot of support .

@waitingquietly it must be really stressful trying to support them both at once. I hope the chat helps. This is really hard stuff and all this talks about personal statements makes it feel very real for them.

I find it helpful that, for my older two, the stress about it is now a distant memory despite struggles, calls from teachers, endless parents evenings where they always felt like they were disappointing someone and missed grades in both cases. They are where they need and want to be and feel valued and like they are moving forward. Obviously not everyone is so lucky.

I'm sad that Sixth Form isn't the joy it used to be, but as a means to an end the stress did get mine to the next stage. I hope it does for all of ours too!

@Poisoningpigeonsmy last post was meant to say well done to your dd. I clearly didn’t read it before posting 🤦‍♀️

Interesting to read about the high grade boundaries for Chemistry, DD2 just got her end of year results back and was very deflated to "only" get an A. She's now worrying that this will affect her predicted grades for UCAS, I told her that it'll be fine.

We have two open days coming up - and then that it till we see what she gets in August AS level - find them more accurate than predicted levels based on older two experinces as it 40% of final grade here. Book another two or three in autumn term.

They've started the UCAS application earlier than previously with older two - DD2 made a start.

I think DD2 enjoyed lower sixth more than older siblings - I think that partly the art subject she doing is more social then other subjects. She tending to be the one orangising meet ups with older friends from school in their group as well.

If she doesn't need to take three years and just normal two- next year will be last exam year at home - DD1 graduating this summer and DS just finished last uni exam this year but as they are not under our roof impacts less here - it will be eight years at the end of exams that matter post easter done with - we'll have to start doing more in spring weekends again.

DD2 already at loose end with ramp down post exams - though she had art project over the summer looks like it will be easter all over again me pushing her to get started.

DS1's former (state school) sixth form operated on the basis that students needed to get a D at the end of year 12 to continue. I think anyone getting an A in a subject those exams would be seen as quite likely to get an A. And in the end DS1 came out with 3 A and 1 A in Philosophy.

I hope your DD will get feedback including reassurance that there's no reason she can't improve, and advice to make certain that she does. And most offers even for very competitive courses are a mix of A* and A.

Ds announced at the dinner table, he isn’t going to apply for Cambridge now and doesn’t want to go to the open day. I asked what has made him change his mind, he said it’s not open for discussion 🤷‍♀️

@icanbewhatiwant

Has a teacher advised against it? Has a friend had a bad experience? Does his school offer support for potential Oxbridge applicants?

Does your DS have an idea what he does want to do? For example, subjects? Where he does want to go, etc?

@elkiedeehe decided a few months ago to go for maths at Cambridge. So we booked the open day. He wanted me to book the open day at imperial too. But for the July dates he has exams. So we are going to book the September open day. Unless he’s changed his mind on that too. He hasn’t asked to look at any others as he doesn’t know where else to apply. It is obviously his decision. But I’d quite like to know why he’s changed his mind.

For those leading universities, as well as top grade predictions, do you think you have to have a competition win/leadership role/elite sport etc to be in with a chance as they look at personal statements?

@icanbewhatiwant - could it be because he realised he has to do two very difficult STEP papers in early to mid June for Cambridge? And a lot of kids do fail that. DD has some friends in year 13 who went through it. All kids who get close to 100 per cent in most A level Maths papers and pretty high in FM too. And I think they found Step very hard. It just sounds exhausting as well when most other courses you are done after interview with the whole process.

@Araminta1003he has known about those exams for a while, at the moment he’s still doing 4 A levels. We have discussed dropping one if he’s taking STEP as that will be more exams. So he is going to drop chemistry before starting year 13.

I attended an 'Imperial on Tour' event with DS a couple of months ago. The admissions talk said that they're not interested in extracurriculars unless you can make them really relevant. So, perhaps you could sell 'team work' or 'leadership' but only if your chosen subject clearly needs these. Apparently they get a lot of applications, especially international, who are telling them about how they're this well-rounded individual who has achieved wonderful things as well as being academic. This is what US universities want to hear. But, apparently Imperial aren't interested in this! They said that they were only really interested in supracurriculars. They want to know if you've read extra books, attended/watched additional lectures, done subject-relevant challenges, relevant work experience, subject mentoring etc - they want you to prove that you 'love' the subject and that you're passionate enough about it that you engage with it outside of your A levels.