Year 12 - 2025/2026: Support Thread 2

[QueenMabby]

A new thread for us to keep chatting on!

Thank you all for your supportive comments. We had a meeting with the SENCO yesterday, and more support is being put in place (I hope). It seems we’ve finally got across that they need to be much more proactive in helping DD.
Meanwhile, CAMHS are apparently sending us a letter offering art therapy in January.

Education will always be there..... this is exactly what my husband says about school. Our youngest (yr 9) is AuDHD and really struggles with school. Luckily he is in a really inclusive school who have been willing to work with us to help support him. They agreed to him flexischooling, so he goes in 4 days a week and spends a day at home. They also used to let him go to the inclusion centre rather than certain triggering lessons - they're pulling back on this for year 9 and I don't understsnd why, but the past 2 years have been incredible in terms of managing to get him there and the positive relationships he has built with the staff and the academic achievements under his belt. Just wish more schools were like this.
But completely agree with mental health first and school/education second. You cannot have an education if your mental health has deteriorated, and unfortunately school can have a massive impact on it :-(
Best wishes to you and your DD @ChannelLightVessel

Back from Loughborough Uni Open Day. Enjoyed it, liked it very much, hadn't realised how massive it is - 523 acres!

The Sports course was so exciting very medical and biology, I was tempted to enroll myself! But A*AA for a premium /creme-de-la-creme course might be a stretch too far.

The accommodation is not cheap, but has 17 choices!

NotDonna on the way home we stopped 1/2 way in Milton Keynes as ds2 asked to go to Bills. For Bottomless pancakes. He managed 3 courses: 1) biscoff, banana, maple syrup. 2) bacon. 3) chocolate.

The cheaper end of that accommodation actually looks as cheap as I have seen but of course you may not get your first choice.

RigbyRight interesting, what else have you seen?
Tbf I last had to do this for ds1 - 4 years ago @ Nottingham and we got a bargain in Rutland for £6.3k.

so I'm a bit out of touch. If anyone else sees Uni accommodation prices please do share.

Saying that I'm not naieve and am aware that certain Uni's accommodation prices are much more expensive than others. So I do know that Loughborough (compared to many others eg say Bristol which is not cheap), is not that bad.

We went to Birmingham open day today. Dd very impressed. Biological sciences department was busy and vibrant and their co-curricular music offering is amazing! Potentially one for the list. Also they offer a four year MSci with a placement year where you effectively do your third year research project in a commercial setting. Dd very interested in that!

These are Baths current prices. Be warned Quads rooms are ‘compact’. Great big kitchen and sitting room though. https://www.bath.ac.uk/corporate-information/undergraduate-accommodation-prices/

Am I on the wrong thread? Year 12 students are going to uni open days already?
I wanted to ask for some advice about my new year 12 son but maybe I need a different thread/post?

Not all of them @BringBackCatsEyes - ours certainly isn't!

Some kids are ready - some aren’t - mine isn’t

Thanks. I think I might feel completely inadequate hanging about here. DS is struggling at 6th form. The last thing we are thinking of is uni open day - partly because I was made redundant in Sept so I'm crazily trying to find work and not sink into depression. Maybe I've just plopped in at the wrong time. I was on the GCSE support thread (name changed since then though).

Maybe I'll wait, I've emailed the head of 6th form so I can see what they say.

I don't know if mine is ready or not, I hadn't considered that year 12s were looking around at this point. Certainly the school haven't mentioned anything.

Ask away @BringBackCatsEyes.

We went to 1 local open day, now need to rethink / research further but very interested to hear others experience of traipsing around the country before we get to that stage.

@BringBackCatsEyes - I hope you get a good response from the 6th form. My goddaughter is also massively struggling with the transition to A-levels and is having a tough time.

Some of us are looking at unis but most aren’t. My dd is particularly indecisive so we’ve started early! We’ve done two for the experience but won’t do any more until next year.

This week dd has five assessments. She had her two chem ones last week and they were harder than she expected. She’d done some revision but not much and I think she’s come to the realisation that more work is needed!

We won't be doing open days till after Christmas - have eye on one in Febuary and most over summer - then few Autum term.

We did do What University? & What career yesterday - next one here:

https://www.whatcareerlive.co.uk/events/birmingham/

The one in Birmingham in Febuary which will be geared to Y12. We took DD1 to that and felt it was late as we were blindsided at how high grade requirements where in subject areas she was looking at - had to completly re-think post AS level results - wales Y12 here and 40% of final A-level.

DS did first open day Y12 Feb to fairly local one he started out with no idea what he wanted in location or course but few more later on by Y13 he'd changed subject area he wanted and did have a clear idea - help him as Autum Y13 was brutal with work load for him. DD2 looking in same area as DD1 initally did - but she going to likely struggle to hit the really high grades so have to find the few she could aim for.

It's wasn't the right board but we paid for https://uplearn.co.uk/ for one subject for DD1 in Y13- don't think it raised her grade but more stopped her dropping - that was after a long failed attempt to find a local tutor - on-line one weren't many who knew the welsh board and she wasn't keen on on-line tutoring. She got enough to get to a uni course she loves so it did work out but was stressful and perhaps not the best route for her in hindsight.

@BringBackCatsEyes
Please don't be put off! We are very nice here and incredibly supportive, of all! and not normally so Uber competitive and early!

Only a couple of us have gone. Many posters have dc who are totally not interested at this stage, which is the norm. We have all only just started year 12!

If you read back, a couple of us have done it, for slightly different reasons.

I'm myself was only perusing stuff, and just happened to see that there was a open day at Loughborough (which is the top sports uni) and decided rather than waiting till next year (13) to take ds2, when there's a little bit more time pressure in year 13, with mocks etc, I would offer to take him now in the early stages of year 12.

This is only because he's not actually shown any interest in university and is actually a tiny bit anti-university, doesn't want the debt of it, and can't really see the point and seems very keen on an apprenticeship.

but because he's interested in sports (basically football) and sports sciences and the chances of an apprenticeship are practically zilch cause there are basically none.

Thus, I'm trying to persuade him to keep all his options open and keep applying for any apprenticeships, jobs and also university. and to be very open-minded to it all.

This is thus the only reason that I went early, please don't be put off as this not everybody here, is doing things quite as early. if you read back you'll understand my reasons for taking him at this stage.

I did it for my own personal reasons, so expect understanding.

Perhaps also read back a few pages, for perspective and how conversations develop.

many posters have children with sn, some are struggling to adjust. Some dc have ocd and need extra Senco support atm. My ds2 got a D is chemistry tests recently and has now dropped chemistry as his forced 4th A'level.

Is now the time to tell you all that ds had been put on 'punctuality report' for a week. Largely due to having a 2 week timetable and not going into school when he has no lessons on Monday morning. Or going to tutor, then coming home until his 1st lesson at 2pm. FFS.

Thanks all, I can see you are as lovely as you were on the GCSE thread. I’m just grumpy and snippy.

No you’re not! Anyway. Welcome! I’m sure you’ll slot right in.

dd has had a wobble this evening. She’s worried about assessment results. I think she’ll be fine but this is the first formal set of assessments and she’s not sure how they’ll mark and grade. She’s feeling the pressure a bit (entirely self-directed!) and is suffering from imposter syndrome. We get assessment results on 28th Nov so at least we won’t have too long to wait.

DD only looking at open days now because she wants to do medicine and next summer will be spent preparing for the test all propsective medical students need to take - none of her other yr12 friends are doing this, just those interested in medicine and being a vet!

Are any other schools doing university trips? Ours is doing Cambridge in February. They are staying in a hostel though, when I went on a school trip many years ago we went in university holidays and were put up in university halls. Gave a much better idea of student life but guess they don’t make that offer anymore.

Ours doesn’t. Only to Oxford and Cambridge for those on that pathway. Otherwise we just sort them ourselves.
Some subjects organise trips to local unis for subject experience days, but not for uni tours etc.

It seems to have varried across all three TBH. DD1 wasn't in the extension group but she did a day trip one to a local uni which was hosting a wider careers day.

DS was in the extension group lots of free day trips to Oxford.

DD2 the dropped the grades needed to get in extension group so she in that but they seem to be doing more on-line talks on various subjects this year instead of trips - or so far.

We tend to take them to open they are intertested in - but with a cap on number and spread out time wise as much as possible to make them affordable.

DD1 signed up for a course at secondary where they stopped on uni campus - DS had similar - there was nothing like that for DD2 so far but she hoping to apply to a uni summer school for next summer.

Our school is taking them all to Cambridge. Obviously it is partly to show the top achievers that university but also a nice place to visit and to encourage university generally.

I think ours get taken to Birmingham and Oxbridge … but not yet - think it’s summer term and think it’s optional .

As DS1 seems to keep getting added to support groups - Further Maths now as well as Physics - I think I’m going to sit on my hands for a while as far as Uni visits go , bit of an eye opener for me really - his a level subjects were all mid8s at GCSE so I hadn’t really considered he would be in those groups .He is hyper calm and taking it all in his stride - hope he pulls it round - pretty proud of him really