University 2020 :5: Results day approaching and beyond

[MillicentMartha]

Old thread
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/3855474-University-2020-4-The-wait-for-grades-and-better-days-ahead?pg=40

Less than 3 months to go until we have a better idea what the future has in store for our DC. Let’s hope that even if most lectures are online that accommodation is open and they can move up, across or down to their university towns and start their student life.

We should have been in the middle of exams, instead we have this strange limbo of lockdown. It could have been worse, though.

Jane my DC all went to the nearest secondary school to the house we've lived in forever, but it does happen to have good and interested teachers on the whole, yes.

Also my point isn't an Oxford one. The staff simply know where their students are hoping to go. They ask, and talk to pupils - not a difficult task when teaching A level groups.

Your DD's teacher sounds a miserable, unimaginative stereotype of the worst persuasion of teacher, it seems fair to say.

Monkey yes there have been more of them at the same school than other families (though a few others have had five siblings all attend, and more with four and loads with three) but there doesn't seem to be any discrimination in terms of interest. You do the sixth form staff a disservice. It isn't how they work.

Just as a matter of interest... Will any parrents/DC be asking for disclosure of teacher assessed grades/rankings after results day... Or will it be dependent on their Dcs results?

Excuse typos..

Juggling - travelling the world on cruise ships sounds amazing! My brother did similar many years ago and had an amazing time

Oneteen I wouldn't expect DD to ask but if there's an issue with teacher grades having been moderated down then I'd expect the teachers to talk to the affected students on results day - certainly if it affects their uni place. News about downward moderation tends to travel fast on results day!

@Railingsohno

I think I know the answer to this but wanted to double check with you gurus. Is there any way to defer a place in clearing?

Thanks!

Hi, sorry to butt in again with my very boring question but does one know? I’ve been told different things. Thanks.

The teacher I referred to taught DD for a double lesson from mid September until early March. He was aware that she was applying to university, but that would have been it. Oxbridge applications wouldn't have been on his radar, especially as her degree is completely unrelated to the subject and she had a couple of other teachers for it as well.

I can foresee asking for the teacher-assessed grades if any of the subject that DD needs an A in have been moderated downwards. I'm really confident her school hold enough evidence to justify an A. I would hope universities would be interested in an email stating that a lower grade was due to computer standardisation. Trouble is, by then it may be too late.

What a sad situation if teachers who are teaching A levels generally that student has 3 subjects to study that their teacher does not know what they are applying for and at what level. One has to assume, especially for an Oxbridge application, that the student is expecting at least an A for all their subjects and thus all teachers of those students would have at least discussed whether the student was interested in taking their subject to degree level.

Also the way they write their references will differ as they may pull out skills for their subject that help with the degree subject. E.g. for PPE say the maths teacher may say Susan's excellent maths skills will certainly see her in good stead for the economics element of her degree, whereas her history teacher might say that her interest in particular in the politics of past events and her analysis of such events will make her an ideal candidate for any politics based degree.

I think people are simply unaware of what cross chat there is between teachers and how well they do know the pupils.

I think DS may have a discussion with teachers on grades if missed but only because it may inform what to do next eg is it worth an appeal to the uni or do they they think he could do better at a resit etc

I think people are simply unaware of what cross chat there is between teachers and how well they do know the pupils.

I'd have thought that was it too SeasonFinale. Any teacher who hasn't sufficient interest or memory to know what their A level students are aiming for should probably give up the job and do something more appropriate to their limited range.

@Railingsohno hi! Do you mean if your DC applied for a place in August through clearing, can they defer that place for a year?
Anecdotally I think that clearing places tend to be offered following a chat with the uni so this would seem the best time to ask.
Generally though clearing is for students wanting to start in the autumn but have missed their firm and conditional choices.
If your DC is looking to defer would it not be easier, and give more choice, to complete a new application in the autumn with grades in hand?

[quote errorofjudgement]@Railingsohno hi! Do you mean if your DC applied for a place in August through clearing, can they defer that place for a year?
Anecdotally I think that clearing places tend to be offered following a chat with the uni so this would seem the best time to ask.
Generally though clearing is for students wanting to start in the autumn but have missed their firm and conditional choices.
If your DC is looking to defer would it not be easier, and give more choice, to complete a new application in the autumn with grades in hand?[/quote]
Hi he’s applied for deferred entry already. I was just wondering if he could pick up a place at a better ranked Uni (he has one in mind that he loved but wouldn’t have got the grades they needed) He’s determined to take a gap year.

Dd and I were discussing this last night and I would have also thought that this would be a possibility @AChickenCalledDaal. I would hope universities would be interested in an email stating that a lower grade was due to computer standardisation. Trouble is, by then it may be too late

Dds 6th form is small and the teachers regularly talked in classes about Uni aspirations.. DD has said a few times that they have wondered off topic in favour of Uni discussions... I know when Dd was initially looking at Medicine..both the Chemistry and Biology teachers would nag her about attending Medsoc..

I'm terms of the larger schools I would have thought the Oxbridge Coordinator would have regular contact with the subject teachers to see how the students were progressing..

@Oneteen I don't know whether an Oxbridge coordinator is a normal thing, I expect most state comps don't have one, DS's school certainly did not.

I think that when you have 300 in a year in a normal sixth form the teachers may know what the high profile students are doing, but a lot of the students are a bit vague about what they want, so staff cannot really know what they all want to do.

@Railingsohno Clearing is definitely meant for the imminent academic year, your DS should probably expect to withdraw from his offer and re-apply through UCAS with achieved grades for next year if he wants to go somewhere else. He could submit the same PS, so it is not that much work, but could be a bit of a risk as there is a general expectation that around 20% more than usual are planning to defer this year. He could certainly contact the one he really likes before results day and ask them, they generally like people who take initiative and show passion for a course.

I'm unclear why this thing keeps slipping back to Oxbridge

That said (!), I expect most good and sizeable independents will have an Oxbridge co-ordinator whose sole job it is to .... co-ordinate Oxbridge applications. At other schools the Ho6 will by default be that person. At our school, we're somewhere inbetween, with our HoHistory having a general loose oversight of everything related to Oxbridge within the school, but that's simply one of his many other remits besides the not insignificant one of being HoHistory! His job description is absolutely not Oxbridge Co-ordinator and if he were to move on to another school, that role would form a miniscule part of any letter of application or CV - it wouldn't earn more than a glancing reference.

[quote Monkey2001]@Oneteen I don't know whether an Oxbridge coordinator is a normal thing, I expect most state comps don't have one, DS's school certainly did not.

I think that when you have 300 in a year in a normal sixth form the teachers may know what the high profile students are doing, but a lot of the students are a bit vague about what they want, so staff cannot really know what they all want to do.

@Railingsohno Clearing is definitely meant for the imminent academic year, your DS should probably expect to withdraw from his offer and re-apply through UCAS with achieved grades for next year if he wants to go somewhere else. He could submit the same PS, so it is not that much work, but could be a bit of a risk as there is a general expectation that around 20% more than usual are planning to defer this year. He could certainly contact the one he really likes before results day and ask them, they generally like people who take initiative and show passion for a course.[/quote]
Actually that’s a good shout. Although he’s quite shy.

I have no clue what his results are going to be! Predicted BCC but got BDD in his mocks so the B may become an A (with a prayer and a following wind) as he was only a few marks off in his mock.

In the school I work in I would say the teachers do know who has applied for Oxbridge as some of the teachers run practice Oxbridge interview sessions for their subjects. For medics there are practice interviews and BMAT practice. It’s a state grammar so more than their fair share of early entrants. In a huge sixth form college of thousands of students I’m sure some teachers may be forgiven for forgetting exactly which university the hundreds of students they teach have applied for. DS’s teachers know his uni choices but there are only 2 from his sixth form applying for maths, so you’d expect some of his 5 A level maths teachers to be interested!

But Millicent teachers don't teach way more DC simply because their school is big - the school simply employs more teachers.

I guarantee the teachers in the some of the big sixth form colleges teach far more A-level candidates than they do at DD's school, even if they teach the same number of classes. Her biggest class only has 14 people in it!

Quite - there have been posts on this thread recently saying how many of the posters dc are in tiny groups that would seem unworkable in many schools.
If you have 20 students in each A level class it is different from if you have 6, 4, or even 10

Even with 20 in a class though with a minimum of 5 hours a week per subject it is easy to get to know pupils even if teaching only one year of 6th Form and many the group through 2 years.

Is it normal to get one teacher for 5 hours a week? At DS's school they did 9 hours per subject over 2 weeks, split between 2 teachers, so each teacher saw students for 2-3 hours/week. The classes were around 22, so each teacher could have over 100 sixth form students in addition to their classes in the main school. As I said before, I think the teachers know the students applying for their subjects and the high achievers and ones involved in the social life of the school, but I expect they could not tell you what half their students were planning to do. Different for music/arts subjects as they have more extra-curricular contact.