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.

Re. back pain, stick with the prescribed, it should kick in within a few days (hubby is a bit of an expert as he's had to use them for so long) make sure she keeps moving (gently) ring Dr if meds not working as could be disc related.

I have same problem with android, it says click here but isn't clickable. Seems to depend on how the link was put in. Sort it out MN!

Sympathy for the back pain, DH and I also sufferers. Ask GP for physio referral, they are much better for backs and can give tailored strengthening exercises. Naproxen is a stronger anti inflammatory and diazepam (if they'll px it - good luck) is also good. Go for walks as soon as possible as otherwise everything stiffens up and makes it worse.

Lightuptheroom
JulesJules

Thanks for your experience.
I need more patience don't I. I know backs are tricky.

I have naproxen here. She does need to keep moving, my mother said disc problem, which just alarmed me. Discs + moving doesn't sound safe 😆
I'd better wake her up and see what's what.
Good to know about the non clicky links not being just me.

Thanks again. Feeling a bit on my own the past few days. X

@thesunwillout sounds like sciatica - I had it at Christmas for 2 days and then it went away by itself and no problems since. My SIL who is a GP gets it occasionally too, never more than 5 days Hope hers goes soon.

@postingintotheabyss you wanted to know where the A level thread was, so tagging you here

@thesunwillout no worry, it's hard when they hurt themselves x Problem is, if she doesn't keep moving then as another pp said, everything will stiffen up and make it so much more painful, the medication helps everything to relax, which should then mean she can walk gently, even if it's only round the room or down the garden, just for a few minutes. Anti inflammatory s can make you feel a bit ick as well, so make sure she eats something. The pain down her leg does sound like sciatica, but don't be afraid to contact the Dr again.

On the mattress topper it's not really for warmth. It's that they are on a student bed that may have seen a bit of action in its time. Mattresses can be lumpy and it's nice to have something between you and the 'used' fabric. If you get my drift.

The pain down the leg went after a couple of days, I should have mentioned that.

Sorry @thesunwillout not to acknowledge you-.glad they are feeling better. I get so little time to read MN at moment and just saw the topper bits 😊. I know teachers are all supposed to be drinking gin on deckchairs in the garden but I'm working 10 hour days to try and teach. In school and out. At the same time.
As to grades can I just say that the process did not take predicted grades into account at all. And if done properly were robust using data. Uni destinations did not even enter my head.
Would have been DDs last A level today. She was due to fly to Australia with her sister next week 😟

My osteopo opened for hands on treatment this week so might be worth tracking one down? No idea how they can but they are!

Yes @JulesJules I agree - DS’s Politics department have recently switched to a new board and last year’s ‘guinea pigs’ had a disappointing set of results which was partly due to

it being taken as a 'Fun Fourth' by quite a few.

Sunwillout, I would def recommend your dd sees a physio for her back. Anything referring down her leg indicates disc/nerve involvement which the physio will be able to assess and treat and give her loads of exercises which she can continue at uni . Plus strengthen core muscles. I think some physios are open for business, even if it's a telephone/zoom consultation. Hope she's ok

Yes to mattress toppers. After getting one for my eldest DS at uni, I bought one for myself.
Anyone thinking of waiting until they arrive at uni, be warned that we decided to get quite a bit stuff there rather than in advance (car size problem) then found the big Tesco Extra had bare shelves for pillows, saucepans etc.
Getting a 3/4 bed mattress topper was also a pain. Not many shops have them physically in stock. In the end I ordered from John Lewis online (they had 20% off Home at the time) and DS picked it up from the shop himself 2 days later.

What are those with DC hoping to go to central London Unis doing about taking them and all their stuff?
I don’t drive so we are thinking of going up on the train with a couple of suitcases. We aren’t far from London. Would this be practical to do?

I drive but am not too confident in the 3 hour drive to dd's university.
We were thinking of two big suitcases and training it, having already packed a big crate/box or further suitcase to send on when she's settled.

Thank you @thesunwillout for getting the thread back on track. Sorry uour dd is in such pain

thanks too for the explanations about mattress toppers. This is dc3 going to University this time - neither of the others have complained about any of their beds over the 3 years. Maybe they were both lucky ? Or maybe hardened after years of camping .

It might be that DS1 was a bit of a wuss, BackforGood! I saw them recommended on here back then and it did come in useful as well as a guest bed when mates crashed over in second and third year.

I was trying to protect my allergic son from a mattress that someone else had slept on/bed bugs! We have taken stuff to Uni by train but DS had to make a second trip a couple of weeks later to collect more. Easier if you are not self catering.

I would think lots of London students would take cases rather than drive - much easier. Courier anything you can’t carry.

@BackforGood

Love your username. We've been watching live dvds again, good for the seratonin!

Not reopening the issue..but this was posted on one of the education blogs which clearly shows that teachers are looking at the larger picture...(Charlotte is not her real name) but she was referring to her Music cohort..

Where a student’s average GCSE result generates A level target grades, their weaker subjects are likely to show less progress – ‘value-added’ – compared to the stronger ones. Charlotte has been told that when the grades are in, the value-added measure for the class should not be significantly above the three-year average. This would be around 0, but she has a stellar group and has predicted that they will exceed this by some distance.

“We had gone through a really robust statistics-based process, using common sense and our professional judgment,” she says. “Now all the contextual information is being disregarded and we are not even submitting any evidence.”

She spent some time considering how to make the results fit Ofqual’s expectations. Should she simply drop every grade, or select individuals for whom the effect would be least severe to suffer bigger changes?

“With two students predicted As, I thought one needed the grade to get into university whilst the other didn’t, so that was the grade to drop,” she explains.

And with the GCSE group she started considering whether the student was continuing to A-level and how the grade they received would affect their confidence. All because, according to Ofqual, something must give.

“It all just felt totally wrong,” she says.

The extraordinary changes that the pandemic has enforced upon all of us are clear almost everywhere we look. ‘Unprecedented’ might become the most used word of 2020, and the government, Ofqual and school leaders had to put in place a system that, perhaps inevitably, would have its problems. And they had to guard against the annual problem of inaccurate predicted grades translating into a year of highly-questionable results.

To Charlotte, it feels like a blunt instrument designed in the image of large subjects that does not suit the nuances of smaller ones in the arts. It could be that the students in her class are the victims, and to her it does not feel necessary.

BackforGood in the context of the thread title it does seem a bit odd of you to suggest that a discussion of teacher assessment isn't 'on track'. Since it's absolutely slap bang on track. In fact it couldn't be more so.

I can understand that people on the thread don't want it full of Oxbridge posts and felt uncomfortable with Oxbridge offers being protected...i think the larger picture here is that teachers are in circumstances they don't feel comfortable with.. I don't think that Charlotte is disgusting to have looked at the consequences of her assessed grades.. I think she was trying to care for all those students and make judgements that would have the least affect on Dcs future... Its just just incrediblely sad that teachers are in this situation..

I've had enough of mumsnet righteous posters.. I won't be posting again even though I've contributed from day one.. I feel uncomfortable with how my post was belittled...

Oneteen you talk masses of sense. Just ignore the righteousness, it's easily done :) Those posters made it about Oxbridge to whip themselves up into outrage about so called elite kids and so called elite unis. As you say (and as I said earlier), we were talking about the bigger picture. Railingwhatshername didn't understand the concept of the greatest good - surely that should be an easy concept in this situation for a teacher. 'Charlotte' seems to get it without any trouble, so that's good. She may well be more typical of the teaching profession - let's hope so.