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Higher education

Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

Original poster

University life for our soon to be Year 2 undergrads (2019 intake): social bubbles (bursting?), the new normal and hopefully no second wave

975 replies

NewModelArmyMayhem18 · 04/06/2020 11:39

Previous thread

OP posts:
bigTillyMint · 12/08/2020 08:14

We have dropped DSs TV to his house, but it’s for playing fifa (mate has an Xbox) AFAIK - do teens even watch conventional TV?!

Original poster
NewModelArmyMayhem18 · 12/08/2020 08:19

@bigTillyMint - they don't as far as I can tell. My two won't consider watching anything on 'terrestrial TV'.

OP posts:
Benjispruce · 12/08/2020 10:42

DD sometimes will watch something with us but not often. Neither of mine have ever had a tv in their room(our conscious decision to begin with then smartphones arrived!)

MrKlaw · 12/08/2020 15:06

My son will probably take down our monitor with HDMI so he can plug his xbox in. They might club together to buy a TV but half the time he watches the football on his ipad anyway
I’ve told him not to bother with a TV license as long as he only watches via iplayer on a laptop or ipad - something that can run completely on batteries.

Baytreemum · 12/08/2020 15:13

Thanks @Benjispruce that’s great.

Benjispruce · 12/08/2020 15:49

No probs. Just a couple more weeks and DD will be moving in to her house. Been a long time coming and she can’t wait and although it has been better than I thought with both DDs home all the time, it will be good to have more space and a tidier home. I keep pulling DD up on the trail of things she leaves about the house but apparently I have so much negativity.Hmm

Jano69 · 12/08/2020 23:12

DS is returning to Durham this weekend. I'll really miss him but, like Benji, I'm looking forward to a tidier and more spacious house. If someone had told me this time last year what the next 12 months would bring (A'Level results day was not a happy occasion for DS), I would never have believed them. Another chapter ends and a new one begins. I'm reading the A'Level threads - don't envy the 2020 cohort, what a mess!

MrKlaw · 13/08/2020 07:19

DS has a resit on the 24th (his birthday) and then has 4 weeks before the year starts. He really needs to start organising stuff because we’ve made it clear we aren’t prepping everything like last time. Happy to buy online or even go shopping with him but he needs to steer

Original poster
NewModelArmyMayhem18 · 13/08/2020 07:48

DS off today with some of his stuff but he'll be back at some point soon to collect the rest. Agree re tidier house and cheaper food shops. He just helps himself to whatever he fancies!

Strangest year ever. Hoping that the new academic year works better for them than the last one.

I'm with you on getting DSs to organising stuff better @MrKlaw. I can't actually currently see how he could hold down an office job because he's way too scatterbrained in some ways. He needs to focus!

OP posts:
Ragwort · 13/08/2020 08:13

Thinking back to this time last year when we were all waiting for the A level results ..... I am not going all out to help my DS pack for his second year, he's got to sort himself out, there's nothing he can't get in a big city centre, and he's earned plenty over the summer so I'm not paying, half the stuff I sent him with last year came back without even being unpacked or used Hmm.

Benjispruce · 13/08/2020 08:34

We went to Wilko to do house shop, DD asked to go and I chose the shop(she’d have me in John Lewis Hmm) I bought everything she needs to eat and sleep and she bought things she wanted but didn’t need. Anything that needs replacing is on her.Watching A level results on BVC is giving me butterflies for DD2 next week.

Benjispruce · 13/08/2020 08:34

BBC

Witchend · 13/08/2020 08:58

@Ragwort

I am so glad that dd was last year and not this year! She would have been going crazy in the last week with all the announcements. She says that the mocks they did at her 6th form wouldn't have counted as they do them in classes, so strictly not under full exam conditions.
She also has a good handle on how well she's done with an exam, so would have felt at sea.

She's working on the TSR helplines today so spent yesterday trying to get up to date on all the new things the government was throwing out.

Witchend · 13/08/2020 09:10

@Benjispruce

I've got dd2 with GCSE results next week too. I think with dd1 the results would have been fair.
With dd2 it could be anything. She had a panic attack over the November mocks, and her last report had dropped her about 2 levels in several of the subjects. But then they'd redone more mocks since and she'd been getting good marks in those.
So she could have anything from a string of 9s through to a string of 3s. The school is generally not over predicting, so glad England hasn't been stupid enough to follow Scotland's… well I hesitate to say lead, as I would say it was more of a politically induced panic flurry.

She does need her 9 in maths though, which she should have got easily, but her maths teacher constantly under predicted her (gave her a 7 predicted grade at the end of year 10, despite getting an easy 8 in the summer exams-and yes, it was a full paper so they hadn't done some of the work, and she predicted other children who had lower marks a 9) , so I suspect she'll be resitting in November.

MrKlaw · 13/08/2020 09:24

@ragwort exactly - he's had a year so will have more of a feel what he really needs and what he can manage without. The cheap crappy starter pans set from Argos barely made it out alive from the first year so he can have some of our old pans and probably buy a decent wok from town when he's down there. Bunch of other things he can get as he goes along too.

Original poster
NewModelArmyMayhem18 · 13/08/2020 09:29

Reading the A Levels thread takes me way back. I think results are often not what they should be. DS's high league table positioned school had lots of 'blips' with results last year. I recall the HT saying that a fair few had not got the results they deserved. T'was ever thus sadly. The thing is to make the most of what one's been given and move on. DS has said several times over that he feels UEA is a much better fit for him than Durham would have been. He massively had his self-confidence dented in a cohort of super high achievers and is just beginning to become more confident about his abilities at university.

OP posts:
Benjispruce · 13/08/2020 09:30

DD2 did pretty well in her mocks in November and improved again in the second lot in March. She’s not a straight A student like DD1 but got 7/8/9 in Eng, History and Geog, Drams, Food/Nutrition, 6/5 in Science and Maths. Really hope she gets those marks at least. Fingers crossed.

Witchend · 13/08/2020 10:12

I would like to see comparative statistics for the A-levels.

We're getting headline figures: 2 in 5 pupil's grades lowered.

I assume that means 2 in 5 have at least one lowered.
What's the normal figure for that? I wouldn't be surprised if it was similar. After all, if you have a BBB student, then they would count in that if they got a EEE, BBC or a A*AC. That must count for a fair number of people normally.
Of course it feels unfair on an individual basis because they can personally feel that they would have done better, but as a whole that might be less than normal, or greater than normal.

On the basis that the results have over all gone up, then the number of schools saying they've been disadvantaged seems to be a lot. If results have generally gone up, then that must add up to on average schools going up. I haven't seen any school yet saying "best year ever", although maybe that's not news so they're shouting into an unlistening press.

minesawine · 13/08/2020 23:34

So glad my DS got his grades last year. I remember it being so very stressful and really feel for all this year. It has been tough. Rags my DS has booked his socially distanced return to NTU for 29 September, a lovelystudio. I have bought him a few bits as so little came back with him, but the rest is down to him. Feeling a bit sad as I will miss him loads, he says he can't wait to get away from my constant complaining. Confused

Ragwort · 14/08/2020 08:32

Hi mine, I expect your DS is pleased to have a studio flat, my DS is sharing a flat with two girls - one of whom went to my old school which is such a coincidence, we moved from that area over 40 years ago! He is going back mid Sept I think ... no real communication yet.

MarchingFrogs · 14/08/2020 08:51

one of whom went to my old school which is such a coincidence

One of DD's first year flatmates at Birmingham, now a 2nd year housemate, comes from the town in North Wales where I started school in 1964 (we were Army, so only there by chance rather than any connection with the place and didn't actually stay long, though).

However, she refuses to ask him which primary school he attended - spoilsport

Original poster
NewModelArmyMayhem18 · 14/08/2020 09:41

It's a bit like the six degrees of separation thing isn't it @Ragwort and @MarchingFrogs? The world is smaller than we think in so many ways.

OP posts:
Decorhate · 14/08/2020 10:00

@NewModelArmyMayhem18 I agree that there are disappointments every year & hard to tell if there are more than usual this year. Last year one of Ds’ friends totally bombed. A bright kid but his dad was terminally ill that year. Obviously totally unfair for him but realistically nothing could be done. Was persuaded to go to a different uni with a foundation year rather than repeat. His foundation year went really well & he has put his A Level disappointment behind him.

Neither of mine achieved their predicted grades at A Level. Of course there will be many cases where the algorithm has totally failed an individual and hopefully an appeal will succeed. But otherwise I think it’s best to just carry on.

(We had a pupil yesterday who got into her medicine course in spite of a dropped grade in one subject. Her father still wants to appeal, I think because he wants to see a piece of paper with 3 As on it)

icanbewhatiwant · 14/08/2020 10:16

I've just re found this thread. Lost it ages ago. I think I need a few spare hours to catch up on it! 🤣

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