2017 seems so long ago, now they're fledgling graduates.

[latedecember1963]

4 years since A Levels and the wait for August and confirmation of where our chicks were about to fly the nest to.
It's been 4 years that has sprung a few surprises along the way, not least this lovely series of threads.

Second twin has also passed his conversion course with merit (commendation) like his twin but about 2 marks higher (3 if you round up). I am glad they always seem to get very similar marks so there is no massive comparison and I am better than you thing.

I am sure the unvaccinated one will get it done. I don't think we are likely to fly on holiday in late July but we shall see. Anyway things are fine - had a wedding, daughter's pregnancy (and hopefully baby in December), 2 sons passed their law conversion course and booked on their next law course this September and everyone is fine so in the grand scheme of things the first holiday since summer 2019 is neither here nor there. May be I can set up my tent in the garden in the rain as I have not had a night away from my own bed since summer 2019. Currently the holiday company plans to fly us out as long as the resort is green by then.

Congratulations to the Xenia twins! 🎉🥂

Congratulations to them all! As well as a pat on the back to their mothers who raised them.

More good news here. DD got a first and is thrilled. A decade or so back her headmaster, who did not "believe" in dyslexia, advised she would not be able to cope in a selective secondary. She has no idea whether there will be a graduation ceremony. I hope there is, as it will be a chance for her to finally set foot on campus.

Attention then switched to finding somewhere for next year in Bristol. Her non medic friends have left, her medic friends are not moving, she did not want risk sharing with strangers in what will be a key year with finals at the end, plus she feels that at 23 (she took a gap year) she has aged out of student life. The following year will be on placement with free hospital accommodation, so this year we decided to cough up so she can live on her own.

We sort of expected that rental property might be in demand...but did not realise that it would be so bad. Five of the seven properties she identified one evening had gone by 10.00 the next day. I took over and got a couple of viewings, though one was already being viewed multiple times that afternoon. We lucked out on the other which was a private landlord who bought my spiel that a medical student was somehow better than a professional, as she would be on placement all day and then studying in the evenings, and who was happy not to bother with multiple viewings. We both jumped into cars, me from the south coast, her from London and the flat, albeit expensive, was perfect. Top floor, quiet street, and really central. We threw the lot at it: asking price, rent in advance, a guarantor, and taking on the tenancy as soon as the current tenants vacate, and yay, she has somewhere to live next year, and somewhere to go this summer. That one day was bad enough. I suspect that things will only get worse as September approaches, so am really relived that the problem is sorted. The landlord was super organised and did all the right paperwork, so it is looking good.

The flat is unfurnished so now to work out how to transport various pieces of ex-rental property furniture we have. Which will be more stressful: hiring a van and driving it, or driving our car with a sofa on the roof-rack. I've done a lot of both in the past, but have sort of aged out of wanting to do either. Luckily the previous tenants have offered to leave the bed frame.

Congratulations!

And to you, Needsmoresleep, on getting the accommodation sorted.

Fantastic news, Needmoresleep! Well done her. 🎉🥂
I trained as an additional needs teacher and have spent over 30 years fighting the corner of children and parents who instinctively know their children can thrive in our education system with the right support.
Since the funding rule changed meaning the cost of the 1st 12 hours per week of EHCP provision comes out of the school budget Heads are even more wary of committing early. Whereas, in my experience, early intervention is essential.
I'll hop off my soap box now!
The flat sounds great too.

Well done the Xenia twins and needsmoresleep DD. It's a relief when twins hit the same milestones!

Yes, if one twin had got a pass and the other merit it would not have really mattered but the one with the pass probably would have been a bit cross.

Congratulations to the Need daughter with the first. People and schools should never write children off. My older daughter is slightly dyslexic and her school (private) thought she would not thrive in the upper school and we sat her for 6 other schools at 11_+, yet she passed for her school and in the seniors when qualify of handwriting and spelling stopped being as importance as raw brains she did really well. Same with child 5 - not allowed by his prep school to sit for his oldest brother's school at 12 as he was not very interested in work then and got the best A levels of any of the 5 childen by age 18. Children also develop at different stages.

Well done of finding the accommodation. My son had something similar last June in Bristol as the planned gap year collapsed due to covid. He was back in Bristol and he and his friend had a few days to find somewhere in July and they did - 2 bed flat, very central and it's been fine. So many people seem to look for accommodation in Bristol. I had to send him his tenancy today as only I had ever downloaded it and printed it last year and the link to access it no longer works which is the problem with those kind of electronic links - if do not keep a copy of the document at the time sometimes you either cannot remember the log in details or else the link expires. My children must be sick of my saying let's print it out too..... but it was having his student number printed out yesterday which meant he could find his results in a sea of others yesterday.
Other twin is away this weekend at his girl friend's so I actually get a whole weekend with no one here for once.

Congratulations on all the results coming in
All 3 of my dcs have dyslexia/ dyscalculia and a mix of dyspraxia and dysgraphia!...all 3 of them were told they'd be lucky to get a few GCSES
...eldest dd is now more qualified than the head teacher who initially discounted her abilities and middle daughter got a First ( following BTEC route to University rather than A levels)
Dh is also dyslexic/ dyspraxic and his writing is appalling...he was only diagnosed aged 38...by which time he'd already got a Medical degree and intercalated microbiology degree.
He was only diagnosed when he couldn't pass a higher medical exam and couldn't progess any further in his chosen field ...he packed in Medicine and then did a postgraduate conversion to Law and eventually was called to the Bar aged 42!

We have to do "uncongratulations" for one of mine - has to redo one part of criminal law on 4 August, poor thing. The results they were given yesterday gave the average of 2 papers for each subject eg 62% criminal. So you thought you had passed. An email came round tonight saying check another obscure pdf or something and within that were the marks for each individual paper and if you failed one of those (he got 45% in that one - lowest mark for the whole year for a very subjective only oral assignment of the year) you have to resit and then your marks for the whole year even if you got 90% in all other 15 papers becomes a "pass", not merit or distinction. Anyway let us just hope be passes on the resit. He can still start his course in September and he is also allowed a 3rd attempt if he fails that item in August. He seems to be taking it okay so far. His twin did pass everything.

Well hello everyone - long time no see. You'd dropped off my threads I'm on and I thought you'd just gone a bit quiet It's fantastic to hear all the lovely news, results and jobs. Sorry to hear your ds is having to retake his @Xenia but I do believe that a few knock backs along the way can make us more resilient and achievements when they come all the more worthwhile. I hope he feels ok.

Lovely to hear from you @Needmoresleep I've been wondering how your dd has been getting on with her intercalation. Enormous congratulations on her first!! Thanks for asking after ds. He's still working on his masters project and the course actually doesn't officially end until a week after he starts back on his 4th year of medicine. He's very relieved he did intercalate considering the year he would have had if he'd been trying to do 4th year medicine placements and enjoyed his course partly from home, partly from lockdown with uni mates. His research is in hospital so he's at least getting some clinical contact.

We're watching the Big Match drinking champagne (happy with whoever wins) because today DS1 has been offered a great job! It really does feel a bit like a miracle. I've had sleepless nights worrying about him. After a couple of wilderness years in Australia, then splitting up with international girlfriend and not knowing what to do with his life except shelf-filling at a supermarket, he had told me he'd given up applying for anything at all. This job was a very long shot that he only applied to because I nagged him because he felt it was a bit too high powered for an inexperienced grad. He is going to be on a starting salary more than I'm earning now in my charity manager job! He still intends to apply for grad entry medicine as another even longer shot but now it feels a bit less of an all or nothing option. (And as the office is only 5 minutes walk from our house it looks like we'll have our boomerang adult living at home a little bit longer yet.)

@Xenia congratulations on your twins success. one of my dds is graduating from Bristol this year but said the university have not told the students when they will get their final results. When did your twins find out last year?

Thanks. The one with the resit on 4 August sounds okay about it although it is very drastic that if fail one of 2 exams in a subject and do well in all the other 15 exams you can never get more than a pass and if you don't pass this resit and one after then you fail the whole year in everything. His congratulations card and present from me arrives today sent the day he found he had passed (and then the day after discovered he had failed).

On last year's Bristol finals results last year it was the end of the July, I think 28th for one of them or 29th July. Their degree certs came a bit later by post, probably special delivery and were dated 16 and 20 July or something like that.

@Xenia, many thanks. I wish your son well with his resit.

I am sorry to hear about the twin, Xenia. Resitting exams is a bore. Sibling competitiveness is interesting. A lot of DD's joy at her good result is related to the fact that her older brother was always studious so sailed over academic hurdles she found more difficult. The now both have firsts from similar institutions, so she sees herself as having caught up. They can then go back to arguing about which sort of doctor is more meaningful, the PhD or the medical doctor.

Nice to hear about your DS Haff. DD agrees that the intercalation was the least worse option for a pandemic year, though in some ways it is a pity that she did not stay in her University City with the chance of hanging out with friends. She had a months course overlap last year as her intercalation had a pre-sessional course, which clashed with a project she had to do for Bristol. This time she does not go back till the start of September, which seems different from other medical schools. That said she was the only medic in her big group project, and she had to present early and on her own. The rest have not finished so she she is helping them. Congrats on your other son's job. Post grad medicine is so competitive and a long slog. A friend of DDs is now in her first year of a five year course, and is finding it strange to be a student yet again.

LateDecember, I too can rant about support for dyslexics, though in fact both DDs (private) secondary and sixth form were really supportive and took her on the understanding she would need help. Her profile is remarkably spikey with lots of top and bottom 1-2%s. In reality she is bright, but different bright, so has real strengths in terms of memory and comprehension but struggles with things like "aptitude" tests and timed exams. Bristol medical school now rely heavily on the UCAT and so there is no way she would get a place if applying this year. I hope it does not impact on her professional career in the way it did Havering's DS.

Congratulations and commiserations @Xenia. @Needmoresleep that's a brilliant result, well done to her and you.

Will update in a few days when DD makes top her mind what she is going to do...

GOod luck with Malbec daughter's decisions.
My son's exam feed back is out on Friday so we agreed to wait for that to see if there was any reall good ground for an appeal. Everyone was sent the 3 grounds with the email asking people to look up their results and obviously it is things like manifest errors and that kind of thing but we will certainly look. There seems to be no remarking option which alone might have been enough to get the 45 to 50 and it was a weird exam you could record as much as you liked (first time they had ever done it on this course) and upload your best shot. You start speaking and when the marker comes to mark it they can listen to you and also read what you said because there must be some kind of voice software in there which my sons did not know about until after (not that that would have affected how they did - the twin got 54%) The course was 100% online and I expect they had just about no guidance on what to do in this oral. On the other hand there may well have been a lot of written information on it. it is just if you are never in a class with a lecturer there are not the usual chances to ask a quick question or get some hints and tips as to what the examiners are after.
It might be worth a punt on an appeal as long as that does not prevent him doing the resit in August. Or may be there was a very clear mark scheme that you needed the specific elements of the criminal offences in there although I doubt he was wrong on the law and he revised with his twin who did pass, ticking off each one and then you needed to speak in a certain way. May be as they both read out their script rather than had an autocue or had not memorisd it that was the issue - he thought it might be that but his twin did the same and passed. When I give talks I don't read from notes.

That's a pain about the re-sit. DS2 is very twitchy about his final degree classification. His last exam didn't go how he'd hoped and he feels annoyed with himself that he spent too long revising things that had a lesser emphasis on the day.
All our children have had a mixed bag of tuition experiences over the last 15 months. I think they've all done brilliantly to stoically keep going the way they have.

We don't normally gripe as a family over exam results as they fall where they fall and are usually well marked but this fail is pretty important as if he fails in August he will have started his next course in September and 2 months in be thrown off it and also the regulator's rules that if you fail one of 16 papers in the year, even if you got 90% in all the others if you pass on the resit you can only ever get a "pass" grade. I am not so bothered about the pass grade - his next up sister got that (as she was 0.2% off 60% which I remember annoyed her at the time). It is just the uncertainty, the resit etc. Also if you resit twice that's it, you cannot try a 4th time. SO it is not just an uncertainty over passing this year but also next year's law course and his legal career. I suppose he could go back to square one and sit the new SQE law exams that people start later this year but not ideal. Anyway hopefully he can do the best criminal oral recording in history in August and be okay. The fact it was a pandemic year, no face to face at all and I doubt much guidance on this oral exam - a kind of exam they will never have done before and that it was so much lower than everything else he did does seem a bit mean to fail him for 5 marks. I have today told him to check marks of both papers from term 1's work too in case he failed back in January but never checked properly as the 4 averages (as this term) were merits. His twin I think must have passed all bits of term 1 (and 2) as he was on last week's list of people who have completely passed (that is a list with numbers not names, but each twin knows the other's number as they are very close).

late good luck to your son in his degree grade.

Fingers crossed Xenia .

Fingers crossed for both LateDecembers and Xenia's DS'.

DD is fed up. She stayed on in Bristol after I left, and as a result of a venue check-in has been told to self isolate for 10 days which is putting paid to her long awaited social life. Worst is that she missed a party on Saturday held by members of her last year's project group, who she had never met, but enjoyed working with. None are English so they will scatter to the four winds and she will never meet them. DD has had both jabs, but this seems to make no difference. According to the Tab, around 25% of Bristol students are currently self-isolating. The lesson learned is to be careful where you go before an important event. A casual coffee with a friend was not worth it. They should have got take outs and met in a park.

We were in my mother's old flat on the south coast but had intended to return to London. Now we can't until DD has finished self-isolating, and I will probably have to go to Bristol to pick up the keys to her new flat.

I am sorry about the need daughter. My son who is in Bristol says it is rife there at present although none of us so far even back form March 2020 has had to isolate in my family. he was cross with one foolish boy who chose to sit right next to someone with covid (who does that!!) None of his friends can understand anyone doing that and now of course that silly boy has covid and is isolating. My son's group of about 10+ friends all seem to be very sensible and he only lives with one other person so seems to be keeping pretty safe in the last month of Bristol ever. His twin has gone off to week 3 of his paralegal work this morning early. He seems fine too and even managed a couple of hours at the gym near home after work last night. The one who passed the dreaded criminal oral exam says we do need to look at the feedback on Friday from the other one as if the failure was based on presentation that would be fundamentally wrong as that element is 10% of the marks. The content was probably not wrong as his twin passed with presumably similar content -they revised together at home and always get similar marks. We shall see.

the wait from exam in eaarly August to results in oct is quite a nuisance as he will start his new course not knowing if he will be thrown off it in October.

Oh Xenia, that's really tough for your ds. It feels so much worse if a low mark is based on a possibly quite subjective grade for a presentation rather than scores for right/ wrong answers. Good luck to him for round two.

And really sorry for @Needmoresleep's isolating dd. What bad timing! I guess it will be happening to more and more of us as hospitality doors start opening but the Delta variant being apparently so much more transmissible. I hope she's just isolating rather than positive. A friend's ds of the same age who has got a job in a restaurant has now got Covid confirmed for the second time. He had it first in October and then developed symptoms and tested positive last week, the same day he got his vaccine appointment.

I have 2 dds in Bristol, one who is graduating this year and one next year and both confirm covid is rife in Bristol throughout the student population at the moment. That said dds do not know anyone who has been hospitalised or ill with it.

Thank you.

DD is fine. She probably had the virus when her medical school placement was cancelled back in March 2020, and she has had both jabs (AZ because it was before they changed policy.)

Her problem is that she met a friend for a coffee in a popular student haunt. If they had taken their coffees out and sat in a park there would not have been a problem as she would not have needed to check in using the NHS app. Instead, and because so much virus is circulating, she has effectively ended up with 10 days house arrest.

Those in Bristol should perhaps risk assess places where check in is required, not because of the danger to themselves, but for the chances that someone else might have the virus. Save the risks for the important end of term events!

One of DDs friends had the same. She was finishing a four year language degree which had been severely disrupted by Covid, when a friend of a flatmate came round who later tested positive. Ten days self isolation and no chance to say goodbye to friends.

My GP cousin says that his surgery is now full of kids catching the colds and virus' they did not get during lockdown. I had similar. Sore throat, headache, fatigue, dry cough. Normally it would have been an early night, some paracetamol, and at most, a day off work, but despite being double vaccinated and a negative test, I skipped something I was looking forward to. In part a slight worry about breakthrough infection (jabs mean you become less ill not that you can't catch Covid at all), in part because I did not want to have a coughing fit in front of others, including some who might be more anxious than me. I see the pandemic affecting our behaviours for a while.

It means I get a trip to Bristol to pick up keys. The previous tenants have left a bedframe, and we have a mattress here that fits so I will roll it up and take it down and stay overnight. There was a brief temptation to haunt the places I have heard of: JasonDonervan, TakaTaka, LizardLounge, etc, living student life by proxy, putting pictures on the family group chat, as a way of taunting my daughter. But, setting aside things like me feeling like a giant wally, I would not want to be pinged.

Instead I may check out the BHF furniture charity shop, to work out whether to buy locally or rent a van (and another trip to Bristol), and buy some store cupboard items.

NeedMoreSleep it would be great fun to visit all their places and put random photos on instagram, but you're right, you'll probably get caught by track and trace.