Medicine 2021 - Part 4

[MaddieElla]

Fingers crossed for those final offers coming in!

Hope no one minds me starting the new thread...

How many driving lessons roughly needed for automatic ? Paying 28 pounds per hour and have to book two hours slot every time. Is this normal?

DD did always have 2 hours at a time. £52 I think.

It is a loooooot of money, yes. Unfortunately DD ended up spending more because she had lockdowns every now and then.

We did help her and paid for some. We also paid for her theory and practical tests.

It's hard to say how many hours they'll need. I should think most DC in this thread are very methodical and sensible, so it doesn't take an age to pass. I do not dare, however, add up all the money we/she has spent.

We paid £30/hour for DS's lessons. He started his lessons at the start of July as soon as the restrictions eased and sat his test at the start of November because that was the earliest date he could get but was ready to sit by early October. He had a 90 minute lesson most weeks but he practiced a lot with us too and felt that made a big difference to his confidence.

@MaddieElla congratulations to DD on the driving test that’s brilliant! Exciting to be car hunting too!

DD has had lessons but they’ve been so stop start through lockdown and she really needs to pick them up again now!

@ljmutti it’s so expensive isn’t it? DD’s instructor will only do 2 hour lessons too and it’s £295 for 10 hours. I hope your DD can relax after exams and keep occupied once you both shake off the stress of assessments

DD is doing extra waitressing shifts and living earning some more money! She’s also picked up two mornings a week volunteering in a local charity shop. Other than that she’s seeing lots of friends and her boyfriend and is always on the go! She’s enjoying some longer sleeps though.

@opoponax I hope you can relax while DS is off to Bristol - it seems such a grown up thing to do doesn’t it! I am sure he will be fine

@bimkom enjoy the trip to Sheffield and Nottingham exciting stuff!

@bimkom you may know Sheffield already but just in case you don’t, when DD and I went for a visit we parked at Q Park - Durham Road. It was so close to lots of the main Uni buildings, then we had a walk to the hospital where the medical school is and then carried on to the student accommodation villages.

Just thought I’d mention it as we don’t know Sheffield at all and I literally just put the carpark in satnav and drove!

After a gruelling experience with DD1 with driving lessons, DD2 is booked in for 5day.co.uk. It's pricy but I'd be so glad if she got it all done and dusted. She can't practice in our cars unfortunately.
She decided to learn in a manual. I think this is best as it is currently with charging points. If she moves to studentsville after halls she definitely won't be able to charge a car there overnight

I can see why DCs are desperate to pass their driving tests before Uni, but surely slow and steady means they have more experience under their belt. DD took 2 years in all ( several weeks off due to a broken leg) and many of her friends took longer. I know that C19 has had an impact and lessons and tests are in short supply and not everyone can take them out to practice but surely from a safety perspective there's no rush. I am not saying that DD is a excellent driver but she's certainly aware of hazards and I think this comes with time.

Having been driving with DD1 who took months and months and eventually passed, I'm giving the immersion approach a go
A pass is a pass imo

I think it really depends on the DC. My DS was absolutely desperate to learn to learn to drive and pass his test. We didn't rush it and in fact he kept having lessons for a month after he was ready for his test as well as a couple more afterwards on safe motorway driving etc. We also spent a lot of time out driving with him too, but that was possible as he already had his car. When he passed, we kept stressing the importance of anticipating others' actions as, just because he was driving safely, didn't mean the situation was safe. I think it takes a little while for that to click with any driver. He has also had a black box for the first six months and got really good safe driving scores. I know some of the DC think these are very uncool but he was quite happy about it and I think secretly wanted to know how well he was driving. This approach has worked really well for us.

I agree, a pass is a pass and competent driver starts with the test pass imo. DD pretty much paid for all her lessons and I dread to think how much it would cost over 2 years. It took her from July to May but obviously there were lockdowns. I think it turned out to be 16 2 hour lessons in all.

We bought a lovely car for her yesterday and I'm going to pick her up from work today and she can drive home. She wants to drive very locally and with one of us with her until she gets her confidence up. It's a big thing going out on your own.

I remember scraping my car on day 2 so I'm hoping she doesn't follow my lead.

When DD1 passed her test DH went in her car with her on motorways, big urban dual carriageways and roundabouts to increase her confidence which was really helpful.

@MaddieElla I think you DD did well. I think it's far more lessons now that are needed compared to when I passed 30+ years ago. An instructor told me it's now 40 hrs compared to 20 when I don't d it.
I did a few lessons - an hour a week - then my dad said he thought that pointless and he booked me 2 hours a day for 2 weeks then I took my test and drove myself off to university. I cannot believe I was that confident looking back

@MaddieElla all sounds very exciting. A huge high after all the assessment slog. @WithIcePlease DS just reminded me his lessons were 2 hours, he only had one at 90 mins, so about 40 hours in total sounds about right. My DD is far less bothered about learning and I imagine she will stretch it all out a bit more, which is just fine with me. Agree totally, a pass is a pass and the main thing is for them to be driving safely, whatever way they get there. I joke about it but I seriously did have knots in my stomach when he was first out driving on his own. It wasn't so much his driving I was worried about but the anticipation of idiotic drivers that you only really get with experience.

I've only bought my DD 20 hours of lessons, and that was only because booking through a company was the only way we could get a test date for this summer. I hope she can pass with that 🤔

She's been driving around safely with us, so we were thinking it was just to learn how to pass the test rather than how to drive.

Well, if she needs another run at it, so be it. I was only going to book her 10 hours 🙈

Your DD may be fine with 20 hours @Sunbelievable. We bought 20 hours for our DDs 17th birthday but she only used 18 of them before passing her test 2 months later. She had 2x2 hour lessons at the beginning and then had 1 hour lessons. We took her out a fair amount once we were confident that she wasn't going to kill us (it's a terrifying experience!) so she built up her experience that way too.

Back onto Medicine; DD finished all her assessments on Thursday so it's a case of keeping everything crossed now. Thankfully, because we're in Wales so we get the provisional results in June. She has no idea whether she gets the results she needs, but having them early will allow her to come up with a plan B if necessary before the official results. Hope everyone else's DCs are holding up and getting used to not studying hard for a few months, they've earned the break.

@Card1gan I don't understand why England can't do the same as Wales. It seems ridiculous that it's so significantly different how results can be appealed, etc.

Obviously I hope you don't need any kind of plan B, but I do wish we all had the same system.

@Sunbelievable one of the reasons Wales are releasing provisional results in June is that teachers are still in work to deal with appeals. I have no idea what expectation is being placed upon teachers in England but it would just add insult to injury if they're 'expected' to be around during results week to deal with any appeals after all the work they've had to do this year.

Keeping everything crossed for all our DC, they've certainly become more independent and resilient this year which will help them in the future.

I wonder if the teaching unions have more power in Wales than England? 🤷🏻‍♀️

On recovering post assessments, I have one absolutely exhausted daughter 😔

She has a summer cold, swollen face, is on painkillers and Sudafed, can't sleep properly, half stressed out still and can't relax.

Poor kid.

Anyone else trying to nurse teens back to some kind of normality?

We have had a glorious few days in the sun, and DS I think has fallen in love with Nottingham, so I think that it is it then. I was extremely impressed with Sheffield student union, and there were some lovely aspects of Sheffield, but the Nottingham campus in the sun is, I do understand, very hard to beat. And the whole of Nottingham did have such a buzz of young folk out and about. We got to see a lot more of Sheffield, because they were prepared to let us inside (they had the tours go around in groups of maximum six including the guide), whereas Nottingham it was just the outside, and we were peering into places, but we did speak to a medical student in the end there (in neither place was our tour guide a medical student), and she was also very enthusiastic and convincing, and I think DS was in the mood to be convinced. He hasn't actually firmed yet, but is on the brink of it, I think. We did lots and lots of walking in both places, seeing everything from city centres to all over where university students go, and was so good to have him out and about in the sun (we caught trains and public transport, he won't have a car, so I thought that part of making it a real experience included what it was like to get there from home, although I gather there are even cheaper buses that the students mostly use, and we didn't quite got to that). Rented airbnbs as close to the universities as I could manage. Really recommend it as a way of winding down post the exam hell.

@bimkom 😊. Glad it went well.

That's lovely to hear Bimkom
I went with DD when the Christmas market was still on with tobogganing down a side street, an ice rink and an ice bar. Plus mulled wine etc
If she gets here grades we'll go there for a night together

@WithIcePlease can I come ? Mine finishing up 3rd year but I'm always up for a visit 😊.

Haha Mumsneedwine I went there myself so think I can manage!
Used the tram too when visited which was new to me. Straight to town from QMC - super
It's a lovely city
Honestly the 80's - I used to drive to QMC from my flat by the savoy cinema on Derby Road - what on earth was I thinking! It was only a mile and I wouldn't dream of driving it now

@WithIcePlease 🥰😂 mine has a house just the other side of the car park. 7 minutes walk to QMC & pub on the corner - not sure she's ever leaving. I love visiting her, especially at Xmas.

@wwyd2021medicine I am not sure I understand the question. One student has been told their performance was inconsistent?

I am not sure that should be common knowledge for the whole cohort yet unless school has announced they will change tack 😔

You really just have to monitor what the school are going to do and sit tight I think. especially if it's not your child. FWIW, my Dd's school changed the way they were assessing biology after half the assessments because they thought it wasn't robust enough. We got a long email letter about it explaining why.

All we can to is wait and be aware anything can happen in August too - just like last year 😔

My DD is mentally half prepared to be on the phone to her med school offers first thing, beg them to hold her place and then plan to retake.