Thread 39 - Covid Cohort - Our Adult Children Now Post 18

[CinnamonOrangeCremeBrulee]

This is a support thread for our young adults post GCSEs 2020, regardless of their educational setting, and their results ( or life updates for those who went into work or have had results earlier). It is respectfully requested that all are supportive and helpful to each other. If you want to start a debate, e.g state vs private, uni vs employment please don't within this thread.

Some of us have been here since first thread back in yr10, some will be new. Everyone has been friendly and helpful in the past. Everyone is welcome. It is hoped this will continue. We were previously on the secondary board and then further education, now we shall be here in 'Parents of Adult Children' gulp

Our DS/DD may continue down various pathways ( employment, apprenticeships, higher ed). Be warned there might be lots of 'Uni Freshers' chat this time of year. My experience is that everyone is welcomed wherever, whatever their child is doing we have some in work, gap years , apprenticeships etc too. Lots of contributors with different experiences and always sympathy and support to be had !

@NCTDN With regard to immunisations, DD went down to the GPs and the Practice Manager gave her a print off of all her jabs - from the baby ones up to the ones that had been done at school! A glorious moment of competency and convenience from the NHS!

DS also got print out from GP with all his immunizations- very impressive!

@CinnamonOrangeCremeBrulee - the grumbling appendix is such a worry. I do wish they'd whipped DS' out last November so we wouldn't have had the missing A level fiasco. He should have had appt at hospital after referral to general surgeon in late Oct but they cancelled it when they knew he was going to uni. He has already asked college what happens if he is Ill down there, which will be just his luck!

Oh no, that's a worry about your dd, CinnamonOrangeCremeBrulee, you won't be able to relax in case it flares up again. Fingers crossed it doesn't. What timing though!

I'm going to be following all musician dc in particular as dd2 is about to apply for a Music degree, though she's still vacillating between Music alone/Music plus English or something Art-y/Liberal Arts with Music as an element etc. Voice and piano for instruments but she's more interested in composition than performance really.

DD came back from holiday yesterday - of the six of them one went away really quite unwell from Reading, and four have caught colds while away. DD seems to be the exception which is brilliant if she doesn’t now come down with something, as she’s the only one leaving this weekend and it’s be lovely if she didn’t have freshers’ flu before she even gets there …

My parents called in yesterday and my dad was saying he thinks maybe they left me to my own devices a bit too much at that age, parents seem so much more involved now … I said it’s mainly cos it’s so much more complicated now! You couldn’t have given students this much info, or required so much from them, via snail mail in the 90s.

Ah yes @craggyrat sorry I couldn't remember who had suffered ! It is frustrating like 'wait until it gets bad' and then action can be taken.

Dd has just chosen all her modules @ZittiEBuoni I think it can be hard to fit in everything they want to do with music so if a joint /liberal arts my top tip is getting hold of handbooks etc to get some kind of sense of pathways/flexibility / how many core modules. Dd doesn't seem to have minded, but she ended up dropping anything to do with composition..and they are prerequisites. Plus side is doing a couple of music history/ culture etc modules instead which she loves. I understand the BA (Hons) at Cardiff is more flexible than the B(Mus). Nice to have the choice and breadth! There are lots out there it's a minefield.

Just seen this on WIWIKAU which our Welsh participants should note. Apparently if you pay off a small amount (£50 fine) after you draw down the final payment for the year, Welsh Student Finance will write off £1,500. Another annoying thing for English students as the deal is already better in Wales and Scotland, but worth doing if you can! gov.wales/student-finance-partial-cancellation-scheme

That was for the free Santander 4 year railcard. You get a limited window after opening your account, may be a month? to apply for the card, and if you don't do it in time you lose it. DS1 had a few months left on his railcard and did not notice the deadline.

@CinnamonOrangeCremeBrulee singing teachers are usually very good at taking about how you feel, music teachers often seem to double up as counselors! I think it is because they have 1-1 time together and singing is very physical.

Wow, tryingmybest13, those are huge increases!! Well done for pursuing it, but doesn’t it make you wonder how many other papers have fallen fowl of poor marking, and how many won’t get looked at because they’re not just one or 2 marks from the boundary?

Good luck today, photo and ealing - everything crossed.

Sorry to hear about DD, cinnamon. Such a worry, especially as she doesn’t seem overly concerned and may not raise it as an issue in the future. I guess you can only stress to her the importance of low tolerance of any further symptoms once she’s in Cardiff. Hopefully, the grumbling will stop and it will be an isolated incident.

Thanks for all the audition well wishes. Not a great start to the day, with train problems which means he’s going to be late for the first workshop session ( and probably stressed too), but it’s been so lovely to see him - we went out for dinner last night and we’re able to have a good chat about everything, and he seems genuinely happy and settled.

Im sure it’ll be hard all over again, dropping him back tonight but only another couple of weeks before he’s home for the weekend.

@NCTDN DS also went into the GP and asked for a printout of his NHS records, he also asked for his health records to be made available on the NHS app, which took about a week. Now that is done he is planning to register with the new GP at the uni today. I was impressed when I looked at my NHS app to see immunisation records going back as far as 1978.

@crazycrofter the digital railcards just need to be uploaded onto an app by logging in.

@CinnamonOrangeCremeBrulee sorry to hear about DD, that is unfortunate tining.

@EwwSprouts I went to Iceland about 25 years ago on one of those group travel things as I was single at the time. One of the best holidays I have ever had, both in terms of the place and the company, we had an absolute blast.

A friend whose DC is studying A level history has a thread about choices for the coursework, I wondered if any parents of A level history students would have any advice for her? www.mumsnet.com/talk/further_education/4628724-urgent-help-with-a-level-history?reply=119820368

Ooh, great tip about the BA at Cardiff OrangeCinnamonCremeBrulee, as that is on her longlist and we're going to an open day next weekend.

singing teachers are usually very good at taking about how you feel, music teachers often seem to double up as counselors

I love the cartoon of a patient who has just been examined by a doctor, and the doctor says "your heart is slightly bigger than average, but that's because you're a music teacher" ☺️

Sorry to hear about the appendix, what awful timing.

@Alsoplayspiccolo Indeed: some that are down the scale might still be wrong.

So sorry to hear about the appendix @CinnamonOrangeCremeBrulee - this is worrying when they are about to set off.

Uni has not asked for any jabs stuff yet but looks like it might be worth DS getting his record of them!

singing, I love that!

@ealingwestmum I hadn't thought about the sleep but yes! Fingers crossed for TCD.

@EspeciallyDivided When we had lives before DC.😁

@Fonty - perhaps it depends on the campus? DD is going to Penryn and I think the halls are shared with Falmouth.

What a worry @CinnamonOrangeCremeBrulee , I hope the antibiotics sort it out.

DS opened his student account yesterday on his own (hoorah for small achievements!) and also sorted out his gym membership cancellation. Today I have made him do some ironing and go through all the paper in his room and recycle anything that is now redundant, he has also applied for a job!

Ah thanks oubliette. DS is Streatham but it has made him sit up & take note of emails!

Hope you can sort appendix cinnamon 😢

wow popcorn. Your DS sounds really organised! Great news about applying for a job.

Not really @Fonty he's done sweet FA since exams have finished but I have nagged reminded him that these have all got to be done. I have just told him to call the doctor about immunisations after seeing the posts above but I think it's a step too far today! 😂

☘️

thank you so much everyone for your support!

I think we have finally caught up with the admin (for whoever was querying why some seem to have more than others, for DS a significant amount has been related to his disabilities / DSA, probably about 2/3 of it).

Also as he is not very confident around tech and our old set-up with his Ipad and phone on separate apple IDs <glares at DH> that needed quite a bit of sorting, I have sorted out icloud storage properly for him now too to make the transfer between his Ipad and the DSA laptop as seamless as possible, both on the uni and private systems, sorted out his instant ink subscription, set up a shared folder with me as I have all the docs relating to his disability/DSA and he might need them. The Icloud thing is a relief, we have been tinkering with it for years and unable to use it properly because of DH adding the DCs devices to his apple id (everyone's stuff would have got muddled up and lack of privacy).

The last thing to do today is get him to register with the campus surgery. He is packing upstairs now (due to go Sunday). He is a little concerned that the current news situation might change all plans for the coming days, being autistic he likes to know what's happening when so this is all quite unsettling. I feel sad too, I'm not a huge Royalist but it is the end of an era.

Is there any news @ealingwestmum ? Watching the BBC and trying to re jig the next 10 days of my life depending on whether the Queen goes today or tomorrow etc etc… golly.
End of an era.

My shamrock was a yes Delphigirl!

it felt weird to shout it out given the current news. No matter how people feel about the monarchy, she is to me right now, an elderly lady who has had a very good run, but seemed broken after the passing of her husband. All human at the end of the day :(

Great news @ealingwestmum !

Congratulations to your Dd @ealingwestmum. Shames our DD's paths won't cross after all!

Congratulations to dd @ealingwestmum !