Thread 43 - GCSE Covid Cohort ..November 22 Remember Remember

[OrangeCinnamonLatte]

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 advice to be had

Previous Thread

Uni's tend to have closure between Christmas and New Year, the main issue could be lack of academic staff around to sign off stuff though some tend to dissapear in a marking or research rabbit hole
....it does depend on how the semester/terms are configured though.

@Takeittotheboss What a tragedy. Very hard to process when a bright young life is suddenly and randomly taken.

@Oblomov22 I hope you are now on the path to recovery.

Is that what we all should be aiming for @Delphigirl? Refusing to sign a joint and several guarantee for x other flatmates and asking for a several guarantee of only DS1’s rent?

I'm feeling ok. A whole lot better. Nowhere right, but a lot better. Thanks for the kindness everyone.

@Delphigirl that's a result. DH didn't want to sign ds's but did.

@Oblomov22 glad you are feeling a little better, I hope you find out what causes it.

A friend of mine (not a close friend, but we often chat on dog walks as our dogs like to play) has a dd who goes to Brighton university. I heard from another fellow dog walker this eve that her dd had phoned from Brighton to say she didn't feel well. I don't know how poorly she was. But apparently her dm tried to phone her in the morning. She didn't answer, so she decided to drive the 4 hours to Brighton. On arrival her dd was unconscious in her bed, was rushed to hospital but died shortly after. I'm completely shocked. It was meningitis.

icanbe goodness that is so sad.

Oh gosh another horrific story @icanbewhatiwant so sad

Just checked the guarantor form I signed and it says this:

“I agree to act as Guarantor and I hereby guarantee the payment by The Tenant to you of his / her share of the rent”

that’s ok, right? I am only responsible for his own rent?

@icanbewhatiwant How utterly devastating.

Yup you are golden @Fiddlersgreen *

*Disclaimer this is not legal advice

Yes I think so. The problem with J&S is that generally (depends on drafting) it makes each guarantor liable for all sums under the tenancy agreement so that is all rent, all damage and all unpaid bills of all of the flatmates - AND the landlord can choose which guarantor to go against. He might go against them all or he might get onto the land registry with the addresses to work out who is the richest with the biggest house in the UK, go after them and get a charging order in the house if that guarantor does not pay up. It would then be for you to try and chisel the money out of the others or the parent of the kid whose debt it is.

And that parent might live in China, which won’t make things easy.

So sad to read about those tragedies. Poor, poor families.
www.meningitis.org/meningitis/check-symptoms/teens-young-adults
Check your young people are aware!

@icanbewhatiwant that's heartbreaking

I winner if she had had her men vaccine? That checklist is good.

*wonder

That is so very sad @icanbewhatiwant

@NCTDN Her mum is a nurse so I would have thought she would be fully vaccinated. They don't get a vaccine for the B strain. Perhaps it was that one. Their dc's were privately educated, I'm assuming the vaccines are still given in private schools, they also spent many years in the Middle East as the dh has a job out there, the dm and dc's came back to this country about 6 or 7 years ago, so she would have been here at the age they get the vaccine. I can't get it out of my head. I'll drop them a card in today, I don't even know what to write in it. I will offer to help with their young dog if needed. They also have a Ds in the same school year as most in this thread.

Mine were at private schools and had exactly the same vaccination schedule as everyone else, the NHS manage them in the same way as state schools. That is so very awful news @icanbewhatiwant and @Takeittotheboss from both of you

@Oblomov22 hope you are continuing to improve

@EspeciallyD yes I thought it was probably the same at private schools.

That's so tragic @Icanbe.
Living overseas may have been a factor though. As the vaccines available & recommended in different countries are often variable. My kids had different recommendations in HK when they were babies. When you look back many of the UK meningitis protective vaccines are given as young infants. Plus they may well have been given inferior vaccinations. I'm thinking of situations like Sinovac - the Chinese Covid injection which has a very low efficacy.
All my kids international school boarders had to have a second vaccine when they arrived in the UK.
Glad you're feeling better @Oblomov.
Ds is home from uni bringing his horrible cold with him. They haven't managed to sort out accommodation yet as one guy has pulled out, as he's planning on staying in halls next year. So they've had to pull out of their reserved house.

That is awful @icanbewhatiwant . I've woken to a message from DD sent at about 2am saying she can't sleep and thinks she's becoming down with something, so will try and have a lie-in. She never has her ringer on on her phone so I can't get hold of her now to check she's ok. None of her flatmates would even notice if she wasn't around, let alone check on her. I already did the unthinkable last week and git security to check on her for a variety of reasons so don't really want to do that again!! But stories like @ican's really make you think. Do your DCs have their phones set so they actually can hear them ring, or when a message arrives - neither if mine do and it can be so frustrating.

What an awful thing to happen @icanbewhatiwant , so, so sad.

DS thinks he's decided on a house now, they've told the letting agent and says it's reserved but they haven't been asked for a deposit which is worrying me slightly.

@icanbewhatiwant not surprised that you can't get that story out of your head. I am shocked that 2 of our regular posters have been so close to a meningitis death, it brings it horribly close.

@Seeline obviously the vast majority of people with those symptoms just have some sort of winter lurgy, but can imagine how worrying it is when these devastating stories come up. Mine have their phones on silent, but I always find texting more effective than calling. We use WhatsApp so I can see whether the message has been read as the ticks go blue.

@Cantonet they were living here as babies and here for the later stages of secondary school. So she will have been here at the ages they have vaccines so I'm sure she will have had them.

Now if ds2 was poorly it would be quite normal for him to not answer his phone. So I'd have no way to find out if he's ok. He doesn't get up in the mornings if no lectures so his flat mates wouldn't go looking.

@Monkey2001 -we use WhatsApp too - love those blue ticks 😁 But in an emergency it would be lovely to know that you could actually ring, and the phone would ring. I very rarely ring, so DC's would know it was important - if they could only know it was actually ringing!

The fact that DD has made no connections with flatmates doesn't help. None of them would notice she hadn't appeared for days.