Thread 44 GCSE Covid Cohort - Countdown to Christmas & New Year

[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

I have never had a dreading ticket. Smug zone.

Speeding!!

I too got a speeding ticket in Dec 22, which I haven't heard back from Nottingham police, just as I turned into Notts Uni road on pick up day in Dec. Furious. Worse still I got 2 on the same day the previous year going to and from my mums, they were sneaky, not clear ones. None, for years, then now 9 points, which I am now petrified of going anywhere new and being caught out, banned for 12? whereas I used to adore driving, now not so much.

Hi everyone. Just be aware that Mumsnet are now advertising some thread on Facebook apparently, some of a sensitive nature. We have often posted emotions things and I know it’s a public forum and tabloids sometimes lift but this seems off to me.

• emotional

The thread I noticed is attached. Apparently it’s happening a lot.

@Benjispruce4 from what I've seen they ages usually the ones that get very mixed gonna and lots of responses straight away.

I think it’s not on. MN has lost any moral credibility as a place of support initially for mums and then for all that it once had. Sold out.

The 2018 GCSE thread mums took our group completely off mumsnet and onto another platform eventually ending up on Whatsapp. It means we are no longer anonymous to each other but it avoids the possibility of things like that happening to a thread.

I'm in various FB / messenger chats with other MNers partly for this reason. It's also why I tweak my name so often. I think it's mainly AIBU and chat threads it happens with, not long-running niche interest ones like this, but it's not good, I think they've been doing it for years though, it's not a recent change.

I am also not happy with it which is why I namechange fairly often but I do wonder if my names are too similar each time. It also stops me posting on some other threads.

I would actually be more comfortable with a Whatsapp thread as DS knows my password and since that happened I dont post a lot.

@crazycrofter I had a choice of driver awareness course or points. I chose the course. That was at least 10 years ago though. Do they not offer that anymore?

My car has heads up display. I really like it....it flashes brightly on my windscreen if I'm over the speed limit. It helps keep speed in check. Though it is occasionally wrong, it shows as 60mph for a short part along the main road through the village where it is 30mph and it shows as 30mph along our road when it's 60. But most of the time it is correct but I don't completely rely on it.

@omnishambles my ds's often ask my name on this group. I don't tell them incase they search me.

DH has just got a parking fine through the post....

@icanbewhatiwant I have a heads up display (I’m assuming this is the projection onto your windscreen?) but I find it so distracting that I’ve turned it off!

@Piggywaspushed oh no, not another person,

Can everyone tell me where you are getting caught on the cameras in Notts please? I need to be forearmed!

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn it hasn't got me yet but there is a camera in both directions on Woodside Road (the road to the uni entrance by Broadgate Park)

I've never had a speeding fine, DH has had a couple. I got my first parking ticket in 38 years of driving last month, which was annoying, I had used the Ringo app but must have shoved my phone back in my bag before the transaction went through as it didn't complete, got back to the car and found a ticket and no trace on Ringo of my payment.

My car beeps at you if you speed (I have it set to +2 over the limit) but also beeps at you if you touch a white line without indicating, don't turn the lights off before opening the door, don't de-ice properly, don't put it in park before switching the ignition off, the parking sensors beep all the time, in short it beeps at every bloody thing and as a result I have sort of dialled out of paying attention to the beeps. I use cruise control a lot which helps.

I have had to drive long stretches on the m25 a couple of times over the holidays, I only do so about once a year normally. I really noticed a difference in behaviour now there are cameras everywhere, in all the lanes everyone was driving at 65 to 75 mph. But the lane discipline was hopeless, lots of people sitting in the middle lane doing 65, those overtaking only going slightly faster and taking ages, lots of undertaking, it didn't feel any safer than in the days of people tanking past at 90+.

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn there is also a bus lane as you come off the roundabout to the North entrance. It's only about 10m long, between traffic lights and a pelican crossing and really unclear. I don't know if there is a camera there.

Hi, If I name change I will change it to something like FullOfCold, or CantStopCoughing….

I was hoping to tap into some wisdom… DD has a friend who decided to take a year out and this year she is applying with achieved grades. She got all A*s but still no offers. Does this sound concerning?

@BlueMarigold when did she apply? DD applied in October I think and got offers pretty quickly from 4/5. Grades not as high as those and only one RG uni. Perhaps they do it in stages as many more apply later.

@BlueMarigold I help with UCAS in a school. Every year we have some people re-applying with grades in hand. It's just as unpredictable as first time around; some uni departments wait until the end of the process for everyone. We have some students similar to your DD's friend who have zero or one offer so far, so it's nothing to worry about!

By no offers I assume you mean not heard back rather than all rejections @BlueMarigold ? Frustrating but some do seem to keep all their offers back until the closing date for the year.

This'll depend on institution and course marigold. If, say, economics and Warwick, LSE, Bath etc not surprising at all.

Btw, I posted about mould in Birmingham halls on Facebook - lots and lots of reports of black mould in rooms and bathrooms!

DD went into town today to spend her Christmas money. She was very specific that it would be spent on Something Special rather than being swallowed up by general expenses. She came home having bought a Victorian oak cabinet in full Gothic style, complete with an ornamented canopy, from an antiques shop. It will be delivered later this week and will live in her room here (it's roughly the same size as her) until she moves into a place after uni. I ask you..!

Tomorrow we're going to her very favourite wildlife reserve, which is a day-trip away. The forecast isn't great, but she really wants to see it again. We've spent so many happy hours there, so I'm very willing to accompany her. Through her entire secondary school and sixth form, Wildlife Photography was her thing (she considered it as a uni subject, there are a couple of places that offer it, but jobs in that field are almost impossible to come by). So she'll take her camera along, and we'll see what the weather holds. (The camera also lives here, as together with lenses it's worth more than pretty much anything in the house. For a long time it was worth more than our car... it was almost entirely funded by prize money from photo competitions she won!)