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 see. Could the throat not just be GF? DD’s friend had similar, ABs didn’t work because it wasn’t tonsillitis but GF.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/glandular-fever/

Yes, quite possibly! I guess there’s nothing you can take for GF so it’s at least a bit comforting for her to feel she’s taking something for the tonsillitis. Although if it’s not working then it becomes frustrating.

At the moment I can’t imagine her going back to uni for ages, if at all this year. But I’m sure once she gets past this acute phase she’ll start to improve.

Sounds like it’s just GF to me. DD had raging tonsillitis at Chris of year 1 at uni but antibiotics made a massive difference within a day. However, it came back a few days after the end of the course and she needed another course. Again, the improvement was overnight. Hope she gets well very soon .

Yes, I think you're probably right. It's going to be a long haul.

A colleague’s Dd had it in year 1 too. She was at home a few weeks and although had fatigue for longer , she was able to return to uni after a month. Fingers crossed 🤞🏻.

Hope everyone's poorly DCs are recovering!

DD got her marks back for her first trimester portfolios; a 2:1 for Observational Drawing and a 1st for Printmaking! Very happy with that, showing that she's on track, although in arts/design courses it's the final portfolio (plus competition successes) rather than the final grade which will get you a job or not. Her new modules this trimester are "Animation," and "Imaginative Illustration" (rather than from life).

Her house-hunting has been put on hold while a foreign friend tries to work out about Guarantors. Wish us all luck...!

Well done to her : that's fab.

Took DS back to Birmingham today. Room less mouldy and damp than expected but the hall and bathroom did smell damp.

Birmingham has semesters so no lectures until week after next.

Evening all,

DS’s second semester starts tomorrow, he went back last Sunday as he had an assignment that he needed the library for, his driving lesson and a practical session on Friday. The driving lesson got cancelled though because all the side roads were so icy. He is applying for work placements for the summer, so he is drafting emails and sendinng them to me to proofread. I am a bit nervous about what will happend if he doesn’t find anything as it is a compulsory part of the course and they don’t seem to be getting much help from the uni so far, he says they had a couple of talks about it in October but nothing in writing other than their own notes.

I wanted to ask those of you with dyslexic DCs who get DSA (those with no other conditions). What support do they get? I know about the laptops and software etc as DS gets those for his dyspraxia but he also has autism, and he has two mentors, one for academic stuff and one for organisational stuff. DD will be going with just a dyslexia diagnosis and I wondered if she is likely to get any mentoring support. She is incredibly shy and finds any sort of teamwork painful, she is applying for biological sciences.

I am aware of the irony of me proofreading DS’s emails and then making posts full of typos on here

@EspeciallyDetermined I don't think shyness gets support unless it is severe enough to be social anxiety. It should be a driver in choice of course and university though - is she in Y12? Probably best to avoid places like Leeds, Bristol and Birmingham which are big and intimidating. Are you working on strategies with her? DS1 is very socially shy, he struggles to talk to people unless he has had a drink which made starting in Covid times really hard, but when he is doing placements for Medicine he steps into a character and does well.

I expect @PhotoDad is well placed to advise on this one.

@EspeciallyDetermined can you investigate which courses involve more teamwork? With shyness it can be a matter of maturity/growing up and she'll improve with time hopefully.

@EspeciallyDetermined DD has dyslexia and along with the laptop, software, extra time, quiet library use, printing costs she does have 1to1 Study Skills sessions (online) I think 30 hrs per year. Her mentor has left so they have now stopped as she hasn't replied to an email asking if she would like to continue with someone else. I think she found them useful but really hard to fit into her schedule as ste lady was really busy herself and DD had approx 20-22 contact time each week. It should be easier this term as 1 less module.

@crazycrofter Sorry to hear DD still isn't feeling any better. Fingers crossed she will do soonest.

@PhotoDad well done to your DD, they are great results. Look forward to seeing more of her work.

@Piggywaspushed good there is less mould although smelling damp isn't nice. Does his lectures start next Monday 30th?

DH took DD back to Nottingham yesterday, had no problem with the roadwords around uni which was good so could park in the usual place, thankfully ground was a lot firmer this week. (@Oblomov22 hope you had a better end to the week). She has an exam on Tuesday and was planning on coming home again Wed - Sunday but I've suggested it would be better to stay and get herself straight. I suspect she was a bit nervous going back, her friends have more exams and she was worried she would be bored but actually she has plenty to get sorted out so hopefully she will stay. She has seen her boyfriend most days whilst being home so I am sure that's and issue too. The plan is once her lectures start 30th Jan she won't come home until she finished end of March so she can be available to play hockey every week and hopefully work her way up the teams asbefore she was playing 2 or 3 matches then coming home. I have offered to pay for her boyfriend to visit once a month so that makes it fairer if he visits her rather than her coming home. IT's only 10 weeks at most and she will be home for 4 weeks in April. We will visit her on my Birthday in March so hopefully I will be fine :-) I felt odd saying goodbye yesterday, but we had just started to argue again so I knew it was the right time for her to go back, although I think she was snappy as a bit anxious etc. DH said lots of people said hi to her and she seemed fine once there, Was watching a film with a friend later on that evening so all good.(the plan had been revision but she probably did that late into the night)...

I have restarted our Hello Fresh order again so we can eat what we like rather than what DDs likes... I have discovered that once the discounts codes run out, if you sign up as your DH with a different email address you can get more discount codes (even at same address and same bank details)... And there are more codes waiting for me to use once DHs has run out).. I would never pay full price but def worth it with the codes.

Has everyone elses DD/DS gone back now?

Thanks, she is looking at Russell Group grades but does want to avoid huge, competitive unis/courses. I'm at a bit of a loss with shyness to be honest as I am the complete opposite myself, I have been aware of it being a problem for her since late primary school. Her coping strategies so far have been to pick subjects at GCSE and A level that do not require teamwork (no music, drama etc) and avoid team sports - she does archery and swims but not competitively as she hated the team aspect of that. She was in a musical theatre group for years till she was about 13 and can sing solos, act major parts etc but real life is different. She has few friends, but they are close and loyal friendships. Never goes to parties or out in groups, she'd rather stay at home and watch telly. Someone else always has to make the first move even if she sees one of her friends in the street she waits for them to say hello first, she doesn't use social media and has only recently started to get more confident with texting.

I realise DSA wouldn't provide for shyness, but did wonder if dyslexia might qualify her for some mentoring which would be easier for her to access for academic support than approaching uni staff as it would be 1:1. I suspect DS only gets it because of his autism though.

Cross-posted with @Heifer there. Yes, DS has problems scheduling his DSA mentoring because his timetable is quite full (also around 20 hours contact time) and it changes week to week. DD will likely have a lot of contact hours too with a science subject. We did Hello Fresh last summer to give DS cooking practice before he went to uni, we found the codes just keep coming if you cancel for a week or too as well.

Having said all that about DD she's perfectly happy most of the time, it is only a problem when she needs to approach someone for some reason, she could probably cope with teamwork if it was structured and everyone took it seriously, what she can't stand is messing about, she said music and drama were terrible for that in years 7-9. She is in y12 so we have a bit of time but realise this next year will go quickly. The other decision she needs to make is whether to go the more vocational route (eg biomedical science, all the accredited courses appear to be post-92 unis) or the more pure science and look at traditional unis as well.

I haven't kep up with the thread very well lately but @crazycrofter I'm sorry to hear about DD's illness and @Oblomov22 I'm also sorry to hear about your car woes.

I was very shy as a child and teen. I remember making quite a bit of progress in sixth form and then again at uni. She’ll get there..

I think so, she has settled well into college (but did pick a tiny one!).

Another question, I have had an email about a What Uni event at the NEC on 3/4 Mar. These were all online two years ago so none of our thread cohort got to go to a live one, but I wondered if anyone had ever been to one with an older DC and whether it was worth it? FIL lives near the NEC so we could combine it with a visit to him.

@EspeciallyDetermined DS1 never used to initiate social things, he also spent a lot of time in his room during sixth form, but was lucky that his best friend was more outgoing and drew him into things. He was in all the school musicals too as you can be someone else, defined by the drama teacher, when on stage. I think it is more normal that you might fear.

DS1 and some of DS2's older friends went to a university fair hosted by UWE which was not particularly helpful for any of them. One, who wanted to study English, accidentally ended up in the Engineering talk and could not leave as they welcomed the presence of a girl so warmly! I think so much is easily available on line that they have lost their point unless you really have no idea which way to look. They should publish the schedule of sessions, and you can look at that to see whether there is anything which might help decision making.

@EspeciallyDetermined year 13 DD went to a University Fair thing hosted at our nearest uni. She enjoyed collecting tote bags and freebies and did have a few good chats with uni's she had thought were beyond her. She ended up applying to one of them and has an offer. DS would have found the whole thing a waste of his time when he has a mum who could look on the internet and tell him what he needed to know (Nottingham had a law and french option and so did some other places he had no interest in but needed to fill space on his application)

@mummyinbeds that made me laugh about having a mum who can do your research for you! I'm feeling a bit sad that I won't be doing the open day tours/city trips with ds as he doesn't want to go to uni. I'm still fulfilling my need to do research though - I know all about working visas in Canada and degree apprenticeships now 😂

@EspeciallyDetermined Your DD's situation does sound a lot like that of my DD in sixth form. She could 'tick along' OK at school in her comfort zone, until her friendship group fell apart; but had social anxiety with new people and situations, and increasingly just wanted to spend time alone. In her case, we managed to find a therapist who she trusted, and things started to improve.

She spent the last few months of Y13 "working from home" (school was OK with that so long as she actually kept up with work, which she did). Obviously we were pretty worried; but she turned up and did her A levels relatively smoothly.

Eventually she started on Sertraline (she didn't want to before exams in case there were side-effects) and, combined with the removal of school-based stress, she really turned a corner. Now she is happily at art school (all she's ever wanted to do), travelling by train, with a lovely circle of friends and really loving her life. So it can all work out for the best. Good luck in navigating it all.

Thanks @PhotoDad it does sound as though things have really worked out well for your DD, you have referred to her previous difficulties before. On the one hand DD has made friends at college, and archery and in the past at swimming, but this fear of getting in touch with people means that sometimes the friendships don't really get going, she did make a friend at swimming a couple of years ago but her reluctance to text her meant the friend gradually gave up (as far as I could tell). She's only kept in touch with one friend from primary school and one from secondary school. She also gets "peopled out" very easily and then needs quiet time to decompress. Maybe she could do with a bit of therapy, I hadn't really thought of that, I have kept thinking she would grow out of it, and I think there is some improvement but it is very slow. I am meeting a friend who is a therapist later in the week, I might ask her what she thinks.

@EspeciallyDetermined My DD has a very small friendship circle - hated social events of any kind and hardly ever went out socially when she was at school. I was very concerned how she would settle in at Uni but she found a few like minded people and seems to have a small but welcome social circle. She has even managed to figure out a group to share accommodation with next year. I am not sure that her DSA support has helped with this as she doesn't really like to ask for help with social stuff, but she was offered a mentor through university student support (York) and that helps - she is much better one to one. She also has a departmental mentor. She seems content, which for me is a good place to be!

@handmademitlove That also sounds like my DD!
@EspeciallyDetermined Yes, I had long maintained it was a phase she would grow out of. DW thought that therapy couldn't hurt and was worth a try (although we had to go private.) She was completely right.

Today, the Illustrators have been practising their political cartoons (!), each given an article to illustrate. You can probably guess the theme of this one...