Thread 45 GCSE Covid Cohort - Bunnies bouncing into Spring

[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

No you don't need the email crazy but he says he can't see nay evidence of needing to do anything on his account? Is it obvious?

She said she just logged onto her account @Piggywaspushed and went to 2023-24 finance

Right... I'll ask him for his log in and look myself!

I'm back on a long train journey so thought I would pick your experienced brains regarding uni contact time. DD and I were at an offer holders day in York at the weekend and her course only offers 2.5 hours per module per week. So 7.5 hours. This doesn't seem like much to me but I only have DS to compare it to and he has 14 to 17 hours contact a week. What do your students get?
Also, any York parents out there, sell it to me. DD loved the course (they run a trip to Ghana so she was in her element), the campus confused her with the college system and the costs frighten her ( and bank of Mum and Dad). Her offer will be a stretch so she wants to be sure before firming, or not.

Thanks for the nod re Yr2 finance.
Sorry to hear that Come.
Hope all health enquires are sorted promptly shimy and ican.

I fell over 3 weeks ago, straight onto my bottom, not coccyx rather damaged muscles at base of spine and glutes, helping Dh lift in new washing machine. Don't ask. GP for scan, painkillers then made me constipated, hot baths and water bottles, oesteopath, all useless, discomfort awful.

Hi mummy. Why did she find the college system confusing? I think it's really simple?

People on MN keep saying York is expensive for accommodation. Unless you are going Hilton Hotel, I didn't think it was as pricy as some other places. Apparently, off campus is £££ (it wasn't when I was there in 1912!) but, again, that's true of a lot of uni cities. DS is certainly paying a lot in Birmingham next year and being fleeced in both years for much longer accommodation contracts than he needs... the people I have spoken to who went to York within the last 10 years or so haven't found it expensive.

7.5 hours a week sounds fairly standard for a social science/hums type degree. DS has about 8 or 9 , I think, for history.

@mummyinbeds It sound as if you are comparing the contact hours of a humanities subject against a STEM subject?

Half my degree was STEM. For that half, I had around 7-10 contact hours per week. The other half was humanities. For that half, I had around 2-3 contact hours per week. DD in a design subject has 12 contact hours.

@mummyinbeds I think dd has about 8 hours for Psychology. I did think university accommodation in York seemed more expensive than in Nottingham, Manchester and Southampton (it was one of dd's choices) - there only seemed to be one college offering a basic room around about the £100 mark, whereas the other unis had more cheap stuff. I also looked on rightmove (you can search student property) for all the cities dd was considering and York looked to be at the higher end.

Having said that, they can get swept up into expensive housing wherever they are. Some of dd's friends rushed into signing contracts for £140/£150 houses in Notts next year, whereas she'll be paying £80.

Of all the places DS was considering, Sheffield was cheapest, followed by York. Bath and Birmingham were both more. He is in much more basic accommodation now than he was offered at York ( partly I think because the newly built colleges were on reduced rates). Lincoln is waaaaay cheaper!

I agree, 7 hours or so seems to be standard for humanities courses, it was one of the reasons which decided DS against history and onto his vocational course where its more like 18. Mind you it would have been easier scheduling in his DSA support, driving lessons, trips home for the orthodontist etc.

Sorry to hear about your injury @Oblomov23 - are they just telling you to wait for it to get better then now? I swear by physio rather than osteopathy but different things seem to work for different people.

DD has 12 hours - 4 TESOL, 4 Korean, 2 background to Korea and 2 elective (BSL). Plus an hour each optional PASS for TESOL and Korean.

She has something every day which is good for her motivation. There was confusion with her elective at one point and the person doing timetabling was trying to give her a day off, she really didn’t want that as she knew she’d just not leave the flat (or her bed).

@Piggywaspushed I think the academic departments being mixed in with accommodation confused her and there been no one central focal point. I'm sure it being a Saturday didn't help

Sheffield was a definite no before we even got off the tram. She didn't even look at accomodation.

She's comparing accomodation prices to Aberystwyth (visiting next weekend). Aber is definitely more affordable. DS's room at Nottingham is certainly expensive but offset by only paying for 31 weeks.

@EwwSprouts we're comparing Law/French to Politics/IR type subject. No STEM involved, much to DH's disgust. I think DS is getting good value at Nottingham by the sound of it.

@mummyinbeds Nottingham definitely does sound good value.

@mummyinbeds we found York similar when we went on a Saturday. There didn’t seem to be many food places and it just didn’t seem to have a bustling central point like Birmingham or Nottingham.

Oh , don't compare to Aberystwyth! That definitely is cheap!

I see what you mean about colleges now. I liked that . It felt more like the academic staff were part of the community.

That's a shame about Sheffield. I really liked it when we visited. Different strokes!

Thank you ED, they aren't suggesting much tbh.

As many of us have said before, I can't grasp how any/some Uni's gets away with offering any course with so few teaching hours. What are students paying £9k for ? To have a teacher teach you for a couple of hours. Not cost effective me thinks.

@mummyinbeds : Ds is at York :-) in the middle of some work catch up but will pop back and answer questions later for do pm me :-)

@Oblomov23 DD is looking really closely at teaching hours in the various Arabic degrees and there is a lot of variation, (although still more than in many other humanities degrees because of the ab initio nature of the language). interesting how much bang for your buck you get in terms of language teaching alone, in some places compared to others...

Hope you're feeling better, @Oblomov23! I suppose with contact hours in the humanities, it depends on the details of those hours (which probably depends on uni). I had very few but they were intense, and I spent a lot more time working on that part of my course than the STEM part; reading lists were immense!

DD has already received letter confirming grant for next year which is way faster than expected. (And DS in Y11 has just passed through to the Interview Round for the Arkwright Engineering Scholarship, does anyone here have experience of that?)

Ps update on DS for those who are interested - he is 2 days away from his Panama Canal passage. Having a fantastic time and been to some amazing places. Lots of great photos of him up masts and under waterfalls and scuba diving and a video of him jumping into the sea to swim with passing dolphins…. Sigh

What amazingly talented kids you have @PhotoDad ! No experience, but much admiration, it’s very competitive. Well done him.

Don't know why I typed 'grant' when I meant 'loan.' Wishful thinking...
Thanks, @Delphigirl, DS is a bit of an all-rounder and almost totally different in his interests and strengths from DD. What an amazing experience for your DS!

Sounds amazing @Delphigirl

Waiting for DS to come back in April before we look at the student finance, he hasn’t mentioned getting an emails though

Interesting Delphi, as I've says before for Russian I had tonnes for language, politics, economics, literature, history. 15+ at least.

Thank you Photo. Bless your ds too.
Delphi as a traveller lover your ds antics warms the cockles of my heart.

My back is still killing. I am crying many times most days.

To make matters worse I've done something bad. Ds2 fab school very little homework for yr9. In prep for Yr10 GCSE's I complained to HoY, in frustration, I mentioned to Head that I wasn't the only one, most mums felt the same. My friends were furious that I mentioned them. I've now been disowned. 10+ years of friendship. Party this week I'm now not invited to. I cried. Bad back and no party. My tears won't stop.