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

Thanks @Monkey2001, that’s another thing she’s not that strong in maths (her 3rd A level is history). I work with a fairly recent Cambridge NatSci graduate so I’m going to chat to her about it, but I really do think DD would be punching slightly above her weight. Also, she is dyslexic and I know she would get support, extra time etc, but it means all her work takes considerably longer than average, which has a knock on effect on her free time.

Thanks @GoldenRuby it sounds like Village might be the place to be from several people on here.

DD also musing on Oxford but for PPL, ED. Like you I'm not sure it would be right for her and she is a bit chippy unsure about whether she would fit in. Anyway we are going to the open day as the subject talks should be good, if nothing else. She can't decide which of her two main interests she wants to study.

Apologies, I can’t remember who asked about contact hours for humanities and I’m very late with an answer…

Currently 12 hours. She thinks next year will add circa 4 with the extra language.

DDs current contact hours are very low: 2x 1 hour language lessons in Greek and Latin ( Departmental) Lectures are optional- dunno how many of those she attends
She does have 2 x1 hour tutorials per week which create the bulk of her weekly work load - one involves prep for translating and providing a commentary on a given excerpt from a text and the other she has a reading list to digest and a 2K essay to produce and defend.
Contact hours increase next term as college language lessons commence and she also ‘picks up philosophy’
@singingstones your DD shouldn’t worry about ‘fitting. In’ . That said DD felt the same coming from a former mining village in the NE and wanting an active ‘party life’. She’s managed to work hard and play hard so far and has made friends from backgrounds across the socio- economic spectrum
@EasilyDirected I think @ScarlettDarling DS is reading BioMed at Oxford.

DD finally has a job!!
Starts after Easter at one of the London museums for the summer. She's over the moon 😁

Fabulous Seeline, well done to her!

Well done mini-Seeline!

Well done to your DD @Seeline .

So ds home for Easter . All his luggage back home (35 week let) went a lot smoother than we'd thought as DS actually listened and packed his things BEFORE i arrived. I crashed as soon as we got everything in and jumped out of bed with fright when a loud bang went off in the house, I'd forgotten DS was home and we had a break in.

Well done mini Seeline

Well done to dd @Seeline ! That must be a relief - and sounds like a decent /interesting job too!

Dd has two more weeks after this one; it’s strange how variable the term dates are between unis. She’s actually coming home on the Tue or Wed the week after next as she’s suddenly decided she’ll go to speech night at her old school on the Thursday and there’s a birthday party to attend on the Friday. Then she’s off for a week to north Wales with the Christian Union. @Oblomov23 is your ds going to Word Alive too?

I completely agree Proggy, I don't know where she has got that from - she even has a cousin from what you might call an underrepresented part of the country who went to Cambridge and is very normal.
I think at their age it's all so abstract, she doesn't have a clue what a university or its inhabitants are like I don't think. Hopefully some open days will help and she will be up for applying wherever she wants to go. I am a bit wary of the Oxbridge process having seen so many disappointed on here - rejection seems to absolutely devastate some people. But if that's what she wants then all power to her elbow.

Congrats to @Seeline DD!

My contact hours for humanities were... minimal. Lots of time reading and writing, though.

DD is currently learning about bookbinding. They are currently hand-making their own blank books in preparation for their final (!) project in the Printmaking module. I've said this before, but I had worried that art-school would be "just do what you want." It isn't... it's "learn all these techniques which might get you a commission one day."

'Word Alive' sounds very interesting, there's another that's been going on for ages that I've never got round to attending but the name escapes me, Spring festival/week?

@EasilyDirected @ProggyMat My ds is studying Biochemistry at Oxford…I’m not sure how it differs from biomedical sciences? Like your daughter, @EasilyDirected he didn’t do maths A level either. He got a 9 in maths GCSE and an 8 in further maths GCSE so was always a competent mathematician but still has to do extra maths supervisions this year along with the others on his course who didn’t do maths a level, to plug any gaps. He says it’s fine, not a massive extra workload and very doable.
@singingstones I was so unsure about my son going to Oxford. I really worried about how he’d fit in with all of the pomp and ceremony and suits and gowns and balls. He wasn’t convinced it was for him either and only applied because of pressure from school. I think his heart was set on staying a lot closer to home but he took a leap of faith and he loves it! He has made amazing friends from all sorts of backgrounds. He still slouches round every day in his joggers and hoodies but is more than happy to whack on the suit for formal dos.

Thanks @ScarlettDarling there’s a lot to think about. DD says she prefers BMS to biochemistry but I’m a bit unclear about the difference too, despite working in a related field (I’m a chemist). I did do maths A level and got complacent and failed my first year maths exam 🤦‍♀️.

Thank you Scarlett that is lovely to hear.

@Shimy Spring Harvest? Not sure it’s still going? Word Alive used to be the student arm of Spring Harvest, but it seems to be for everyone now.

Hi everyone, been reading all the updates, it's lovely to hear how everyone's doing, ups and downs. This is a lovely thread. We are going to visit DS for his birthday this weekend and I'm very excited to see him. Apparently he has got really into the gym but has also been battling chronic tonsillitis. He has had dr's appointments but there isn't too much they can offer, they have left an antibiotics prescription for him to collect any time in the next month "in case it gets worse" so he doesn't need to book another appointment- which I guess is helpful but not sure of DS's ability to diagnose what constitutes the point at which intervention is needed . Am looking forward to my own prescription of a Very Big Hug.

Soon he'll be home for nearly all of April which will be lovely (putting aside thoughts of hall payments while his room stands empty!). No big updates but he seems to be tooling along ok, got good marks in his first term's assessments so so far, so good. He would like a job in the summer but unclear what/where/when so I do wish he wasn't quite so chilled and a bit more proactive like some of your DCs! But he was ever thus and I wouldn't change him .

Morning all, sounds as though some of your DCs have a much longer break for Easter than DS who has two weeks one each side of Easter. He has a flying visit home next week for the orthodontist too. The year is going quickly, he finishes at the end of May.

Off to Royal Holloway open day with DD today. It's chucking it down with rain.

@EasilyDirected Thanks for asking. No, my back is no better. I've had an x-ray, got an appointment for an ultrasound in 2 weeks, not the 8 originally told. Saw osteopath privately again yesterday. She re-aligned me again because I'd dropped out of alignment again apparently. Frustratingly no one seems to know what's wrong or what to suggest for long term solution. I'm not in pain, not all the time. I'm in discomfort. I wake up ok. It gets worse as the day goes on. I'm so fed up of this shit.

Congrats Seeline dd.
Yes @crazycrofter ds is going to wales. I have to go and get his stuff on Friday 31st.
Photo, like the book binding stuff. I work for a printers, and some of the book binding done is beautiful.
Good luck ED. RH is just down the road from me. Shame the weather is so shit.

DS back home for four weeks. Shocking weather in Cambridge but back in God’s own county now and the sun is shining. So much washing… will be revision and work over Easter. Exams when he goes back

@crazycrofter Spring Harvest it is! I didn't know it had stopped, do you know why?
Blinky Sorry to hear about your poorly ds and ongoing tonsilitis. Can they give him stronger antibiotics perhaps the type he was given before just wasn't strong enough for the strain he had? A bit pointless for them to keep prescribing the same antibiotics.

@EasilyDirected I notice you said your DS finished end of May? DS finishes very end of June. It all balances out in the end.
Hope you're having a great time at the Open day, I almost wish I still some to go to and really enjoyed them and there was some special bonding with the kids when we went in a sort of grown up, 'we are discussing the future way'.

Oblomov Sorry to hear about your back. I imagine you've heard this before BUT have you tried special yoga exercises for stretching the back? they really, really do help. I have fibro and along with that muscle stiffness so I've had never-ending problems with backache and like you, MRI picked up nothing. I started to doing a 10 min yoga video just for upper back and shoulders and neck and i can definitely feel a difference. I also do roll ups and roll downs (first thing) and they set me up for the day. It gets rid of the pain that builds up through the day and feels like your back is going to collapse like a pack of cards.

@craggyrat It's so nice to hear their voices again at home isn't it. I can hear my grunting about .

@EasilyDirected DD has the same two-week Easter break. She started early in September, had three weeks at Christmas and finishes for the summer in mid-May. She had an interview yesterday for a US summer camp, if that comes off she’ll be doing that, plus travel, for about three months. And is hatching a plan to go to Paris straight after term ends. I’m seeing her just before Easter off the back of a work trip, it seems a bit silly so close to her coming home, but it feels like I need to take any opportunity I can get!

It’s her birthday today, so that’s weird.

Hey @DontCallMeBaby t is my dd1s birthday as well today! 25 😱