Thread 46 - GCSE Covid Cohort , Searching for Summer Solstice

[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

He has a TA job. Not what he wants but money in the bank. He starts on June 12th.

@shimy That does sound really awkward for all concerned.

I deliberately have a small cheap phone in case I lose/damage it. I never have done. The others in my household seem to be more accident prone, and of course they all have much better phones than me. Hmm.

That’s good @Piggywaspushed , is it through an agency or employed directly by the school? Hope he finds what he wants soon.

Dd doesn’t think her course is/has been affected by strikes at all - is that likely? She doesn’t think her lecturers are in the relevant union.

She’s still waiting to hear when she has to take the exams she missed in Jan when she had glandular fever. All she knows is they’ll be in a 3 week window in Aug/Sept. She’s hoping they’re quite bunched up (there’s 5) rather than spread over 2 or 3 weeks. Does anyone know if they try to fit all resit exams for one subject close together generally?

Yes, directly by school. It's his old school. He can't drive yet so his choices are limited.

@Shimy I hope some sense comes to one of them over the summer. You can see them all year juggling plans so the two are never in the flat alone.

Shimy that is all so sad. Ds shouldn't be dealing with all that. But I think ds is brave to ask the boy his version, and suggest to him it's best if he finds alternative arrangements.

It's a shame the girl hasn't reported. It rarely gets healed and then resolution until you are ready to face it head it on. Burying it rarely helps long term.

I hear all of you and yes, it's sad she doesn't feel brave enough to report it. If I had a DD I'd be advising her if anything like this EVER happens she must report it right away. Even my DS's have been told to be mindful of their own safety and to report anything or at least come to us. I can't imagine how awkward it will all be in September. Will just have to wait and see. I also don't want DS's anxiety raised because of all this.

I'm not sure about the reporting it. Maybe to the uni but probably not the police. Female victims of male assailants get their whole
lives turned over in court, their phones ransacked by the police, you'd have to be very strong to cope with it all.

I meant report it to their uni @ExtremelyDetermined . I wasn't implying the police although that might not be such a bad idea depending on each individual & the circumstances.

I wasn't sure which you meant @Shimy . A very difficult situation for them all, sounds as though your DS is being very sensible about it. Poor girl.

Hope I don't offend anyone but would like to ask those of you who have DD's, is this sort of thing seen as normal/common amongst their peer group now? we are a very boy-heavy family and the only girl is 8yrs old. It's just all so different from when i was a teenager in the 80s from a very conservative and religious family so if I look at it through those lenses it will be very unfair. The boys I used to hang out with were so different too.

Ah Shimy what a kind DS you have.

Frankly. Dd has been in controlling/coercive relationships and has been convinced in the past to go further than she'd like. She has terrible self-esteem. I don't know how teen girls can get away from it nowadays tbh. Social media is awful.

@shimy dd told me in year 12 that two girls and a boy in her year had all been raped by the same boy - someone who’d been at the school previously but had left after year 11 😢 None of them reported it because they were afraid of him. It’s awful to think of how many other people he might go on to abuse, but she said all of them felt that reporting it would destroy their mental health/they weren’t strong enough.

@Shimy I know a girl who was raped on a school trip, and has since made a series of bad decisions, ditched a lovely man and been manipulated by a lot of baddies.

Re exams, I think that at St Andrews all the medical students got results, but lots of other subjects had "Z"s recorded, which means they have not been marked yet. So they all had updates on results day, but some were utterly useless! For final year students they are adopting a "no detriment" approach, so initial classification based on results to date excluding the ones not yet marked. If the mark then changes when the remaining elements are marked, the classification can go up, but not down.

DD has had some dreadful experiences to date Shimy, most from middle school years.

When the Everyone’s Invited website hit the news, her school, alongside many others in all sectors, were in the headlines. She played a major role in the how do we deal with this without further burying our heads in the sand which involved some uncomfortable but frank discussions with parents and students. This resulted in a programme using a small group of PHSE trained sixth formers who delivered a series of workshops to help combat issues faced by students from early years, involving parties, drinking/drugs, SM etc etc. Being a peer-led initiative led by students vs teachers resulted in a more open engagement with Y8s upwards, helping them with strategies on how to call out the types of abusive behaviours, seen as so normalised by this generation. I guess the hardest part for young people is understanding potential culpability by not calling it out, for fear of losing social standing, friendships and overall reputation damage to all parties.

Whilst I have no idea if the school kept up the initiative, DD changed beyond recognition in her ability to address shitty behaviour across her peers, boys and girls. She believes most YP do have a moral compass, but just don’t know how to use it for fear of multiple back lash scenarios in their very complicated world.

I’m really shocked by some of these stories and feel I must be very naive about modern life. These poor girls - and boys too.

I think your DS is being very mature @Shimy but it is such a difficult position for the flat. I hope he gets some answers from the other boy.

Am hoping that DS has respect for those around him - it is something we spoke about a lot before he went to Uni. DH has just had a talk with him as well as a small mixed group are off to Rome overnight once teaching ends and before the May Ball - all about safety and sticking together. DS very much a small town boy and all this is a bit new and overwhelming for him.

re exams. DS had his after Easter but no results for the foreseeable. Also two extended essays due in before next week. He feels it has gone okay. His normal weekly essays have gone well over the terms so fingers crossed. He has enjoyed keeping his French going as well.

Only really May Ball left and his college are through to the cricket college semi finals and he has been picked again so very excited. He is also doing a paid medical trial for a day before he comes home. He gets paid £50 for a MRI and a psych evaluation!

It's so sad. My DCs have not encountered such situations as yet, but I suspect this is because they both went to fairly traditional, single sex Catholic schools and are both quiet kids who don't party, don't use SM much if at all and haven't got into relationships yet. DS has been fine through the first year of uni but I worry about DD going next year. I have some personal experience of the scenario @OrangeCinnamonLatte described.

@ealingwestmum that initiative sounds brilliant, I hope more schools did similarly.

Of course, how did I forget about #Everyoneisinvited ? that was sickening as well as eye-opening. I even joined a parent group at DS's school to advise the school how to go forward in light of it all and suggested instead of inviting speakers which they were proposing they should make it student-led, letting the students lead these discussions.

@crazycrofter The incident you recounted at your dc school is beyond shocking. That's a serial rapist! in a school...

@ealingwestmum DD changed beyond recognition in her ability to address shitty behaviour across her peers, boys and girls THIS is what I like to hear, love that.

My opinion will not be a popular one but one which I still feel is valid - I feel more should be done to educate girls on personal safety, having personal dignity & setting personal boundaries. I however do see the danger in that it can be seen as 'victim blaming' and 'girls shouldn't have to do XYZ' but alas! we live in the world we live, and when a girl is assaulted, one may report it to authorities (who should have zero tolerance towards sexual assault) but the damage is done! the trauma stays with the girl.

We as parents do feel so out of the loop, even if we had our own personal negative experiences to draw upon. I also feel for this generation navigating individuals amongst their peers having a warped view of acceptable social behaviours.

It was met with much resistance from some parents. Part way through the delivery, DD was called in for a review with the Head, who expressed the concerns of some parents, especially the use of actually terminology YP were using as part of role playing the scenarios they had faced. She naturally got upset. She was then read an email from a young student, redacted for anonymity. She was absolutely horrified of the experiences this 13 year old had endured, who then went on to say she would never have had the courage to progress her allegation formally, had it not been for the workshops.

Thankfully it did take one positive case for it to have been worthwhile for DD, but she was genuinely taken back as to how deep the issues are, and how early it starts, and how out of control it can be by uni years.

SM is such a double-edged sword. One of the most humbling comments from a parent who had seen 3 kids through the school therefore in his words, worn the T shirt; yet had felt that he had been asleep at the wheel hearing some of the harrowing statements of victims across all year groups.

Depressing I know, but all we can do is keep communication open with our DC, Shimy, your boy is doing a great job in v difficult circumstances.

They started doing Sexual Assault Bystander training at my old uni in 2017, NUS were recognising as an issue.

Reminded me I should get Dd to see if there is any at her new place.

She got chucked out of a club in Cardiff recently for being overly aggressive to someone that was bothering her (a much older man). She did lose her rag a bit -grabbed his shirt with her fist ect and told him where to go but she's 5ft 3 and a slip.

There may be bods qualified in the SU to chat it through?

Good for her Orange. And yet she was the one thrown out of the club. Sigh.

Yes, what gets me is noone from this group of men stopped him. I wasn't happy about her behaviour but 100 x more concerned that everyone just let it go on and on him hassling and touching her. Worse she most definitely looks her age or even younger ffs.

@OrangeCinnamonLatte Good for her! and that club has done her a favour. If creepy men who harass women are their clientele, good riddance to bad rubbish. She is too good for that club.

@ealingwestmum Parents not united in how to tackle this is also part of the problem. We all come from different backgrounds and environments. I'm sure we all read stories on MN by grown women that make you sit back from the computer and think WHAAT?? that's not how I would handle that. So many times parents themselves resist suggestions that could bring about change as they don't believe in it. Good for your DD though, she did very well. Infact, she can put that on her CV (not the girls story!) but how she took the lead on a on a sensitive and complex matter by facilitating discussion around it out and it helped someone in danger.

My school (where both DD and my DS15 went/go) has tried to tackle misogyny head-on. It's an independent school with great academic results, but there's a really toxic culture amongst some of the boys (especially the rugby players; no offence to any of your DC who play rugby, and not all of ours are bad, but...) We've tried all sorts, including peer-run programmes, and maybe we're making progress? It sometimes seems like whistling in the wind.

DD started her work-from-home internship today. It turns out to be illustrating a new "Welcome to ARU!" game. It should be a more engaging experience than the wall of text currently on the website, aimed at the gaming generation. She has been asked to produce a bunch of backgrounds in fantasy style (her speciality), and some animated characters. She is suggesting using birds, as the uni's logo is a Heron and it avoids questions of gender/ethnicity. The fact that she loves drawing birds is also a factor! Her fellow-intern is a Graphic Design student, and they've already hit it off. (GDs and Illustrators work together on projects all the time in the real world, so it's also great experience.)