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

Dd has a Ford ka. I looked at which were the cheapest to insure before buying and that was in the cheapest insurance group.

@OrangeCinnamonLatte my sis passed her driving test today aged 55 3/4 so it is never too late…!
I have 3 drivers and one learner and live 30m walk from the nearest bus stop so we have 2 extra cars between them (which we also use). One is an 11 year old Audi A1 - excellent car. Manual, 1.4 engine (as I think those tiny engines are not nippy enough to be safe on dual carriageways and motorways). Then a tiny electric BMW x1, which is very popular with them as they don’t have to pay for petrol and is very zippy being electric. Also no congestion charge /ULEZ charge etc. But automatic so no good for the learner.

Sorry I haven’t been on for a while.
Surprised to see some are done for year 1 already. DS will be home mid-June.

He actually had a driving test coming up (he failed last April) but as he hasn’t been able to do many lessons (and his instructor can’t do that day!) we are going to try and move it. Only issue is his theory expires in August. We also don’t have a suitable practise car as ours is auto so not sure how we are going to work this.

DS2 about to turn 17 but says he doesn’t want lessons for his birthday as he’d rather have clothes. I fear he’ll end up the same way as his brother with all these difficulties of being at uni in a different place to learning to drive and not being able to get tests booked at a suitable time.

A 25 year old Fiesta Orange. Not ULEZ compliant but worth very little now, even with only 37,000 miles. She’ll keep until end of summer and then I think we’ll need to get rid, but it has huge sentimental attachment with previous owner being my mum. And her friends absolutely love it, as does the local community :)

DS shares my Kia Piccanto. He did a lot of driving with DH pre test - hour a day. His instructor was lovely. A mum we knew from pre school

Are all your dc learning to drive with manual's? think we might have made a mistake there, DS's are learning with autos as we thought Manual's were in rapid decline.

Yes, manual, partly because it’s really hard to find small, decent, reasonably priced automatic cars.

Plus last Christmas dd got a job partly on the strength of being able to drive a manual vehicle (van)

Timing wise now Shimy, it’s fine to be learning in an auto, the build will switch more to auto alongside electric over coming years. Anecdotally I think many parents on this thread alone drive automatics, but hesitant to allow DC to due to inexperience.

That makes perfect sense and thanks for replying. I kept reading about 'manual' cars and the slow realisation we may have made the wrong choice. We deliberated over it for a while before deciding on auto, as both dh & I drive autos. We're trying to avoid another car choice disaster - my current car 'diesel' was bought back in 2012 because we wanted to move towards an eco-friendly car that will last etc well who's got the last laugh now??? all the petrol cars we avoided can now be driven with no ulez charge whilst i can barely move outside my town as its not ulez compliant.

@Shimy for DS the only reason he is learning manual is that in the line of work he's aiming for there are likely to be company vehicles involved (vans etc) so he ideally needs a manual licence to be able to have maximum flexibility. If it wasn't for that he'd probably be learning auto as manual cars are on the way out and he's dyspraxic. TBH he may end up switching if he really can't do it but he wants to give it his best shot.

@Shimy
Dd1 learnt on a manual, and ds will learn on a manual, but dd2 learnt on an automatic as she has a disability which means an automatic is far easier.
However I suspect after ds has learnt to drive we will replace the manual with another automatic.

Apparently some insurance companies do charge more for automatic only licences, which is at least partially behind our decision.

I tried to persuade DD to get a quick and dirty auto licence and drive the electric but she wasn’t having it. Silly really she could have learnt on a manual at her own rate while also driving herself to school but ho hum. Auto much more sensible these days.

@ExtremelyDetermined That was very wise of you. I tried hiring a van last summer and all of them were 'manual only'. Wishing him all the best with it all - Gear sticks, finding the, 'biting point' etc.

@MargaretThursday I did not know about the charging more for automatic only licences, is it by a wide margin? not that it makes any difference at this point, just curious.

@Delphigirl It's such an easy switch though from manual to auto, I did it in 1 day so I don't think it's such a bad idea to be able to drive both. I do love your 'quick and dirty' description . Surprised the lure of an electric car didn't swing it for her.

@Shimy
I suspect as electric cars become more common I think that will go. When dd1 was looking to learn to drive it was the case, which was behind her choice to learn manual. I think Admiral insurance said on average it was 40% more, which is quite a figure at the beginning, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was less now.

Yes, ds’s band had to hire a van recently (someone’s grandad drove it) and they were all manual. And the van dd drove on her panto tour was manual.

I mean the argument used to be that hiring an auto was tricky and more expensive but since they can’t hire any car until 25 these days, they might as well drive automatic first if they have access to an insurance auto car of course. Get good road sense and driving skills before grinding the gears with a manual! Millions of North American children seem to manage and they get full licences (automatic) from 16.

Insurable

I have considered just letting DS practice in my auto over the summer but the gears are the bit he needs practice with the most, he has good road sense and says he’s managing junctions etc OK apart from getting the car into first in a hurry when he wants to pull away. Have also considered letting him just sit on the drive in DH’s car and practicing gear changes with his foot firmly down on the clutch and engine off. I would really like to talk to his driving instructor TBH but as I don’t have any contact with him I can’t unless DS puts me in touch.

I also worry that if he passed auto he’d lose the impetus to learn manual and the van thing would be a problem.

Reading with interest! DD started driving lessons a while back, then her instructor left for maternity leave and she couldn't find another, so lost momentum (argh).

She is feeling so much better and is currently out at the coast eating fish and chips with her brother (who took public transport out there after his GCSE this afternoon)! And she has an interview next week for what is her dream summer job; 8 paid weeks of working from home, producing illustrations/graphics for the next version of her uni's website!! Even if she doesn't get it, it's a boost to have been shortlisted. What a rollercoaster week it's been here!

Just had a marathon catch up as I was away for the weekend visiting DS1 at St Andrews for the last time. We took him and housemates out for lunch and the boys let slip that the girl they share with had an embarrassing accident. She has a motobility car because she has Cerebral palsy, so mobility issues, and they say she is a terrible driver. She managed to write the car off by crashing into a stationary police car!

We had a call from him on our way home , when he was getting ready to go to the Medics ball. "Mum, my trousers don't fit, what should I do?". Lovely that he thinks I can wave a magic wand from 300 miles away!

He is sad to be leaving after experiencing a post Covid year and realising what he has missed over the last 2 years. Moves to Manchester this summer for his clinical years.

@PhotoDad that job sounds amazing! Has your ds started exams already? I thought they started on Monday?

@NCTDN DS is at a private school (where I teach) so a handful of his subjects are IGCSE which start earlier. He's had 3 exams so far, just another 21 to go. (What a daft system we have...)

Fingers firmly crossed for that holiday job, but DD has also applied for some more normal minimum-wage studenty work close to home. She's hoping that being available a few weeks before the bulk of applicants will work in her favour if she doesn't get selected for the illustration/website thing.

Wow I thought ds had a lot of exams with 19!

Well done to ds1 for getting through his degree in covid times @Monkey2001 . I’m sure he’ll enjoy Manchester too - and earning presumably? Did he have to squeeze into his too small trousers?

That job sounds great @PhotoDad , hope she gets it. Dd tells me that her trip to France was more expensive than she expected as she forgot to factor in bus to and from the airport and metro costs in Paris! She will definitely have to come home for a week in early June to get some shifts in before her trip to Spain and Morocco 🤣

Ds will be starting driving in August. We’re debating just teaching him ourselves..