Thread 49 - Covid GCSE Cohort - The nights are drawing in...

[OrangeSpicedBun]

Autumn 🍂 well and truly underway, has been chilly this week !

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). 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 :

www.mumsnet.com/talk/parents_of_adult_children/4880640-thread-48-covid-gcse-cohort-summer-before-year-2-uni?latest=1

@Alsoplayspiccolo - that is absolutely terrible about UCAS -hope you get it sorted.

@PaddingtonPaddington - I did OU degree- started when DS was 3 and did it part time but some courses I overlapped. I was working part time 17 hours at that stage but DH was doing everything housework and home based so i had study time. It took about 4 5 years and I loved every minute. It has probably changed post covid but for first course I had weekly in person tutorials, for short courses it was phone tutorials and then higher level courses it was full study days every so often in leeds or york so quite close. My second year English tutor was my actual A level English teacher which was fab after 20 plus years!

Thanks for all your words of support, re UCAS.
We were dumbfounded when we found out and immediately thought it must be a glitch or maybe something that DS had done by accident, but it's actually quite an involved process to withdraw applications.
Unfortunately, it's since come to light that what's happened is one of a string of incidents that involve tampering with DS's communications.
School and we are certain we know who is responsible ( "Hell hath no fury..." ), and are taking advice from the police.

We've just heard this morning that all applications have been reinstated, which is a huge relief as auditions are very soon, not to mention the fees of several hundred pounds we'd paid.

Just wow Piccolo for what you guys are going through, but so relieved that his apps have been reinstated. And I hope justice is done, I can’t imagine what possesses someone to be so dark to do such things.

So glad Piccolo! It's just the shitshow of tampering that your'll now have to deal with.

So glad you're still here Paddington. OU course sounds like a grand idea.

We are back in Alvor Portugal at my mums timeshare again, she broke her ankle. It feels wierd without ds1.

So pleased UCAS has been sorted @Alsoplayspiccolo . Hope you can sort the rest of it too - sounds awful.

@Alsoplayspiccolo So pleased to learn your DS is now back on track. I hope the culprit loses their own chance at university/desired next step.

@Oblomov23 A touch of Portuguese sunshine sounds lovely.

@Alsoplayspiccolo glad DS’s applications are reinstated but am stunned at what you are discovering. That is bonkers.

Enjoy Portugal @Oblomov23

well having chased up his student support appointment DS only went and slept through and missed it. He now apparently needs to start the process again and go on the waiting list. Yesterday I was such a mixture of pissed off with him and angry with uni for effectively withdrawing support for one cock up. Also worried for him as he does need some support. (His tutor hasn’t even mentioned the fact he is repeating the year let alone put him on the support to study plan as promised. He doesn’t need it at the moment but I think the uni is being really shit at supporting.

Anyway have advised him to message and grovel for the missed appointment and see if he can avoid starting from scratch again. I am calmer today but was up with my kind racing about it all last night 😬

@286NeuerNahhhhhhhhmen Oof, that does sound incredibly frustrating!

@Oblomov23 Enjoy Portugal!

@Alsoplayspiccolo What a relief!

@PaddingtonPaddington I also did an OU degree (for fun) and it was amazing! Well before both Covid and the current fee-structure, though, so I hope that it's still just as good. Fingers crossed that transfer of credits is straightforward.

DD has found that there is an option to do a mini-placement during Year 3 (which counts as credit) so that's her new plan rather than trying for a year-long one. The other day she told me that she finally feels that her art is the sort of quality she's always wanted, so yay for art-school.

Thank you all. In my mums timeshare.

@PaddingtonPaddington I found it v easy to transfer credit..but I was on the Open pathway. You can try course content on the following link
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/

Has Dd considered a licentiate/ teaching/performance diploma ?

I now work for them but not with students. The degree seems quite modern/musicology based .

@Alsoplayspiccolo what a relief ! I hope that justice is served 😞

Ooh 😍 👌 have a fab time

@Alsoplayspiccolo I'm so pleased to hear that UCAs applications have been reinstate, what a nightmare. I hope the culprit gets everything they deserve.

@PaddingtonPaddington great news about the OU, sounds like the perfect route.

@Oblomov23 enjoy that sun! Hope your mum's ankle heals quickly.

Only just seen this Alsoplayspicollo, I am apalled, so glad ther appliation has been reinstated and I hope there are serious consequences for the culprit.

I'm glad your dd has made the right decision for her Paddington. The OU degree does sound interesting.

It's pop not classical but I know the music college one of ds's friends is at also offers an online option so there are options available.

The only thing (I've just remembered) Paddington is that there might not be maintenance loan if in England even if studying FT ..I think there are exceptions though. Overall it does work out cheaper for the fees element though.

@PaddingtonPaddington I love OU and worked there for 2 happy years and they are a fantastic thing, but I would worry that, particularly for a subject like music, you miss out on so much extra curricular stuff which can be fantastic. Is there anything commutable from home? Obviously don't know the details of why your DD dropped out, but would suggest she takes at least a couple of months to lick her wounds before deciding what to do next.

@Alsoplayspiccolo really glad to hear the auditions are sorted. Hope the scorned woman is not applying to the same places. 😬

Thanks for the new thread @OrangeSpicedBun.

Congrats to DS @EwwSprouts on passing the driving test 🚘 We are also hoping to get DD a test in Christmas holidays too @crazycrofter. She's home for reading week now but we thought it too stressful to do it this week but now I kind of wish she had. She's driven my car a few times the last few days and seems not to have forgotten anything.

I'm so glad your DS has got his application sorted @Alsoplayspiccolo and that the police are taking this seriously. Shocking that this cold even happen.

So enjoying having DD back home for a few days. She's been seeing lots of family members as they are excited to catch up with her so her friends haven't had a look in. She also needs to do her reading too haha.

Hi all. Just catching up. @Alsoplayspiccolo that is dreadful thing for someone to do. I’m assuming they hacked into his emails as (for advisors anyway) it’s a two-factor login with a code sent to your email every time?

Ds is coming home for a few days next weekend as he has reading week, has was home just a couple of weeks ago too. Seems to be really enjoying the 2nd year modules so far.

Older Ds also has a leaky roof, thankfully it’s not going into any of the bedrooms.

Are any of yours thinking of doing a placement year next year?

We suspect that "someone" has accessed his email account and his IG account and got in that way.
Emails are missing - UCAS would have sent one to confirm withdrawal, but there's no sign, and we can see from his account activity log that an unrecognised device last logged in a few days after the applications were withdrawn.

A long shot, I'm sure, but does anyone here/ anyone's DH work in IT security?
How does school IT work? - would they have details of all traffic on their network? Individual's activity?
Unless we can find concrete evidence linking "someone" to what happened, we can't prove anything.

@Alsoplayspiccolo it really depends on the quality of the school IT! Some are great, others are not much more than glorified YTS boys. I suspect the police could ask for more information but it depends how seriously they are taking it - digital forensics is complicated. It depends what device they used - school devices would be different to personal devices. If they logged in to the machine as your DS, that would look different to if they were logged in as themselves but then logged in to his email?
So you could see if that person and your ds were logged in at the time it happened, then look at the specific activity. If your ds was showing as logged in at a time he wasn't, or on a device in a room he wasn't in, or on more than one device, that could be seen.

They should have pretty thorough monitoring in place for safeguarding reasons @Alsoplayspiccolo but I don't know how far it would go, if this was done on a non-school device not on school wifi they might not be able to do much. I would say that hacking a student's email is a safeguarding breach as well as a data protection one so the school should be taking this seriously.

Our IT would definitely know.

Piccolo: "Unless we can find concrete evidence linking "someone" to what happened, we can't prove anything."

Surely the school's own investigation is in full swing? The onus shouldn't be on you to need to prove anything.

I'm assuming school are investigating - they are asking us a lot of questions, but not replying to ours.
Tbf, I think it's a hornet's nest and is going to be very complex to unravel (and maybe they aren't as motivated as we are? ).

DS is really struggling with the whole thing. Safe to say, there's been a degree of controlling and coercive behaviour going on in the background over the last 8 or 9 months.