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

Our school IT can see all activity on school accounts & devices logged in to the school WiFi etc. Obviously if this was done from home on a personal laptop I doubt they could see that. UCAS might be able to provide the IP address

If you haven’t already done it, would probably be a good idea to change the email linked to the UCAS account and also set up the permission bit for a parent to have access to it.

Is UCAS being helpful or are they too a bit blasé?

DS has a press pass for Birmingham FC tonight. Gets to see Rooney after the match!

@Alsoplayspiccolo A lot of school systems are sitting on Google or Microsoft platforms so fingers crossed it is not too hard for the school to get a trail established. School can't afford to let it go because now it's happened they have to put in measures to stop it again. This is type of thing that ought to go to governors, it's a major risk.

@Piggywaspushed Exciting to go behind the scenes. Be interesting to hear his opinion after meeting Rooney. Not someone I've ever seen the appeal of, but then I'm not a fan of football either.

Very exciting Piggy

We have a date and exact time when it happened, as provided by UCAS.
UCAS have had our request to provide an IP address, but there seems to be some question whether the school has a school-side IP address, so would be able to pin down a specific location.
Unfortunately, Ds appears to have given the other party his log in details for social media (under pressure), and his UCAS details were in his private messages on there, so no actual breach of the school network has occurred.

All passwords and log ins have been changed since, and we were always nominated contact for UCAS.

@Alsoplayspiccolo I think it depends on what the police suggest they may be able to charge with - the issue is not so much that his account was hacked but that they withdrew his application - not sure what law this would come under? In which case it is more about proving who did that, rather than how?

Good news today from DD - they have finally agreed the exam access arrangements that she has been fighting for since before she started. She put a complaint in about her advisor at the beginning of term and requested another advisor. Her new advisor put the request to the exam board and they agreed it. She is very happy but also very annoyed that it was actually so straightforward and could have been done a year ago but for one poor advisor...

Glad to see good news from Piggy and Handmade amidst the details of the shocking situation face by Also DS. It is a downside to boarding school I had never considered!

@Alsoplayspiccolo Would that come under malicious communications?

S.127 CA 2003 – Actus ReusProsecutors should note that an offence under s.127 CA 2003 may be committed in a number of different ways:

• s.127(1) – an offender sends, or causes to be sent, via a public communications network a communication that is either grossly offensive, or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character;
• s.127(2) – for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or anxiety to another, an offender:

1. sends, or b. causes to be sent, a communication that the offender knows to be false; or
2. persistently makes use of a public electronic communications network

@Piggywaspushed how very exciting for your DS!

@handmademitlove great news for your DD at last.

@JustHereWithMyPumpkin I think more likely Computer Misuse Act 🤔

Keep us posted, @Alsoplayspiccolo! And good news for @Piggywaspushed and @handmademitlove DC.

At the school where I work it has been an interesting few days. There has been a huge push to move everything to cloud-based/online systems (resources, textbooks, markbooks, registration... you name it). So, what happens when the school's internet connection breaks? Yeah, chaos.

But it's half-term break for us now. G&T, and Taskmaster with DS(16). Will be popping down to visit DD next week for a couple of days (no reading week, and she is spending pretty much every waking hour in the studios or print-room).

He's informed us he's had a prematch meal provided. Happy days.

Piggy, love idea of seeing Rooney afterwards.

That's a priority to me Piggy.

I meant the pre match food. Not Rooney. 🤮

Hope he enjoyed it @Piggywaspushed , shame about the result. A lot of DH's family support Blues and they are a bit concerned.

Yes, despite having to run for last train he had a fabulous time. He said Rooney was very negative in press conference.

@Alsoplayspiccolo when ds was in year 9, a group of them thought it was a great idea to create a false instagram profile with a silly name and photos of one of their teachers. There were only 3 of them who had the login details and password. The IT people worked out who they were because they all logged in at some point - I'm not sure how, but presumably the culprit in your case can be traced in a similar way? How awful for your poor ds.

Was ds writing for the uni newspaper @Piggywaspushed ? Are things going ok for him now?

Glad he had a good time. Shame about negative press. Running for the last train is all part of the excitement. Love a good run for the last train, me!

Can't believe I didn't realise there was a new thread - I thought it had gone quiet :-)

Need to catch up properly but both shocked and pleased by what I've scanned so far. @Piggywaspushed love that for your DS, a great opportunity and fun.
@Alsoplayspiccolo how nasty can someone be! Have UCAS given any indication if application is now ok or not?

I went to visit DD in Nottingham yesterday. Was supposed to go on Sunday but didn't happed for various reasons, so I caught the train yesterday.

Bit of a nightmare, DD's tutorial got changed last minute to 1.30pm yesterday (my train was due to arrive at 12.30).... My first train from Wirral to Liverpool Lime Street just stopped on the way and we had to get off and then quickly find a new one ourselves (no one around to help). I had to rush at Lime Street to catch my train (ticket was only for that train, as they are stupidly expensive at the moment so didn't get open return). My train Liverpool - Nottingham died at Sheffield so had to jump on another train which made me 30 mins late, which meant that I didn't have time to go to her house beforehand so had to meet her at the uni, so had to walk around for an hour until she was ready. (I work up Monday with a really bad back so was struggling so found a bench).

Anyway. finally meet DD at 2.30, got an uber back to her house (she usually walks). House was great, meet her lovely housemates (she is very lucky).
DD wasn't very chatty at first but I remembered she struggles with being sociable straight after doing anything (she had online lecture then rushed to tutorial and then rushed to me) so I just sat in her room looking at our phones for the 1st ten mins (I was thinking I didn't travel all this way to just hang out and not chat but kept quiet) after about 7 mins or so, she put her phone done and said, right Im ok now. And it was lovely. She decided not to go out for lunch so we got a delivery. Sat in her room with her and we watched a film together and chatted for a few hours. Had about 3 hrs in her house with her but it was still worth it. Although train took ages to get home so finally got home 13.5 hrs after leaving... Would do it again though.

She had mentioned that she hadn't been out much as she was so tired all the time, but seemed happy. She was being asked to go clubbing with the Medics team last night but she wanted to go to her club training and didn't like the idea of walking into the night club late on her own. Anyway it seems she went afterall as when I facetimed her quickly to say I got home etc she answered with a red face and dressed as a devil, gave the phone a quick spin around and lots of people also with red faces shouted hi, was a bit taken about as was just expecting her to be in her room :-)

Will now go back and read through the thread properly.

How many are on holiday as it's half term?

Yes, the aim is to get some stuff published. The editor is his football captain, so that helps!

Great to hear from you @heifer! That's lovely that you were able to spend some time with dd and brilliant that her housemates are so nice. It must suit her better being in a house, as the social demands are lower. Dd said she doesn't mind not going out now because she spends so much time with her housemates. I think last year she went out so much as she worried she'd miss out otherwise.

I'm going up to Nottingham on Sunday to visit dd's new church with her and then bring her back for a few days to do some warehouse shifts. It will be interesting to see how her house looks now!