Thread 51 - Covid GCSE Cohort - Summer 24 - End of Uni Yr 2

[Oblomov24]

2024 Summer, end of year 2 for those at Uni.

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 50:

50

The 2020 GCSE thread has continued on WhatsApp and we try & meet up once or twice a year for afternoon tea or a theatre trip!!

A very happy 18th to @crazycrofter Jnr! i think i remember you talking about your DD's 18th and the whirlwind of 'do's' she had . Hope DS has a wonderful day whatever he decides.

Happy birthday @crazycrofter DS! And a very happy belated birthday to @ealingwestmum !

yes we have to keep this thread going past graduation as (a) lots of us will still have that cohort at uni (gaps, languages etc) and (b) you have to hold my hand through DDs uni and she doesn’t even START for a year, and it’s a 4 year degree, so you are all on the hook until… umm…. 2029 😱😱😎

Oh my god I’ll be 60 when she graduates

I'm 60 now @Delphigirl 😂
I think with dd2 doing architecture going into year 2 & with 3/4 with ADHD I may be 70 by the time they're all settled. Dh is 71 & still working.

Thanks for the birthday wishes for ds! He’s still not back from Aberystwyth… I can see from my iPhone tracker that he’s stopped at a friend’s house so may be a while!

@Comefromaway aren’t we the 2020 GCSE group?! Very happy to stick around for siblings’ university careers 🤣 I feel like once my two are out into the working world I won’t know what to do with myself (well, apart from the full time job, and the ‘minister’s wife job on the side!)

Ooh @Cantonet well you make it look so elegant!

Ds2 is 21 in early September but will be away on a 10 day HSE commercial diving course and then straight on to uni so I won’t see him for it which is v sad.

@Comefromaway
Which group is that. Weren't we the 2020 gcse group?
@icanbewhatiwant and I still have younger siblings just about to go into yr 11, for GCSE's next summer, so we maybe have the youngest siblings, ie quite a few more years of schooling yet.

@Oblomov24 it feels a long way off until A levels doesn't it? Ds3 is planning on university. It seems years away yet. Year 11 went by quickly for my oldest 2 so no doubt it'll be the same.

Sorry I meant the 2018 (first year of 9-1 GCSE’s) group who were 2020 A levels.

It does icanbe, feels a long way off atm.

year10

memory lane. Year 10 thread.

I had my smoothest and quickest Notts drop off / delivery today.

Crikey year10 seems so long ago!

Happy birthday to @ealingwestmum and @crazycrofter DS.

@Delphigirl I turn 60 next summer and DS 21. Think we ought to mark that. Maybe a holiday? He's 20 this week and the plan is dinner with us and the grandparents. Rock n roll lifestyle here!

Even the current 2020 GCSE cohort might stay on at university beyond undergraduate. I bet we have some that go on to do a masters or even a PhD.

I have one friend from my time as an undergrad who did a degree, a PhD, and then decided to do medicine. And another one who did a degree, qualified as an accountant and then went back to do medicine.

Ds will be hopefully starting uni next Sep for a five year course so no chance of me retiring any time soon!

If DD goes to uni next year (and that's a big IF because with less than 6 months till application deadline she hasn't got a clue what she wants to study and is a bit nervous about the debt) I'll be 61 by the time she's through. I could see DS taking a masters but maybe not straight after bachelors, I think some proper work experience first would be beneficial. I still toy with the idea of a masters too, I like studying. But even though I only work part time I have a lot of other things keeping me busy (the DCs, my allotment, school governor work, other volunteering etc). I haven't mentioned the school governor thing on here for a while, I'm really enjoying it and have learned a lot. Very rewarding.

I had to dig around on that y10 thread to find myself, I had a completely different name back then, pre ED variations. I don't think I posted so often back then either just dipped in and out a bit, I'd never really felt at home on other education threads outside the SEN boards because the other DCs always seemed to be so high-flying but this one has been different (primary ones were awful with everyone fighting over the rights and wrongs of phonics). I hid the primary ed board as soon as my DCs moved up to secondary and have never looked there again.

Haha @Oblomov24 2018 seems such a long time ago when that thread first started! Hardly recognised more than a handful of names from that thread to this one so must be lots of name changes and newbies.
DD still not too different to back then as still a bit of a dreamer 😀

We currently have a very noisy baby tawny owl in our garden that cries at night for food.
The kids have seen it - a grey fluff ball.
It's very persistent tonight - like a rusty gate squeaking back n forth. It seems to often be in the old oak tree.
Strangely enough I used to love reading the Owl Babies book by Martin Waddell to my kids when they were tiny. The rhythmic sound of the prose was very soothing to them & me. I think it was my all time favourite kids book. Though ds1 was obsessed by the Water Babies Book.

DS still has a copy of Owl Babies! We've got a hedgehog- used to have an owl but not heard it for a while

Ooh I would love to have a hedgehog here but I've never seen one. But we do have a nest of slow worms!
I downloaded the Merlin app last night.
It's free & brilliant for bird recognition sounds. I often hear bird sounds I don't recognise in my garden & on dog walks & I've meaning to do this for a while.

I love hearing owls. All we've heard for the last few months is foxes. They sound like they're being tortured all night, every night.

We seen little owls, barn owls, foxes, badgers, roe deer, fallow deer, muntjac, slow worms, newts, frogs, toads, moles rabbits and bats in our 1.5 acre garden bordering protected woodland …it’s bloody animals of farthing wood around here… but NEVER seen a tawny owl (would love those) and NEVER seen a hedgehog, which I really don’t understand!

We just have pigeons in our tiny urban garden. Oh, and hedgehogs.