S5/S6 support thread.

[IHaveBrilloHair]

I know I need it this year with Dd.
Everyone welcome to join in.

Hi all

Glad to see most offers are in and decisions have been made. It's an exciting time for all.

Just wondering how much (if any) your DCs are revising this holiday, specifically for Advanced Highers?

My DS has a conditional offer (AAB) so he can't afford to relax too much. He still hasn't quite finished the course in one subject and his teacher went off on maternity leave a couple of weeks ago and is expecting him to self-teach the last module.

I'm staring to worry, I guess......

Andrew Melville halls have all catered single rooms, they are cheaper and they are the only catered halls you can name specifically, they aren't right in town but are nearer than DRA, DS had them as his second choice.

Stop worrying Aurea! ( I know, easier said than done!)Your DS sounds like a very competent young man who will take things in his stride.

Hi Hotginger
No my sons classes were in town as he does history however remember StAndrews is a small town so even being “ out” means a max 15 to 20 min walk which anywhere else you wouldn’t think twice about. There are quite a few bikes too. In the winter they would all walk back from the library together to ensure the girls weren’t walking on their own. Not that there were any real concerns about that there. He loved DRA but whatever hall they end up in I am sure they will be happy. Most American student choose shared as that’s the norm over there.xx

aurea DDs friend has a AAA conditional offer for Cambridge and is also stressing. She wishes she'd chosen her AHs more carefully. Choose them not thinking she'd get Cambridge so wouldn't matter. Edinburgh is her unconditional backup but she wants Cambridge.

Thanks wiggly and Alittlewornout Sounds like she’ll have to weigh up whether a bit of a walk is worthy of the trade off of her own room. And AMH definitely sounds an option. Doing the walk back to halls at night was also a concern I had so it’s good to hear that the students are mindful of that. I definitely don’t want her ending up in the most expensive accommodation by default as the cost is a bit eye watering.

Aurea my DD is doing 3 AHs this year and is on Easter break now. She has completed one ‘dissertation’ and the other two are still massively over the allowed word count. That is obviously taking priority over revision right now. The class still have to get to the end of the course in one subject. However, on the plus side, prelims were in February so fairly late and she did really well. She’s hoping that she’ll be able to get down to revision by the start of next week and her exams are fairly well spread out so that’s all to the good.
Your son must have developed excellent study skills to have achieved his results to date and I’m sure it will be the same this year. He will be massively motivated to meet his conditions. The lack of a teacher is obviously less than ideal. Hopefully they have been left with the necessary resources at least.

Thanks for the reassurances. I guess I'm stressing excessively as I can't believe his good fortune.

I sure he'll be ok in the end, as will all your DCs.

Can't believe this time next week that Ds will have his S6 tie and be 17 later this year!

Take me back to 2007, he was smaller than me and I'm not ready for all this 😂

Ds is settled into S6. It's been a scarily fast couple of months.

DD settled into S6 too. Happy that she's finally doing subjects she wants to instead of picking something from a column because she has to. School keeps them pretty busy in S6 - they have to do at least 4 subjects plus a job about the school.

She has applied to be a school captain and has had to fill out an application form, attend a group assessment morning and then if shortlisted will have a further interview. Her brothers were teasing her last night - all this for a bit of braid on your blazer! Is it similar in other schools? At my boys school virtually no-one volunteered so anyone who bothered got the braid.

DS is off doing DoE this week (in the pouring rain right now, according to the weather!) so he hasn’t really been back yet other than a couple of days last week which he said were a waste. He has had several teachers tell him that his workload next year is completely mad and one sat him down to tell him he “needs help”. He’s doing AH in Maths, Statistics and Computing Science plus Higher Accounting plus Ancient Greek (no qualification/exams) for fun. He thinks it’ll be easier than this year was and isn’t listening to anyone who says otherwise. DH says he can drop a subject anytime so I should “relax”. Am assuming he’ll see sense at some point and drop something.

I think that's similar to our school Clerk, dd isn't interested so I don't know all the ins and outs. She has to do extra stuff too, so she's tutoring in a junior science class & has to something else as well.
Wicked my dd is doing more than the school want too! She's doing AH chemistry, biology and Spanish, plus higher maths. She's aiming for medicine so has been warned that if it gets too much Spanish can go! We'll just have to wait and see.

emummy Am glad I’m not alone! We should keep tabs and see which one sees sense first. I’m thinking October break for Accounting getting dropped. It all depends on his Higher results anyway. If he doesn’t get what he wants we’ll be seriously telling him to have a rethink.

Anyone else off to Open Days next week? Assuming I’ve got the dates right, we’re off to Edinburgh on Monday and Glasgow on Thursday. Am going to start a thread asking for advice on getting to Glasgow!

OK, now I’m seriously confused! I posted a new thread about getting to Glasgow but I can’t see it on the forum. Where oh where has it gone?

We took the train to Glasgow and then underground to closest station and then there were plenty students out and about pointing you in the right direction from there.

DD has decided to skip the open days until she knows her results or might just do the offers days. She did a few previously with her cousin.

If you are coming by train into Queen Street getting the underground to Hillhead (or Kelvinbridge) from the city centre is probably the easiest. If driving from the South there is a park and ride at Shields Road underground station. If arriving by train at Central, there are loads of buses which go along University Avenue or you can walk to Buchanan Street or St Enoch underground. You can also walk from Patrick or Exhibition Centre stations (nicer walk as it's thru Finnieston and Kelvingrove park)

Dd has space school next week so no open days for us. She is feeling a bit nervous about it, worried it will be all “ nerds” ( her words not mine!). Was on the tip of my tongue to say thought you said you were going to embrace your inner nerd ness this year, but I kept quiet!😉

We are doing 3 open days next week, Edinburgh, Glasgow & Dundee medicine. No easy feat when travelling from Aberdeenshire! We have booked a private parking place in Glasgow and will use park & ride in Edinburgh. Looking forward to the Glasgow M8 at rush hour...

@emummy - I travel from Aberdeenshire to Glasgow fairly often. I'd recommend following prettybird's suggestion on the other threas and going to Shields Rd subway to park there - it's only £5 (ish) to park all day and that includes travel on the subway.

Thanks readsalot, I did consider that but was worried about whether there would be spaces. Then found a website that rents private spaces and got one half a mile from the uni for £6, so we're going for that. Going to be knackered by next weekend, my average weekly mileage is about 20 miles in the car!

I've always been able to park at Shields Rd. When we did open days we did Glasgow and Strathclyde together and stayed overnight in Glasgow then drove to Edinburgh the next day and used park and ride and the tram. It's an expensive and time consuming business - and we then did offer holder days too !

Yes, thank god for Edinburgh park & ride, I wouldn't fancy driving through the city! It was fine when I lived there but that was 25 years ago! We have Edinburgh, Glasgow & Dundee next week and that's us, we can't make the Aberdeen one & she's not interested in St Andrews.

Ds only really started going to Open Days after the summer so there's no rush. In fact, he only went to the Aberdeen one (in the October of S6?) under duress - and ended up being very impressed. Guess where he is now

I think the medicine applications have to be in by October 15th so we're visiting now. She's not so keen on Aberdeen, desperate to get away from home!

We’re splitting them. This week at school they don’t have classes- tomorrow is mostly going over last week’s work experience experiences(!) but DS was away on DoE and so he’s doing his work experience week over the summer. Then the rest of the week is about how to apply to uni/selecting subjects/courses/unis etc but DS is clear on what he wants to do/where he wants to do it, so we thought we’d knock off Edinburgh and Glasgow now and then Heriot Watt/St Andrews in Sept/Oct.