2015 Yr 12 support thread

[Needmoresleep]

Mocks this week, and the reality of AS exams in a few months is starting to hit home. I don't think it will be an easy journey, so would welcome some company.

GB now curious as to which corner of the British Isles you live in.

In contrast DD could probably walk, certainly cycle, to at least 6 medical schools. With an awful lot more within a 2 hour journey time.

Dreadful thought. She might never leave home......

More seriously I don't think she has particularly bought into the idea of going away to University and can see a number of advantages in staying in London. She absolutely loves being a sixth former and her new freedom to roam. Since I am a Londoner who studied in London I'm probably not the best person to persuade her otherwise.

Yes DD also happy with History. Mind you, given it was her last exam and she's on 'study leave' till mid-June, I think she'd have been happy with anything! Seems to think it went well though...

Ds texted also to say History went really well. Thank goodness as I was all set to cancel all the open days after the C2!

We've booked Durham but I don't think they will look at him because he has more As than A*s at GCSE. He would probably have a better chance at Cambridge (but doesn't want to consider it). We are going to Lancaster, school are taking them all to Newcastle (can you tell we live in the North west?) We will go to York in the autumn, and Exeter if we have any money left in the bank to get us there. Possibly Warwick....

Dunlurking I've never heard of Durham being that interested in GCSE grades. Unless it's medicine of course which seems to have it's own bizarre rules. DS1 got an offer from Durham based on his AS grades (they do ask for UMS). His GCSEs were not all A*s.
I forgot Lancaster. DS2 has a summer school there so isn't going to bother with an open day.

Oh, dd2 really miserable about History :( I'm putting my head in the sand until August.

DD has open days booked at Bath and Bristol.

Poor DD Atia, what a day she's had. Hope she feels a bit better soon.

DS has returned and actually said C2 went well, which is a huge relief after he dropped nine marks for not finishing C1. Almondcakes he only ran out of time on the last sub question of the last question, so was pretty relieved! The general consensus among his mates was that C2 was better than C1.

Hearing about what you're all doing I definitely think we're going to too many open days now! I may trim it down a bit. Am a bit cross that Bristol and Bath are two days apart. It would have been easier if they'd liaised and arranged them on consecutive days so people with long journeys who wanted to see both could do them with a one night stay in between!

Oh poor her, Attila, hopefully she's being overly hard on herself and it's gone fine. It's so bloody hard. I think they should do two exams and then use the best result to genuinely get the true picture of what our DCs actually know.

DD said C2 (Edexcel) was simply awful. She said we'll add it to the other resits with a half smile.

I did offer to test her on her times tables on the way in this morning but my kind offer was declined

Looking forward to a long break before M1, good luck to those with exams over the next few days.

My DD is saying that school will not allow any resits, so I'm curious about others being able to redo exams. Why might some schools allow it and others not? Surely those who can't resit are at a disadvantage?

That's odd. This is the last year that can do resits AFAIK. I've already spoken to DDs school about resits, after lasts weeks mishap and they said wait and see what results are but resits are there if need be.

TranquilityofSolitude I wonder whether it's to do with the new A level courses and the fact that some schools will be dropping AS altogether?
As far as I know all schools make the student pay for a re-sit. At DS's they don't get any teaching for them so the preparation for a re-sit is entirely down to the student. Which is why it's not unusual to do worse at re-sits.

Thanks for that about Durham and GCSEs SecretSquirrels I thought I'd read somewhere that for the History course, because it's so competitive, they expect the string of A*s that the Oxbridge people have. Really hope not. I was going to prime ds to ask about GCSEs at the History talk on open day but suspect he would find that too embarrassing and I'm not going to it as I thought I shouldn't take a seat that another student might be desperate for.

Ds says half the examination hall was yr13s repeating in the C2 exam. But do this yr12 get to resit at all? Are ASs actually happening at all next summer? Think ds will be redoing C2 if so. Only the Further Maths people came out saying they could do it - but that it was hard.

How does resitting actually help? Don't universities make their decisions based on AS grades the student already has?

DS could do with resitting Geology if it made a difference.

I mean make their decision to offer a place.

Morvah, DD is doing Bath and Bristol on consecutive days (Thursday and Friday), if your DS could do that.

I asked that Almond and was told they fill in their UCAS form with grade pending and then the predicted A2 grade. DCs at DDs school have offers from all the RG uni s according to the HOY (with results pending.)

Those doing resits can join year 12 for lessons next year, depending on timetable.

Tbh the thought of a resit was the only thing keeping DD going last week and I'm very grateful for it.

Resitting can help if the marks count toward the A2, I suppose.

Bernadette one of DS' resits was easy in the the A2 covered much of the same ground. We were anxious to ring fence work on the other so it did not impact on the work he was doing for A2. We ended up sending him on a three day Easter holiday revision course both to help rebuild his confidence and so he knew he had covered the ground. I think he also got invited to the schools revision classes for that subject. Also because AS tends to be before A2 he got both out of the way early.

As it turned out he got his offer at the end of March, and did not need to improve on either of these two papers. It would have been quite different if he had not had an offer and was needing to achieve the best possible results.

Atia I do think History is very difficult to call. DD was sure she'd messed up one of the essays in the mock-in fact she'd scored higher on it than on the other essay which she thought had gone really well! Her teacher marks for Edexcel so would have been accurate. Hope your DD feels better about it soon-not nice to have 2 papers you feel haven't gone well on the same day.

Bernadette C2 was clearly very difficult. DD's school also doesn't 'cash-in' the AS grades, presumably to allow for resits where necessary. The Leavers' Destinations list is always very impressive, so it clearly does them no harm!

Bernadette, so the grades are up to the school? And maybe what matters most after the exams is DS working really hard and creating a good impression until the UCAS forms go in.

DS has done nothing all year and now has mid-exam remorse.

DS had maths and history today too. History is is strong subject but maths....we,ll see.
We are off to Durham on 22 June looking at classical civilisation/ ancient history or even liberal arts as DS might like to combine the ancient history with a variety of other things. It's going to be an odyssey for us to get there from the south west. I hope he ends up at Exeter! We're there on 6th June.

After relatively smooth sailing so far, today's Maths C2 (OCR) was apparently a 'nightmare', cue DD in floods of tears and hysterics to me on the phone whilst I was supermarket shopping! Although everyone found it hard...so going for the positive that the grade bands will be low! History was good - thank goodness...don't think she would have coped with another difficult exam. Resits are now making sense! Chemistry on Friday...thinking another emotional moment, sigh. We are doing endless open days as have no idea where to go (with me not from the UK) - so Bath/Bristol, Oxbridge, Leeds/Nottingham and Durham (see you there mateysmum!) ahead. Have done LSE, and Warwick campus tour so are starting to at least understand what the universities are all about.

For those asking about resits and Ucas, this is our experience: DDs' school advise that they only resit a maximum of 1 paper per subject and we do have to pay - think it's approx £13 per paper. DD1 in year 13 is retaking 2 papers in total. She has not attended any AS classes but just worked through it herself. The highest mark counts so it is not a disaster if they do worse on the resit. For maths and sciences, A2 builds on AS so it it not a great deal of extra work to do the resits (I believe this is not true in subjects like history). For UCAS, DD1 did declare her AS grades - all state schools cash in the AS grades I think and all grades have to be declared. She then had to re-input the same subject again e.g. Biology AS with the resit session date (June 2015) and put the grade as pending. The universities generally offer places from their predicted A level grades - but schools don't tend to over predict as it looks bad for them if the students get a lot lower grades.
I hope this helps a little.

DS talking about resits in them all. Thought C2 Edexcel today far harder and was gloomy about history. Economic yesterday did not go well.

Hey ho, anyone got contacts in the outback and need a jackeroo ?

Dd was ok about both maths and history in the end. I had a panicky text shortly before history stressing about the source question but in the event she seems to have coped. She said C2 was hard but as expected. Onwards.......