Fuming - no guidance for Yr 12s at all

[BrendaBlackhead]

Ds attends a large sixth form college. He is doing extremely well academically, but with regard to the future he is on his own.

I was looking at a few public school websites and their pupils are entering essay competitions, olympiads, following a recommended reading programme etc etc and I saw on one that the school will arrange suitable work experience for all med and vetmed applicants. Plus of course people from Oxbridge/top Russell Group coming to the school.

There was a notice at ds's school that those wishing to apply to top tier universities could join a group. Ds's tutor confused it with Sutton Trust and said it was only for low-income/those with non-university parents, when in fact it turned out it was for all students. This was a completely self-selecting group and no one, however able, was targeted. If Gail Trimble/Ted Loveday were at the college no one would have mentioned it to them.

Ds's friends have arranged their own open day visits and summer courses. Ds who is extremely backward in coming forward has said he wants to opt out of the whole thing.

I know that higher education is supposed to be all about self-motivation blah de blah, but when I see that other schools are guiding, smoothing, facilitating their students' paths, I feel really cross on behalf of ds. The History Boys it ain't.

Quite, WordFactory. Behind every clued-up sixth former (or any former, come to that) lurks a mother crouched over the keyboard.

But Brenda is clearly engaged and informed Word, and still the DS wants to opt out of Open Days etc. I don't think there's any problem with not going to Open Days actually, although clearly most MN DC seem to go. Lots don't go though. Mine didn't. Travelling to Open Days is often expensive. Our school only allows a maximum of two days absence for Open Days anyway, which limits the potential for dashing all over the country, thankfully. The websites these days are incredibly good and informative, available to everyone on an equal basis - and free.

Open days are late June, July, September, October. It's May. There is plenty of time to book open days, that doesn't need to have been started months ago.

Absolutely not true at all Brenda. Kids need to be self-starters up to a point. My kids are no different to most of their friends on that one. They look stuff up themselves.

molio I don't know how much brenda does or doesn't know.

But I was speaking more generally. There are parents who are really of the loop. Young people for who school is their first port of call. And it seems a bit of that some will get great advice/support and some won't.

As for organising things themselves, well I have some sympathy with that, but on the other hand many will be just 16 and trying to settle into a brand new school, new subjects etc.

Lots of DC don't attend open days. They travel costs can be very expensive and lots of DC and lots of parents don't think it important.

My DH didn't visit any of his university choices before he applied so he might not have realised that is what you are meant to do now.

The information is there and there is nothing stopping kids researching it themselves but, unless they are told, I don't think all kids realise what they need to do.

Not many 16-year-olds in my experience are mature self-starters.

It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing. Some people are mature, self-starters, etc. Some aren't, but going through the process helps them achieve it. A bit like "some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them".

He could give it a go this year, as a sort of no-pressure trial run. He might feel a bit left out in the common room next year if he is the only one not caught up in UCAS madness so why not give it a go. What's the worst that could happen? - he would have wasted one year's UCAS fee but gained a lot of experience and knowledge for the proper attempt.

But there are lots of parents out there with previous little understanding. And that's where schools need to step in.

And of course, you are making potentially committing decisions as early as Y9 (choice of GCSEs) and certainly in Y11 (choice of A Level or other post-16 pathways). Looking at university admission in the spring of Y12 is insane: as others have pointed out, Uniq and Sutton Trust deadlines have long past.

In computer science, almost every selective course requires maths A Level and some are starting to want further maths A Level. The last few places that would accept BTEC IT qualifications for admission are starting to add A Level maths as a hard requirement alongside it. And yet, every open day, there's an endless queue of people wanting to do computer science who aren't doing maths.

I kid you not but DS attended a taster day at Oxford Uni for Comp Sci and a parent asked if Math A level was important. The lecturer handled it very politely.

Molio. I don't know what type of school your DC but most of my DCs friends are not going to university. I'm sure if my kids friends were all 'self starters' it would have been a huge help to my kids.

My kids are capable of doing everything themselves but it is a huge benefit to them that I can help. I never, ever decide things for them but I provide the logistics and the money and a bit of gentle guidance.

One of my DC does medicine and although he arranged lots of things himself such as most of his work experience I think it would be very impressive for a child to have sorted out everything themselves. It all starts so early in year 12.

It does depend on the child of course but I do think they should be given a bit more responsibility to do things for themselves. I do not speak as someone with a uni aged DC admittedly but as someone who really didn't graduate very long ago and did everything for myself. Literally, everything. My mum was there if I wanted to ask her but it was clear the onus was on me. Same with my sister who has just gone, same with my younger sister who will apply next year.

It will be a great help to them in later life if they can learn how to be a bit proactive! You see so many grads these days who have just done everything for them, either by their parents or by their school, and as a result, while very nice people, have got no idea how to actually get things done without consulting someone else first.

I do not speak as someone with a uni aged DC admittedly but as someone who really didn't graduate very long ago and did everything for myself.

The problem is that there is a huge cultural capital issue, and people accidentally exclude themselves far too early by choosing post-16 pathways that sound plausible, but aren't. Blaming people for decisions made at 15 seems rather harsh.

security sorry, I don't understand your comment - what do you mean by a cultural capital issue?

Typos of course I'm not saying that parental input doesn't help. I was saying to Brenda that it's manifestly not true that behind every clued-up sixth former lurks a mother crouched over a keyboard. God forbid. What a grisly thought.

They go to a grammar Typos, so yes, almost all go on to uni and that will obviously make a difference. Pretty much everyone is on the UCAS trail, so far more obvious knowing what to do. That said, a good deal needs to issue from the students themselves once they're pointed in the general direction.

what do you mean by a cultural capital issue

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_capital

Oh I see, it's a social class thing, got you.

FWIW I grew up in a dirt-poor part of East London, went to crap comprehensive with a 30% GCSE pass rate and did well out of it. Admittedly my Mum was well educated and we read a lot in our house etc etc but many of my friends did not have this advantage and also did relatively well. It's a shame this is the exception rather than the rule!

Someone else got in first with the definition. The point is that people who assume their children will be going into higher education direct things towards that. They don't get lured into the idea that BTECs are equivalent to A Levels, that A Level subjects don't matter it's the grade that counts, etc, etc.

It's a shame this is the exception rather than the rule!

Arguing that we don't need to do more about outreach because some people manage to get into university against the odds is like arguing that we don't need to worry about smoking because someone's granny smoked eighty a day and lived to be a hundred. The chances of someone on free school meals making it to Oxford are vanishingly small, and there are a hundred and one reasons for that. The chances of someone at Eton getting to Oxford are orders of magnitude higher. Pointing to the minute proportion of children on FSM who do get to Oxford and saying "well, the others could have got here if they just weren't so lazy" is puerile.

Isn't the issue one of encouraging aspirations, and then pointing students to sources of information.

I'm not sure good private schools do as much handholding as you might think. However they expect students to aim high (this will be peer pressure as much as anything) and do their own research. So my son was expected, as part of choosing his A level options, to research University requirements for his preferred subject. Similarly the school UCAS half day gives students the option of either attending talks on medicine and the like, or to go to the library and research stuff themselves. Yes students are encouaged to do some volunteering and some stuff, like mentoring schemes at local primary schools is organised, but much of the rest is up to them. My guess is that the school offering to find work experience is a boarding school with a number of international students. I don't think it is typical. I think DCs schools have relied quite heavily on parents being informed and involved.

One thing the school does is run essay competitions to be researched over the summer. But I think this is as much about the broader educaiton some private schools expect to provide than part of the University application process.

In terms of aspirations a friend with DC at a local state school suggested they were innundated with opportunities to visit Oxbridge but nowhere else. So nothing about Southampton, Bath, Manchester, Bangor or other places which might be both aspirational and achievable. So despite the efforts most were not thinking beyond local Universities. In this case London so plenty of choice, but I wonder if this is a pattern replicated elsewhere.

If you have the aspirations in place, and have previously made the right subject choices, there is bags of information on the Internet. My guess is that schools fail on these two requirements.

Attia Open days are late June, July, September, October.

You're right regarding conventional courses. But the open days for some conservatoires have already happened. Had I not luckily been informed by a MNer whose DD is a year older than my DD1, we would not have known about these and DD1 would have missed them. No info from the school (which is superb on mainstream conventional stuff, can't fault it). Not even a suggestion that we needed to think in terms of open days last autumn. I think there's an assumption from schools that for things like music parents will somehow be clued in 'through other means' and considering the people we met at the open days we have already attended, many of them are because their kids attend saturday conservatoire. We live hundreds of miles from the nearest saturday conservatoire (well, > 100 miles anyway) so obviously DD1 doesn't get that experience. She has definitely got an information gap as a consequence. While, as I said, our school is great for conventional application stuff, I can well imagine the frustration that a parent with a child at a less great in that respect school feels, because it's how we feel ourselves given our particular circumstances. We feel exposed - in particular, compared to DD1's contemporaries all of whom seem to be getting a much more 'cosseted' ride (the music ones she knows from national ensembles mainly attend saturday conservatoires so get loads spoon fed to them. Her school friends mainly want to do normal stuff, and so get superb support). It will be fine, probably, but it's not a comfortable feeling and I can understand why the OP is concerned.

Not many 16-year-olds in my experience are mature self-starters

This is true, I have one teen who is and one who isn't.
If they are not natural self starters then they have to learn the processes and techniques.
If this means as ExcuseTheTypos says I provide the logistics and the money and a bit of gentle guidance I don't see the problem.

Arguing that we don't need to do more about outreach because some people manage to get into university against the odds is like arguing that we don't need to worry about smoking because someone's granny smoked eighty a day and lived to be a hundred.

security I think you misunderstood me, I wasn't arguing that at all. I agree with you. I was just relating my own experience and saying it's a shame that was the exception as everyone should have the opportunity to achieve their full potential regardless of background.

My point, in fact, was mainly that I didn't think it was the end of the world if the OP's DS had to be a bit proactive about his own education. Judging by the OP his mother is very supportive of him and therefore I doubt he needs much hand holding IYSWIM. If you've got those advantages (as I also did) then I don't see why the school needs to do all these things for you, and in fact them doing so can be counter-productive as you never learn to do things for yourself.

I don't know if I necessarily agree with the BTEC thing though, my sister did a BTEC and one A level and is now at a RG university.

I don't know if I necessarily agree with the BTEC thing though, my sister did a BTEC and one A level and is now at a RG university.

All other things being equal, A Levels are a superior qualification, both in terms of acceptability and in terms of preparation, to BTECs. There are a lot of confounders which mean anecdote needs to be treated with extreme caution, but it appears both drop-out and failure rates are also higher for candidates with BTECs.

Many engineering departments will accept candidates with BTEC engineering and A Level maths, but that's a pretty rare combination and there are funding reasons which are going to make it rarer still. If you have been told that BTEC DstarDstarDstar (in isolation) will get you on to, and prepare you for, top-end science and engineering courses as an alternative to A Level maths, further maths and physics, then you have been sadly lied to.

namechange I agree, and for sciences and engineering courses it's absolutely the wrong choice, but it can work well for some arts based courses, like the one my sister is on.

Like more or less everything else, it all boils down to the individual and what their end goals are. I cannot comment on schools lying to children about this because I don't have that experience, but if they are than that's pretty shocking.

for sciences and engineering courses it's absolutely the wrong choice

But it's seemingly one of the main focuses for BTEC.

In your sister's case, was it "A level relevant to the degree, BTEC as the other qualifications to make up three A Levels?"

I cannot comment on schools lying to children about this

There a school near me which until last year printed in its sixth form handbook a bunch of UCAS-point equivalences, pointed out that it's AAA for various top-end degrees at Oxford, 3 x 120 = 360, therefore if you get 360 points worth of BTEC or IB (they were pushing that at the time) you can get into Oxford. Oxford reject BTEC out of hand, and for the IB the typical offer would be the high 30s, not the high twenties that the tariff table shows for 360 points.

There's a huge amount of misunderstanding about UCAS points from parents, aided and abetted by some schools. Most selective universities don't use UCAS points at all. Even those that do, say things like "XXX UCAS points from 3 A Levels". Specific courses might then accept specific numbers of UCAS points from specific qualifications, but the idea that you can take your horse care certificate, your grade six piano and a certificate of personal effectiveness and call it an A level is just not true. One of my children has roughly 2 decent A levels worth of "other stuff"; most of it didn't even go on their UCAS form.

Following on whether BTECS are any good as preparations for certain degree. Does anybody else like me thinks it's ludicrous some university allows DDE grade students on to their courses. It dumbs down the whole idea of what a degree Is. In my days you only went to uni if you were academically able those with lesser grades did other courses more suited to their abilities. A degree was seen as rigorous so demanded a certain amount of intelligence. Makes me wonder on the universities at the lower end who do except low grade students, do they get high rate of drop outs or do they adjust the degree to suit the students abilities?. I know Im probably going to get alot of negative responses but I'm only being honest opening a debate about HE.