Starting Year 13 - September 2015

[hellsbells99]

Welcome to Year 13!
Their final year of school;
Applying for university/college/work/apprenticeships;
A year of 18th birthday parties;
Going to their first nightclub (unless they already have fake ID!);
The year they turn into adults!

DD2 has been back at school for 3 days and has lots of work already.

Phew!!

First for getting to half term. DD's accident in the summer shook her to the core, but she is slowly getting back and starting to look forward. Her half term report suggests she has managed to hold it together academically, the UCAS form is in, and she has two weeks to catch up on sleep. (I think this is the first time since reception that I have welcomed private schools' two week autumn half term. The pastoral support she received has also been great.)

Second we did a one day trip to two of the Universities she has applied to, plus managed to stop at the Jack Wills outlet in Bicester on the way home.

I'm afraid we did not get out of the car in Birmingham. Just a drive round so she had a sense of the place. Sunshine, lots of purposeful and happy looking students walking around, all the right buildings and quite a lot of them. Railway station on campus, close to the medical school. She liked it. Given the competition she is unlikely to get a place, so it seemed best to leave questions and a more thorough look till an offer day.

We spent longer at Nottingham, which she loved. Pretty green campus, with all the science buildings grouped at one end. Quite a lot of accomodation on campus. Medical school linked by a bridge to the campus. A lot of buses passed us on campus and two tram stops one by the medical school the other at the far end of the campus, so it was easy for us to get into town for lunch. The City centre was also pleasant, with a good variety of shops.

Both places were chosen because of their courses as well as a few other criteria including their selection methods, and her desire to study on a proper mixed, but not isolated, campus. Both seem perfect.

Though it would be nice to get a place this year, the chances are it will be a two year process, and actually even if she does get an offer this year she might see if she can defer. Next year she will have the time to prep for BMAT and for the Irish aptitude test (Dublin, indeed Galway, really appeal). Though easier said than done, she now needs to forget abnout the applications and focus on getting as good grades as she can. Seeing the Universities seems to have helped with motivation.

Feeling wrung out today. After a couple of phone calls dd is definitely allowed to move to Further Maths.

She just need to catch up now so that is Half Term down the pan. We could do with two weeks as well! Why are teenagers so complicated?

We also need half term for a pause and regroup. Ds only has 3 unis to put on his form unless he applies for another course (same uni or different) as well. Think he will submit with just the 3 to start with and wait to see how he gets on.

I have lost count of the number of draft PSs he has written. Now he is worried that it has no personality....maybe a rest at half term will bring the creative inspiration. He has worked hard to earn his needed predictions as his AS results fractionally missed what the course requires (A*AA). He got the top mark in the Maths class for his latest work and with that captured that elusive last A prediction. Such a relief

Oops sorry. Posted on wrong thread. Need a Year 12 one.

Dunlurking, one or two of the medical schools had really helpful guidance on PS', essentially listing the criteria on which a PS would be scored. This made it easier as she could focus on making sure she had demonstrated committment, leadership and the like. We got a sense that it was as important to make sure you ticked the boxes for a scoring scheme than to produce something completely polished showing bags of personality. (DD's reads like it was written by a 17 year old scientist. So no polish, accurately reflecting her personality.)

I dont know if you can find any good guidance from one of your son's choices or somewhere similar.

And well done on the A*.

Good luck Zetetic. If she is planning a degree with a lot of maths, the silver lining is that it is better to do it now when she will get help from school, than at University when the ones without FM can be playing catch up from day one.

Thanks. She was always advised to do it from the start but has taken her own sweet time to realise it is the right thing.

Good luck to your dd this year. I am SO glad to have a year off Ucas after going through it for the last two years.

Thanks Needmoresleep. He too approached it like a military operation, to the extent that he quized the lecturers at every open day as to the exact percentage of the PS that should be devoted to the subject, and to extra curricular activities etc. But as it is an arts degree he feels he needs to demonstrate a little more fluency, sophistication and originality. Sigh. It's the opening sentence really. He's cut and cut and cut until he's freed himself 300 characters to "show his personality", but what those 300 characters should say is the sticking point now!

Glad to hear your ds has fallen for some universities outside London that will offer the whole university experience and plenty of non medic friends.

University of Bath were in the news yesterday for allowing more 1st Years to start than they have accommodation for. Some students are sharing rooms and both being charged. Stories included two girls who were sharing a bed and another girl who was camped out on the floor in an external flat.

This happened at Bath last year as well. I know of one DC who ended up with a room in a house miles from campus.

dd2 is cross - she had an email from the Cambridge college she applied to following up on her ticking the disability box on the UCAS form, in case she needs anything in particular should they call her for an interview. Which was all very nice, except they've left in the email addresses of the other people they've also sent the email to . And because her school recommend they use their school email address for UCAS (to save the of someone applying with sexygal@gmail or whatever) the other people getting that email now know her full name, where she goes to school, and that she has a disability.

She wants to email back to complain about their data security, but is worried that might count against her.

On the plus side, my scary lectures about being very careful what you put online under your real name seem to have paid off

I would phone them and ask to speak to the sender of the email.
I suspect they will be UTTERLY mortified : and UCAS will be pretty hacked at them too
VERY bad form.

She should reply. I would go for something polite but firm, ie given potential sensitivity please could you be careful in future. It probably won't affect anything but treat it as an opportunity to show maturity and constructive assertiveness. I suggest a reply to the email received.

I don't know if other DC are similar but mine have very little experience in making phone calls. It's all texts and messaging for their generation and they find talking to people they dont know quite difficult. Looking ahead a good reason to hope results day goes smoothly.

She is switching to Further Maths as Maths is too boring

bit confused. she is dropping maths for FM? Has she already covered the core Maths syllabus in another qualification?

DDs college only allow you to do FM as well as maths, not on its own.

ours are only allowed to do FM as well as Maths too - I always assumed you needed some of the Maths content to back up the FM, but I may very well be wrong.

Re the email, I'm going to suggest she replies along the lines of what people have suggested here - no chance of her phoning, she doesn't do speaking on the phone if it can be at all avoided (not that I blame her, I hate it too ).

I would imagine you would have, or at least be seen to have, big holes in your core maths knowledge.

The school run their FM class separately and they cover the whole standard Maths A level in year 12, then the Further Maths in Year 13.

As a result she needs to switch to a completely different class which moves at a much faster pace / whole new timetable.

So she IS still doing maths but in a class which is doing Maths and FM
over the 2 years.
I understand now

I have been teaching maths today (a supply teacher, not my main subject, but if you have a pulse and express an interest you get pressganged, due to the shortage).
The great thing about maths is that up to A2 there is a limited range of concepts and when you 'get' the concept' it is very easy - however, the downside is that many people get easily bored by it.
The real struggle is beyond that when the concepts become more abstract and many of those who dissed maths as too easy suddenly find they are floundering.

Yes that is correct. Sorry if I confused you. Today has been a bit fraught.

Head of Maths says she won't flounder (in fact she wanted her to take it from the word go). But she does have some catching up to do so time will tell I suppose.

MrsUltracrepidarian
DD is finding STEP problems a lot more fun than A level maths.She says although they are based on the same concepts they require more thought especially STEP 2 and 3

DS is enjoying STEP as well. Is also having to do MAT as Imperial want it - don't make offers until they've seen MAT results.

Brioche201 - good on your DD!!
Sounds like she will flourish! It really is a (definitely no pun intended) step change up from A2 and a vey difficult transition. I really wish our education system could give more consideration to the transition between stages (GCSE- AS, AS-A2, A2-Uni) so that DC and parents could be better informed about the reality of the demands in the next stage.
My DS1 was always at the top of the class in maths up to AS. Luckily he is at a school where a lot of consideration goes in to next steps, and he was advised to do Maths and Physics, instead of Maths and Further Maths (and other subjects). We were surprised, but the school has masses of data ( as well as 500 years of experience) and said that although he is enthusiastic and great, he is not obsessed and off-the-scale. We accept their analysis; he is happy with what he is doing - we will see how it pans out...

Mrs UC its interesting. DS was always good, but not great. He got golds in maths challenges but no further. He decided to take Further Maths but was worried he would not get a good grade (he was taking five so he could afford the risk) but got an A*. But in his first year of University really started flying in the sort of applied maths you take with Economics. He is essentially taking the same courses people studying maths with economics or actuarial science have to take, and doing just as well if not better. So really belatedly he is getting his head round the fast he might be a good mathematician. Others though go in the opposite direction and start to fade at the next stage.