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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

Starting Year 13 - September 2015

999 replies

hellsbells99 · 05/09/2015 08:01

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.

OP posts:

Ta1kinPeace · 12/12/2015 12:41

Nice one Morvah
Its a nice campus and a nice town.

MorvahRising · 13/12/2015 18:20

Thank you! DS has been very cheerful this weekend!

Ta1kinPeace · 13/12/2015 18:37

Which halls is he looking at ?
I was in Glen and loved it ~ DH was in Bencraft
the older halls have better rooms ;-)

buckingfrolicks · 13/12/2015 18:45

Happy here as DS has BBB offer from Aberdeen - so he's definitely going to scotland (from midlands) unless he does something stupid with his exams, bbb is well within his powers.

Well done Morvah's child - Southampton is a nice city.

DD starts her rounds of auditions for drama school tomorrow, I fear she'll actually vomit with anxiety and nerves, to be honest - but I guess their response would be if you can't take the nerves of the auditions you're not really cut out for a life of auditions. So she (and I!) will just have to woman-up.

AtiaoftheJulii · 13/12/2015 20:00

Well done to those with much-wanted offers, lovely to hear

Good luck to your dd bucking - hope it's all enjoyable whatever happens.

UhtredRagnorsson · 13/12/2015 20:07

Bucking - good luck to your DD. Where is she auditioning?

buckingfrolicks · 13/12/2015 21:07

Central School of Speech and Drama. The Drama part has begun in our house tonight, to be honest...

Leeds2 · 14/12/2015 00:03

Good Luck to her, Bucking.

MorvahRising · 14/12/2015 10:19

Bucking fingers crossed for your DD and well done to your DS for the Aberdeen offer.

Ta1kinPeace DS liked Glen. I remember visiting a friend from school there - very many years ago! He hasn't looked properly at accommodation yet, and now the delight of the offer has been replaced by worry that he won't get the A*AA offer even though those are his predicted grades. The indications seem to be if you drop to AAA they would still take you, but he is a very stressy lad!

Any news from the Oxbridge candidates yet?

Brioche201 · 14/12/2015 11:19

DD has depressed herself by too much looking for info on the internet eg average UMS of successful candidates.Her average was pulled down quite considerable by her decision maths module which was just over 80. The school have said not to worry too much because it is an outlier and not that relevant.But she feels they have to separate them somehow....Also they asked her at interview why she didn't apply for Mathswith physics and how she would feel if she were offered that. So she is feeling that she ought to have put that down as her choice.

disquisitiones · 14/12/2015 11:46

Also they asked her at interview why she didn't apply for Mathswith physics and how she would feel if she were offered that.

I don't think she should take that question too seriously: I would think they were just trying to explore whether she likes pure maths or applied maths/theoretical physics more and why, how much she had thought about it. It would be rather unusual to switch somebody to maths with physics if they applied for maths.

It's quite unusual to have a lower score in decision (usually one of the easier modules): I would tend to question how well the school had taught that particular module? In any case after interview it would normally be interview performance that would be the deciding factor, not UMS.

Beware of trusting Student Room too much. It's well-known that students don't always tell the truth there and that students with high AS scores tend to boast loudly. Also bear in mind that academics will use context when looking at AS scores.

GloriaHotcakes · 14/12/2015 18:52

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Ta1kinPeace · 14/12/2015 20:30

Please, please avoid The Student Room.
DD has checked out some of te crap on there against what FB friends say has really gone on ....

MyVisionsComeFromSoup · 14/12/2015 20:40

DD2s Oxbridge interview today went "well, but not well enough" she thinks - she needed a brilliant interview to counteract not good enough AS grades, but, she didn't cry, faint or squeal at the interviewers, so she's chalking it up as a not-so-awful experience .

Thanks for all the help re what to wear on this (and other) threads - there was a real mixture of jeans/jumper/converse and jacket/shirt/tie and everything inbetween. Interestly, the boys were smarter than the girls generally. The green DMs didn't make the cut, and the original heels were swapped for flats at the last minute. Really, the uni advice of "comfortable and clean preferably" is properly accurate.

Also a very helpful meeting with the disability support team, there's lots of help available, some of which we hadn't thought about, and they talked us through DSA. And lots of it is transferable to wherever she does end up, so all good.

buckingfrolicks · 15/12/2015 17:47

glad to hear it went okay for your DD MyVisions, hopefully she'll have done enough. It's absolutely awful watching them go through all this though. I'm feeling very down about it all, to be honest.

My DD didn't get asked to stay for the afternoon at Central for her drama audition. I swear they write about the selection process so as to avoid the use of the word 'fail', which may feel kinder from where they are sitting but leaves a world of uncertainty and muddle for those applying. So we are assuming, but can't be sure, that she's out of the running. Which changes everything, because if she's not even getting to the second stage of the process at Central I doubt v much she'll get an offer from any of the places to which she's applied (the expected top 5 drama schools). I know logically this doesn't necessarily follow, but emotionally that's how I'm feeling (not telling her this naturally.)

So I'm now preparing myself privately for the horror of no offers for her at all. Which is going to be so hard to swallow, for her. She's an AAA student, head girl, extremely diligent. Why oh why did she not want to do English at York or something?

SecretSquirrels · 15/12/2015 18:21

buckingfrolicks Oh dear. This is a tough part of parenting. I went through it with DS1 two years ago who aimed very high and went with his dreams. It's a knife edge trying to sound positive and supportive and yet preparing for failure without them thinking that you don't think they are good enough.

What happens five "nos" I wonder? If she is a straight A student all is not lost, there are very good courses up for grabs in the summer now that the cap on student numbers has been lifted. Not that she will want to hear that.

UhtredRagnorsson · 15/12/2015 18:57

Bucking - I know many kids who applied to 6 conservatoires in previous years and only got one offer. I know two people who started off with no offers but then got an offer once some places had freed up. It only takes 1 offer. So don't lose hope - the drama people I know have been mainly MT but not entirely - and several I know only got one offer from drama school too. So there's that. But DD could still apply through UCAS universities as insurance if she wanted to. My DD did, I wouldn't let her not. So that's a possibility too. As is applying again next year. Lots of people do. Anyway - I don't usually do this but to you and your DD.

Dunlurking · 15/12/2015 20:10

Bucking I echo Uhtred and Secret - still plenty of time and chances to get something good for Sept 2015. I go on the Notapushymum forum as my ds is a dancer/musical theatre performer who doesn't have the sort of courage of your dd to expose himself to the audition process for drama school entry There are lots who get straight rejections without recalls at one place but do very well at another. Sometimes it can be as little as the fact that they have already offered places to 2 other small blonde girls.

Ds has had an offer from Bristol today. Not showing what, but he expects it to be the standard A*AA. Only waiting for Exeter now......

MorvahRising · 15/12/2015 23:46

MyVisions well done to your DD for getting through it and it sounds as though she is a very sensible girl. It's tricky to tell with Oxbridge interviews and she may have done much better than she realises.

Bucking how disappointing for your DD and for you. I think drama schools and conservatoires make a university application look like a walk in the park - one of DS's friends is going down the music route. As the others have said though, there are plenty of options open to her, and fingers crossed she'll get an offer anyway.

Dunlurking hooray for the Bristol offer! Well done to your DS.

College has broken up today so no more hideously early starts for three weeks!

GloriaHotcakes · 16/12/2015 06:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Needmoresleep · 16/12/2015 10:58

Well done to all those DCs for their interviews and offers. Dunlurking, is Bristol the first choice?

And handholding for Bucking. Most of Dds friends are sitting on at least three or four offers. They may not get their aspirational choice but they are generally content with what they have. With her only interviews to date schedule for late Feb and early March, DD may not hear anything till Easter, and ending up with nothing is a real possibility.

Drama is hard. What is the Plan B. DD was always going to try again next year, but at the moment is not so sure. I think she should as medicine is what she has always want to do. At minimum I would want her to really research alternatives. Are there things your DD could do in a gap year (NYT or work in some form of outreach theatre activity?), plus widen her approach on a reapplication.

BethanKate · 16/12/2015 14:17

Well done to all DC who've got offers/got through interviews.

Bucking really sorry this has happened to your DD, hope something good works out for her in the end & for your DD Needmoresleep.

Mega EPQ stress going on here.

UhtredRagnorsson · 16/12/2015 18:06

Bucking - I don't know if this will help but this morning, DD1 (who already has offers from the Guildhall and Birmingham conservatoire) got a no from the RAM. And ten minutes ago she got a YES from the RCM. While it's not totally a lottery - there is a lottery element. There's no reason why your DD won't find success at one of her other choices. DD1 went in to this hoping for one offer at most and prepared to get none. It only takes one yes and you get lots of goes.

Ta1kinPeace · 16/12/2015 18:45

EPQ handed in today.

Still waiting on Exeter.

BethanKate · 17/12/2015 08:11

EPQ given up

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