Year 12 / 6th form support thread

[minesawine]

The term is about to start and I though it would be good to have a support group to help us on our 6th form journey.

May the year be drama-free and our DC's study hard and without complaint

Lol, my eldest two are both girls and they're absolute polar opposites in how and how much (and if!) they work. Ds is somewhere between the two, which is quite nice!

I just did Maths, FM Physics for A-level (and then did Maths at Oxford, so it can't have disadvantaged me too much).

I did double maths, phys, chem, and feel like I would have had way too much time on my hands without one of my sciences. (Maths and Philosophy ) Ds is good at maths (better than me!) and will hopefully pretty much breeze through that A level (sorry if that sounds terribly braggy), and certainly won't be doing hours of work outside college for it.

Anyway, he had a chat with his personal tutor, and she said that as they wouldn't admit someone to start y12 with just maths, FM plus one other, that he can't drop it atm. But they'll chat about it again and if it becomes an issue they can think more about what to do. Doesn't seem to be an academic issue, he's just having a general wobble (Laniakea that was Friday's mystery!) - was a surprise to me as it's been very well-disguised.

I hate to say it, but this thread does throw into relief a bit of a gender divide....on the whole.

I'm with you on that, Piggy. Have to say that I do think DS has 'pulled his socks up' since GCSEs' wake up call. However, aiming for excellence seems beyond his natural inclination.

I did double maths, phys, chem, and feel like I would have had way too much time on my hands without one of my sciences
I did. it was lovely

I did volunteer work with a local primary school and various other things in my frees. I loved it, but I can't pretend it was pressurised.

Lol! Ds is more likely to be honing his gaming skills than volunteering anywhere, unfortunately!

Mine blows hot and cold. Yesterday we had a genuinely interesting chat about he Middle East. Kurrdish independence and about how boring A levels might be a means to a more fulfilling end. We also chatted about Catalan independence.

Today, I tried to talk about it again and got eye rolling in extremis.

Teenagers

Can I join in?
My ds has just started sixth form doing biology, chemistry and theatre studies. He has the 3 ds (dyspraxia, dyslexia and dyscalculia) and so uses a laptop and gets 25% extra time. He outperformed expectations at GCSE and is coping well with A Levels so far. He'd like to do plant biology at degree level. He loves all science but has to be realistic about his maths skills!

Hi marine - that sounds like a good combination. Did he stay at his school, or change? Hope the maths stays manageable

Piggy I find I never quite know whether I'm going to get the almost-adult or the definitely-actually-still-a-child! It's a very slow transition period

marine04,

I like that combination of A levels.

What did he get in his maths GCSE?

Thank you. He did the foundation paper and got a high level five. The whole concept of doing the foundation paper and so only being able to get a five at the maximum and wanting to do science a- levels caused us a lot of angst as both six forms wanted a 6 in maths to continue on with sciences. It was eventually agreed that if he got a 5 in maths and an A or above in his sciences he could continue and thankfully he got an A in all three. We had some rubbish going on around the time of his gcses and at one point I was worried his maths would be a four or even lower so I am very grateful we are at the point where we are now!
I'd really like him to be doing core maths to help him along but I can't find anywhere/any one locally that does it. We are keeping a close eye on it though.
In the end he decided to stay at the sixth form of this current school. We couldn't really put a pin between his two options so he chose on the basis that he has an established friendship group there and there is no school uniform - just smart casual. The bottom line was that he had done really well there and I could see no reason to move him.

Atia I didn't have the option of honing my gaming skills, who knows if it had been an option.

On the gender divide, at our not-very-pushy comprehensive both this year and last year the high achievers listed in the school newsletter were 25% boys, 75% girls.

Obviously they are all different, but there is no doubt that boys have a tendency to do what they can get away with and most of the kids who push themselves to excess are girls.

And social media/gaming/loads of TV channels mean that there are a lot more distractions than there were in our day.

I am really glad that students at my DS's SF are being given a lot of extra work and told they must do it. The only regular homework he got in Y10/11 was for RE and maths so I wanted him to leave his school to go to one which would work him harder. He was not willing to move so I am relieved that they are now getting more work out of him! I can see that girls might get anxious though.

I used a girl in year 10 today to illustrate to my year 13s how ahrd some of my year 10s are. (This girl is truly inspiring).

One of the boys said' she needs to get whatever the opposite of a life is; no wait... I mean she needs to get a life'. the boys (most of them ) guffawed ,and the girls glared. I bollocked him and told him she was an inspirational role model who had her sights set on her future, which was somewhat further away than his. I may also have told him he needed to get a life. He went silent...

Piggy I often think it would be wonderful to be at school as a pupil now, with the appreciation of education that we have as adults and none of the hang-ups and teenage attitudes - they just don't know how lucky they are, apart from the occasional few like your inspirational Y10.

Do you reckon boys are just generally later to 'clock' that hard work = academic success? And is it because they generally mature later? DF reckons so.

I was very late to puberty and reckon that it wasn't really until I did my degree that I really understood just how much application (as well as natural ability) contributes to academic success. And one certainly wouldn't have predicted my degree result based on very mediocre O/A Level grades .

Also wondering whether girls are naturally more 'polymath' than boys?

Do girls outperform boys all the way through their academic journeys or do the latter catch up at A Level/degree level?

Is anyone thinking about uni open days yet? There are a few coming up and wondering if we should take the opportunity while time allows, but feels so early.

We finally had dds English lit script back this week, which she now needs to see HOD about. Both answers were marked which was her primary concern. However not sure we have understood the mark scheme. It looks like the original marking was in red and review in green. But there are more red annotations than marks originally allocated and more green ticks than red annotations plus a few extra green annotations. The final comment on second question was"Agreed. Within tolerance" but no grade unlike first question. Can anyone shed any light?

I think any differences between boys' and girls' attitudes and performances are due to socialisation and expectations rather than anything innate.

My son was at a high-performing single sex grammar school - plenty of incredibly driven, overachieving boys, and plenty of boys excelling across the breadth of subjects.

I'd have liked to take ds to an open day this autumn, but he's not interested! Dd1 went in June of y12 and autumn of y13 - dd2 was then just starting y12, so she came to one with us and really enjoyed it. Mind you, she'd already had a couple of dozen prospectuses delivered the summer before y12 started, so she was keen to get on with things, lol!

LIZS
Thinking of open days in our house. Postman's back will be breaking delivering the multitude of prospectus that have been ordered. Realise that we've kind of missed most of them so are going to do a few campus tours to see if it's worth going back to them in greater detail in the spring.
Heading to Lancaster soon to check it out. Have done Dundee. All the English ones will require an overnight stay so will be trying to fit them in on holidays.

Wow, I had no idea we were supposed to be thinking about universities already!

Me neither! DS's school doesn't actually give time off for open days, or only one day in the summer term which isn't very helpful if the university/ies you want to visit don't have anything on then.

I took DS to the What University/What Apprenticeship show in Olympia yesterday. I was hoping it would inspire him into thinking about what he wants to do for his future. He did show some interest in courses and seemed to be keen on Bristol, Warwick and Loughborough. But in the car home said he is not ready to leave home, which is fine as there are lots of London Uni's. It just frustrates me that he wont take any time to stop and think about what he wants to do. At some stage in his life he will realise that he cannot just keep drifting along hoping I will sort everything out for him..

dd has been to the open day of the university she want to go to (only two places in the UK do 'her' course). We're going to visit the other place but it's a trek so will need to wait until after Christmas. I'm trying to persuade her to look at other universities to give her some broader exposure. She's only interested in places by the sea & I don't want to drive for miles so will probably just do Bristol & Cardiff.

Quite a few have been on open days at her school - I think Oxford did one recently ? - the school let them have time off for them.

Still nothing exciting happening here - the EPQs have still not started, dd is doing past papers for the creative writing A2 that she'll be doing this summer. She seems to have a lot of free time but she has applied for a job & done a CV that she's planning to distribute!

Wow, I had no idea we were supposed to be thinking about universities already!

You're not "supposed" be doing anything, honest!

When dd1 was at this stage, neither she nor I were thinking that far ahead, felt like she had loads of time. Now dd1 and dd2 have gone through UCAS in quick succession, so it's in my thoughts, if not ds's. Also ds has suffered from depression, so I was thinking that making some long term goals seem more concrete might be useful for him. He's not interested yet (although he seems pretty sure about what he wants to do for a degree), so that's fine.

Last night I dreamed that dc3 (the feral one) had a university interview - for engineering with a Prof Tom Twaddle - dc2 (noisily autistic) went along to help. It didn't go well.

Dd was really keen to see the university she thought she wanted to go to, but not very interested in seeing anywhere else. She's not sure whether she wants to apply next year or not.

You lot have made me spend all afternoon looking at uni websites. The fact that DS1 couldn't give a shit is neither here nor there. I shall be studying criminology at Lancaster, possibly with a gap year abroad