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

Piggy - we had tickets for the Olympia Unis/Careers Fair but DS decided it was too soon to be thinking about universities already - he may have a point. Although it could be a motivating factor...

Interestingly, Lancaster is on our radar already (because he wants to study Human Geography and it's one of a limited number of universities that offers it) - it came 6th in the recent The Sunday Times Uni Guide.

We are keen on Lancaster for history but concerned as not Russell group. Is this important

Not remotely in my head. Lancaster has always had a really good reputation. RG is a group of unis favoured because of the amount and quality of research they do. Sometimes this can negatively impact upon teaching hours and quality for students. Look up TAFE ratings - they award 'medals' for teaching quality. Lots of RG unis do not have gold...

I went to York in the 90s. it was considered a gold standard university but was not RG at the time (it is now). It had no bearing on me or my friends whatsoever and people still went 'ooooo' when I said I went there if that's what you're after!!

Also, see teddygirl's comment above about ST good uni guide. I treat it with a bit of a pinch of salt as , again, it favours research but it does include lots of other important measures such as student satisfaction and - new this year , I think - teaching hours.

Teddy DD thinking Human Geog or Int Relations so we may end up looking at same places. Reason we are having a brief look now is so DD can see difference between campus or city and get a feel for the different places.

Piggy Your earlier reply made me laugh…. I quite fancy International Disaster Management at Manchester with a placement year!
Can I ask about opinions on Royal Holloway? It's not one that our school seems to send to, so any feedback useful. It's a damn long way for us and would need to be reasonably interested in order to make the trip.

teddygirlonce I've been lurking on this thread but I couldn't let your comment about Human Geog go unanswered.

My DS is studying Geography at Uni - whilst the course is not named Human Geography the reality is that following a BA course (as opposed to a BSc) means a human biased study (in the first year there were a couple of compulsory Physical modules that everyone had to do). So whilst it may be true to say that not many places offer a degree called Human Geography, the reality is that you get a human geography degree by following Geography BA.

I don't say this to sound clever clever - just that we I did so much research about Geography degrees a couple of years ago and thought it might help you to widen the search if that's desirable! Sorry If I've just taught you how to suck eggs.......

Royal Holloway is highly thought of. A lot of young people and parents are put off by the idea of London - at least those not from there. it can seem very big and daunting : and expensive!

Anyone else looking at Apprenticeships post A levels?

Royal Holloway is in Egham which is basically leafy Surrey. Not for hard party animals possibly. Beautiful campus. Would have been on my firstborn's list were it not a mere 30 min drive from home!

home, I have heard the site is beautiful. To anyone form north of Watford Gap, Surrey is 'London'. I grew up in Glasgow and I think I though everywhere south of York was London!

I imagine it's v expensive for accommodation ?

Hi all. Only just found this after the Yr 11 support thread. DS1 did much better than he expected at GCSE and is now working very hard in his A level courses as he says he's determined to get high grades now he knows he can! He's finding the work load hard though - has a job all day Saturdays and a girlfriend so finding the work-life balance a bit tricky and seems constantly tired. He's doing Politics, Psychology, Law and History. Thinking about universities and wants to visit Bristol, Bath, Exeter, Cardiff and UWE later in the year.

I've been looking at degree apprenticeships : bit of an unknown quantity at the moment. A policing one might appeal to DS1 but I worry about forcing him down a route.

My ds is absolutely determined to do a degree apprenticeship. We looked into them last year and it is the best of both worlds. The one he wants is computer science through Queen Mary’s in london which is a Russel group Uni and a place he has connections and loves. The company’s Be is looking at are the BBC and Goldman Sachs. They employ you, pay your Uni fees and a salary and you work there three days a week and go to Uni two days. They are very very hard to get a place on though. More competitive than Uni!

Sounds great!

Good luck to him.

Have any of your dc had A level predictions yet? Dd got hers yesterday, they are ALPS (or something). I think it is ridiculously early, not sure how meaningful they are (based on GCSE score I think) & am wondering if there is any comeback on the school if they don't meet their targets (do they have progress scores on 6th work).

She's got end of module tests starting next week & running to half term.

We have parents' evening towards the end of term , after initial exams, so assume we will get grade feedback then. Although given our GCSE experience I'm not sure how reliable they will be.

I'm half asleep ... progress scores for 6th form.

Wifit that sounds brilliant - I told dd about it last night. I went to QM (well I was at Barts/London as it merged) I love east London ... we moved away when dd was 18 months but I have such affection for it :)

That's what I was expecting Lizs ... it seems a bit of a risk for the school to be giving out targets based only on GCSE results. Dd's are very high & she'll need to work harder starting now if she wants to achieve them imo

(she's already doing her typical "but I only need (less than her targets)' - I appreciate that she seems fairly robust but I'd hoped the GCSE experience would have motivated her/made her care more or something. I've told her (repeatedly) that I can't teach her A level sciences - she has to work from the beginning. I can't sort it all out for her if it goes horribly badly in the end of year exams)

... and she just messaged to say she got her GCSE B3 paper back. In her words "marking was fine I just fucked up" ... glad we didn't send it for a remark now!

Dd1 said she has her A-level predictions through she tells me. No idea how they worked it out, but she has AAAB. Bit confused though as the B is maths and she's predicted an A in further. Suggested she goes and has a chat about this.

Wow. A Level predictions already. ds doesn't have any as yet.

Witchend, which shows exactly how trustworthy and useful such predictions are, given the students have been on the courses for about a month.

TheFrendo exactly. I'm afraid I laughed when she told me.
I've suggested she asks how this was worked out for her peace of mine, but not to worry about it.

ALPs are worked out on average GCSE points score which then puts them into a specific group. From this they extrapolate target grades (most statistically likely outcomes given past students' attainment with the same profile)

The vary wildly form subject to subject : so Further Maths may well be higher because statistically it is the 'easiest' subject to get an A in, given the ability profile oft he typical student.

In the subject I teach, I once had an entire class of 22 with the same target grade!! They all fell within the same 'group' even though some had Bs and As for English GCSE and some Cs!

Schools do sue it for measuring progress : each subject ahs an ALPs score and then the overall institution. An ALPs of 4 and above (ie 1, 2, 3 ) is good, 5 and 6 are acceptable, 7, 8 an d9 are poor but sometimes there are stories behind those stats,

A decent school should explain all this before doling out grades!

Thanks Piggy, we haven't had anything explained. I'm assuming the grades dd has been given are targets rather than predictions. She'll get a report at half term so it might become clearer then.