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

[LittleSpace]

He got an A star.

[errorofjudgement]

⭐️ Congratulations Littlespace DS!!

[Laniakea]

well done your ds Littlespace

& good luck for all the AS results!

My eldest niece is getting her A level results today - feel surprisingly nervous for her. I had a sneaky look at the leaked OCR grade boundaries last night, biology & physics are pretty normal but chemistry is really high, not sure what went on with that. It's a rehearsal for how terrifying this time next year will be.

[Monkey2001]

DS got AA for AS levels - phew! Not sure many universities care, but a relief to get a good outcome. Threshold for Biology (Edexcel) was really high for them (2016 - 52%, 2017 - 54%, 2018 - 66%) so I think there are moderation issues going on with small cohort.

Littlespace Happy for you and DS

[errorofjudgement]

Congratulations Monkey2991 - excellent results! Will they count towards A levels or are they completely stand alone?

[TheFrendo]

Surely, they wont count. A levels are linear now.

[SlowDown76mph]

Surely, they wont count. A levels are linear now

Not true of all exam boards/specs.

[TheFrendo]

There are a few A levels that will be linear starting in 2018, exams 2020.

^ancient languages
modern foreign languages (Arabic, Bengali, Gujarati, Greek, Japanese, modern Hebrew, Panjabi, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Turkish, Urdu)^

www.gov.uk/government/publications/get-the-facts-gcse-and-a-level-reform/get-the-facts-as-and-a-level-reform

I understand all others are linear.

Is there more to it?

[Laniakea]

my niece got AAB - very happy child & ecstatic parents!

[LittleSpace]

Thanks everyone. Congratulations to your ds Monkey and to Laniakea's niece! And anyone else too.

Some of ds friends collected AS exams that count as they just did the year and then dropped that particular subject.

[SlowDown76mph]

CIE A levels, popular with UK home-educated students and private/independent candidates, as well as international students, still retain the choice of assessment routes.

[Monkey2001]

DS's AS results don't count towards A levels but he did them because he had to drop from 4 to 3 subjects and had not decided which one to give up and was encouraged to take AS to get something for the work he had done this year.

I have also discovered since that Cambridge admission tutors like students to have done AS levels. They don't discriminate against those that have not, but they like the confidence it gives them in the predicted grades of those who have done AS levels.

[BigSandyBalls2015]

Reading this is making me nervous! Two DDs about to enter year 13 ..... neither of them have shown much interest in discussing/visiting uni or doing personal statements etc. They seem to think they've got loads of time, but surely most of the open days were June/July! What's the deadline?

Fine if they decided uni isn't for them but I don't want them to miss the boat if they do decide on that path.

They both seem a bit 'head in the sand' at the moment and unwilling to discuss school as it's the holidays.

[LittleSpace]

Don't worry as there are another load of Open Days in the Autumn. Get them to book slots online now though.

Personal Statements only have to be done early by Oxford and Cambridge applicants. The rest have until Christmas and they tend to do them at school.

[Witchend]

Phew! Got what she wanted in a/s by quite a bit. Relief.
Although I did have to send her a text at 11.30 asking if she'd got the results (due at 11) and she didn't respond until nearly 1!
I was a nervous wreck by then, wondering if she was too upset to.tell me. 😁

[pointythings]

We have open days booked for September/October. DD has started on her PS and is using the UCAS template, and is about to take delivery of some more Shakespeare. She's also working on the intro to her History coursework.

Apart from that it has been a pretty awful summer so far - we found out in the first week of the holidays that my H (we were separated but not yet divorced) has died suddenly. So DDs are now having to deal with the fact that they will never have the opportunity to rebuild a relationship with their father (to be fair he broke the relationship, but still). Plus funeral, plus international issues around inheritance... The only silver lining I see is that it's happened now instead of 3 months down the line.

[foundoutyet]

dc did not even bother collecting his AS result....

[Monkey2001]

pointythings that is terrible and puts all this other stuff into context.

Maybe the other silver lining is that you don't all have to go through a divorce.

[Laniakea]

oh pointythings I'm so sorry, what an awful thing for your girls to go through You must all have such complicated feelings.

[errorofjudgement]

Pointythings - so sorry to read about what a difficult time you’re having. Truly does put all the school stuff into
perspective

[thegreylady]

Dgd got B B C and very happy to have been accepted by York to read English.

[pointythings]

It does put things into perspective. But DDs are both determined to work hard and do well. DD1 got AAC on her mock (the C was very upper borderline) with extremely harsh marking. Her UCAS is AAB, but her English teacher thinks she is in with a shot at A*. Those grades will get her where she wants to go. Am looking forward to open days.

[AtiaoftheJulii]

Two DDs about to enter year 13 ..... neither of them have shown much interest in discussing/visiting uni or doing personal statements etc. They seem to think they've got loads of time, but surely most of the open days were June/July! What's the deadline?

I think just about all universities run another open day in the autumn, so they haven't missed anything yet. The UCAS deadline is 15 January next year (unless they want Oxbridge/medical school/vet med, which presumably they would have mentioned!). School will probably have internal deadlines to try to get UCAS forms and references processed at a reasonable rate, but obviously they have more give in them!

pointy - I'm so sorry, what an upsetting and confusing thing to happen. Hope you can all look after each other.

And well done to those getting results today, sounds like we're all happy

[Witchend]

(((hugs))) to pointy and her dds.

Looks like a good set of results here. Well done all!

[Laniakea]

when is everyone back at school/college?

dd is back on the 5th, she survived Reading Fest but is having a couple more days off to chill (?). She hasn't done any work on the EPQ so far, it needs to be done by the 6th & she has physics retakes the following week. I'm biting my lip & quietly fretting.