GCSEs 2018 (13) Untwisting our knickers, lucky for some!

[Stickerrocks]

Thread 12 Link to the thread with our potted histories. Now the end is in sight.

I did wonder! I thought maybe it was so that they could have something to speak to the girls in the class about?

That too, probably!

@mmzz - it made my sad because i remembers what you'd said previously about how school had been for him. Of course there are others with troubles but it was when you said he wouldn't hear from anyone for 3 months that it got me.

DS1 and DS2 (Year 8) are not interested in Love Island. DS2 did try it as some boys were talking about it but declared it rubbish. DD (Year 9) is absolutely obsessed.

DS1 is much more interested in The Apprentice. He was cross he couldn't come to my office last week when they filmed a segment there.

sandybayley Both my DSs love The Apprentice! They'd want a blow by blow account of everything if they knew you.

mmzz if you live in London send your ds round! No boys in this house like Love Island and they love Attenborough documentaries and GOT. dd has been known to watch it though Football can be a very competitive game, ds2 found it difficult to play with anyone in school because they tend to be too good/exclusive, but he has home friends he plays with in very small random groups, mostly a year younger (even though they too are much better than him)

mmzz other people have big medical things going on but what you've said about your DS has clearly struck several maternal chords, and his is a big thing too, for both of you. It must be incredibly hard to watch a DS in a situation like that but actually I don't think it's that uncommon. I quite see why you're so concerned he should move for a completely fresh start. I bet you anything you like the new school will shift on grades at the margins though - all schools want good sized sixth forms at the moment - so I don't think you should worry yourself for the next two months. It sounds as though your DS has done very well in any event, but you do seem to be a worrier (apologies if that's wrong - just how it appears on these threads). From everything you've said about his exams I'd bet good money that he'll be completely fine on grades and then he'll almost certainly find his clan in the new sixth form.

Maybe they'll need Ds for a 5-a-side match this summer, so maybe he'll hear from one of them.

The thing i'm trying to do at the moment is work out how to give DS a 16th that allows him not have to acknowledge that he has no friends to invite. It is in term time, unfortunately, otherwise I'd have accidentally-on-purpose organised a family holiday for that week.

I'm not sure if I'm ashamed to say that DS1 aged 24 and DS2 aged 22 are seriously, seriously obsessed with Love Island :)

There was an article recently I think in the Times about how more people watched Love Island than a programme commemorating the Suffragettes, and how shocking this was. Essentially that Love Island was really quite sexist and demeaning to women, and demeaning to men too, in that they were being judged on their looks alone. I'm hoping dd likes it because she is fascinated by how awful the characters are. NOT because she believes what it peddles.[In fact I need to talk to her about it]

goodbyestranger thanks for that. Yes, I am a worrier by nature!

mmzz how do you mean it's in term time? Hasn't he left school for the year?

DS1 has left, but DS2 hasn't.

"I'm hoping dd likes it because she is fascinated by how awful the characters are"

Yes, I like to think the same!

Of course. Dim of me.

ds2 hasn't had a 16th and ds1 hasn't had an 18th. I've said we are having a catch all family party, with some people of their age invited so they don't have to be the hosts but still have the pleasure of having some "guests". Dd went to Wagamama with some friends and she organised it herself, friends paid for themselves. And that was all. It doesn't have to be a big event if your child is not that way inclined. Some people do parties, some people don't. I think it starts with the parents really. I am not really that keen on parties tbh, I find them terribly stressful. I had them every year dutifully for the children but I now think they are old enough to decide to have friends over if they want to, otherwise my parties will have to suffice for their corporate entertainment!

hmc I think I have to acknowledge that my DC simply like trash. This syndrome isn't new :(

I think I have been living in a hole as I had never watched Love Island until today. Have been hearing it mentioned and generally on media but had never heard of it before this summer.

Asked DD about it who said she had watched season 1 and 2 on Netflix - and she said it's one of those programs you watch because it is so bad. Watching how stupid it is in comparison makes you feel
More intelligent. Doesn't have the slightest interest in current series.

I decided to watch episode 1 of season 1 just to see what all the fuss is about. Not sure if it improves in further series but is shockingly bad. And shockingly addicting (is that a word?). Clearly my brain can't take any more intellectual stuff. Oh my god - GCSEs have reduced to me to Love Island. Mindless tv to destress.

That's true for a lot of dc I think goodbye (although in our case just for dd, her younger brother (14) is utterly scathing of it)

There was that really strange moment in Friends when Joey and Chandler used to settle down to see Baywatch, wasn't there, it was like a box within a box, the joke being that they themselves liked soaps when they were soaps

My idea of trashy tv is The Waltons. Why settle for anything less?

Without having ever seen more than the odd clip of Love Island, I think its like The Only Way is Essex (which i have watched).
Its more than a bit trashy. You hope your own DC aren't so vacuous, you wonder if any of the people on it have any concept that a person's value isn't mainly their looks, but somehow the time passes and you realise that you've just watched the whole episode.

Nettleskeins Jussive is usually translated as "may" - tends to be used when talking to someone important, like a king. Hard to spot, as often looks like regular third person verb.
Cohortative is usually translated as "let me" (unless you are talking about God, who doesn't need to be permitted, and hence should be translated "I will"). Much easier to spot as usually has a suffix.
Participles are super tricky, as they can be either verbs or nouns (or even adjectives). As verbs, they tend to take the same place as the present tense, as nouns, they they tend to be the person doing the action, or as defined by the action - eg the healer, or the one who heals. They need to be able to identify both the active and passive participle form in the simple conjegation for the GCSE.
I did Latin at school, and there are a lot of similarities in the the way you approach it, but it is not at all structured like Latin (although when one of the rare bits of the seen text, the grammatical section referred to a "gerund", I thought to myself - I am sure I knew what a gerund was once!
Didn't meant to educate myself in the intricacies of Biblical Hebrew, but DS was seriously struggling in December, and it was the only way. DH thinks I should have taken the exam too!

Yes, exactly that mmzz

omg [first time viewer here] yes addictive. Its the music, pounding in the background and the fact that they are so beautiful. Curiously relaxing too. You don't have to think much. They do the emotions for you.

Probably why I kept lurking on this thread. Because nobody else at DSs school seemed to be involved at all with this GCSE, or have any idea what was going on, and it was nice to feel that there were other heavily involved mums out there. And the thing is, the other GCSE subjects he is taking, he is much more independent about (except the French), he studies for maths and physics and such on his own these days, and English I don't really know how to help him (Year 7 and 8 were a different story, I helped a lot there, and a theoretical physics degree really helped, but he has gained a lot of independence, and the maths has really flowered).