Gcses 2019 support thread 5

[Iambuffy]

Hi :)
Hope this is ok as we are at 1000 posts on thread 4!

Well Ds is seriously stressed now 🙁 conditional offer from college which still stands (needs 5 level 5s or above in GCSE) but they've withdrawn the accommodation offer which means he will have to travel in each day, over 2 hours each way! Apparently he was offered it in error and there's nothing they can do. So I now have a pile of kit sitting in the spare room, duvets, kettle, tv etc which won't be needed 😡

On the other hand he will now be living at home but dear god the travelling! And he can't do the course he wants to any closer to home.

Woo that is a long commute!! How far sway would you have to be to qualify for accommodation?! Sounds very stressful for both of you.

I'm just checking in and catching up on the thread. Name change - was triggers before.

Congratulations to those that already have their results. Dd can get hers from school 0830 onwards, she is nervous and is thinking of waiting till the rush is over. I'll just wait in the car.

whojamaflip 2 hours 😱 poor boy, is it worth looking at rooms to rent nearby .

Dd herself faces a bit of a commute, involving 2 boats and a bus! She seems unfazed, she does have 1 friend also joining her thankfully. They need to enrol with their results on Thursday.

College do provide a minibus which goes round and fetches students to college. Distance wise it's not that far but has 2 notorious bottle necks which can add hours to the journey when bad. (And heaven forbid there's an accident - may as well give up and go home than wait to get through!) minibus travelling time is longer anyway as they go round all the little villages between here and the college. If I drove him in everyday it would still be around 90 minutes one way with no traffic problems. I can't afford to spend 6 hours in the car taking him there and back.

Ds is only 16 and while I'm happy for him to be in halls, I dont think I'd be that comfortable with him fending for himself in a rented room somewhere in the city.

He's on the waiting list for halls so fingers crossed there's some movement when the results come out next week.

Boats and bus!! Actually sounds like that could be a lovely commute 😊

The Exam Officers will have the grades on Wednesday 21st. A necessity because they have to print out the results slips for the next day.

Teachers can access the results early on Thurs 22nd but the sites are often so busy the Exam Office spreadsheet email is more reliable.
Grade boundaries are published mid morning but a little working out and cross referencing can reveal the grade boundaries before they're officially available.

Parents, if you can, take a photo of the results slip. That point score close to grade boundaries is so important in deciding whether to apply for a review or even whether to do a retake if available. A student can be a few marks off target grade or up to 20. Teachers can then look at individual question point scores and hopefully identify skills gaps or discrepancies. It's a bit of a faff but do-able. That point score, for example 74/160 (English Language), will really help, especially if the student is joining a different provider after Year 11.

Examiners mark thoroughly as well as being committed to awarding the correct grade. It often takes much longer to mark a question that it would have taken the student to answer one.

Students who have given it their best shot should be celebrating their achievement next week. Not everyone is ready at 15/16 but there are ways round everything.

Education is something you get to keep forever. No-one can take it away. In a way it is your treasure chest that you can pass on to your children - as diverse and wonderful they are.

I'm a GCSE teacher and on the edge of my seat for next week.

Very nerve wracking to think that as the kids walk in the teachers already know what the results are and who has done really well (or not)

Just dreading it to be honest.

Lovely and helpful post tarara

Ds1 worked so hard, I so hope it's reflected in his results.

I hope you don't mind me popping in. I was in your position this time last year waiting anxiously for GCSE results and I was relatively clueless about year 12.

If any of your DCs are moving to sixth form colleges, sort out a decent passport photo which they can live with over the next few days. They will need this for enrolment, rail cards etc. They won't get their GCSE certificates straight away, so take a couple of copies of their results slips for college admissions. They will probably need photo id or a passport on enrolment day.

The government has just introduced a 16-17 railcard which can be used for buying cheap season tickets until their 18th birthday. This is more cost effective than a standard 16-25 railcard as it's designed to give a discount at peak times, not just off peak. Some colleges have negotiated scholar season tickets which are also good value for term time travel.

Get your DC to sign up for Unidays. This will give them 5% - 15% discounts with lots of retailers and great discounts for eating out. You can usually take advantage of Unidays codes they give you for your own online shopping too.

If any of them are interested in applying for medicine, vet school or Oxbridge, they will need to start building up relevant experience from the start of year 12. This all needs to be subject related, as these degree courses aren't interested in D of E, head boy/ head girl, sporting achievements etc. but super curricular activities like relevant work experience for free Cambridge subject master classes in the spring term.

Don't worry if they only want to take 3 A levels or quickly drop a 4th subject. Very few people take 4 now with the exception of further maths. They can often chop & change for the first term or half term,. Lots of people start one course and switch to something different.

Good luck on Thursday. We were leaping into the unknown last year, but it was nowhere near as bad as we thought it would be in the end.

Thank you hog
I'll dig hos passport photo out!

We have been waiting for the new railcard to come out.. but it still says ‘coming soon’ on website
Good idea about passport size photos for various things.. thanks

It should go on sale on 20 August, a few days after the deadline for getting my DD's season ticket for next term!

Why is there a deadline for getting the season ticket? That's even before the GCSE results! Can this be renegotiated bearing in mind the Railcard?

DD will be traveling by train and I worked out that just taking school weeks into account it's cheaper to buy weekly than monthly or annually because of all of the holiday. Of course that didn't account for the times in the holidays she'll want to travel in over the holidays to meet friends, so instead I might get a contribution from her towards one that covers the whole term.

The Railcard makes a massive difference to us and has been the deciding factor between train and bus, originally there was over £120 a month difference between them, it's a lot for families to find, it would have been nearly £2,000 at full price.

My DD is already at a 6th form college where the new year 13s go back before the year 12s start. We had to order our season tickets from the college itself as they negotiate a substantial discount. The new year 12s will order their season tickets when they enrol. Don't worry, new students don't miss out, they just have longer yo get themselves organised, whereas year 13s already knowwhat they are doing.

Ah, that makes more sense, so you don't really need the railcard. No cheap train travel through college where we are, I think probably so few students travel by train as most come from closer by it's not worth the college bothering.

I bookmarked the 16/18 railcard months ago...... they have taken a really long time to sort it out, as it was announced in January. Anyway, definitely getting that for DD. She already has Unidays, you can get it from 16. Having a digital photo of DC's is really useful for all these cards. Used DD1's for applying for her provisional license as a surprise for her birthday, worked a treat.

I'd not seen anything about the 16-17 Railcard till I heard it on Alexa via the BBC news the other day, and I'm a regular rail user and I've just had a family Railcard expire, I don't think they've publicised it well.

Getting anxious here!

DS2 hasn’t been in mainstream school since year 4. He took 7 GCSEs and 2 BTECs but feels he didn’t pass any. I wish he’d just taken 4/5 GCSESs, but that wasn’t an option.

The transition to college and transport is as silly and convoluted as everything with SEND tends to be. He can get a bus pass from the council (it’s taken 2 letters, phone calls and 6 weeks and still not received) BUT it’s a disabled person bus pass so only works after 9.30am! It’s a 25 mile round trip to college. You have to apply for a college bursary to make up the difference. Without this, it would be £700 p.a. To keep his existing taxi would only cost me a contribution of £500!

He needs 4 level 3s for the course he wants to do. It would be great if he didn’t need to retake maths and English but I can’t see it.

And... he was out of school from December 2018 onwards. He is refusing to go in to get his results but I’ve got to go in and not open the envelope, just bring it back to him!

I’m hoping I can gauge what they are simply by watching the rise and fall of his specialist teacher’s eyebrows.

Dd having dreams about getting E grades or whatever it is now, also no appetite and breaking out in zits.

Ds1 has gone back to bed! 😮😮

frith
Have you contacted your MP?
🤞 for ds x

@Hoooo - not recently. I did re: DS1’s bus pass to school which cost me £800p.a for 5 years. I was on benefits for 3 of those years.

They’ll actually be at the same college next year (first time at the same place for 8 years!) so, if DS1 didn’t have an EHCP, it would cost me £1400p.a.

Meant to say - no reduction for the school bus pass.

£800 x 5 so £4000 to get to the high school that we live in the catchment area of. Because another high school over the border was 500metres closer!