GCSE’s summer 2020 thread 5 - And then there were none..

[FoolsAssassin]

Once upon a time there was a group of year 11 students who had spent the last few years preparing to sit their GCSE exams in the summer of 2020. Then one day they woke up and found themselves as characters in a real life disaster movie and as if by magic the exams disappeared.

What lies next for the Corona Cohort?!

Thread 4
Thread 3
Thread 2
Thread 1 (Year 10)

Anyone lurking please feel free to jump on in .

Is it actually ‘free’ or subject to a minimum spend of £7?

IIRC last year they got a free 1/4 chicken. Not sure if anything with it (probably not). But I think they could just go in and get the freebie!

When I think.of Nandos I.just think of queues! The nearest one to me isin a very popular shopping centre by the habour though do.lots if day outers.

I had my first Nando's around 20years ago in Epsom near where my family are...it is still the best restaurant - no others compare

Now I want Nando’s....

@OrangeCinnamon I didn't realise Nando's had been going for twenty years? Wow! I only had it for the first time probably five years ago after the girls chose it.

We've got a sixteenth birthday to celebrate tomorrow... she'll be meeting up with a few friends (outside, social distanced) and has scheduled video calls with different groups of friends throughout the day. I think a quiz and a 'netflix party' are planned.

We've planned all her favourite meals but still not quite the big joint birthday party she's been talking about for almost a year. Her friend from dance has a birthday on the same day so they'd always said they'd have a massive joint 16th at the end of GCSEs, crossing over all their friends because lots of them are going to the same sixth form. And a lot of them know each other from other hobbies and primary school!

It’s tough for them with their birthdays . Hopefully 18ths will be much more normal, strange to think it’s not really that much over a year away for DS and only just over 3 months until he can drive (if they start issuing provisional licences again) He’s my little one, how on earth can that have happened

Starting to think about September and wondering what that will look like for him and how this might work at that point (or later) with the weekly boarding aspect. Recent job ad says hopefully Sept start, Jan at latest.

DD will hear at end of the month about her year abroad, 5 of the universities her year group were allocated have withdrawn and visa applications not being processed at the moment.

Hopefully they delay years abroad (especially for language students) at the worst - it'd be especially disruptive for people to have to find accommodation if they had/wanted to be back in their university cities for October/January.

All three of mine are summer babies so we've got a 14th in about a month and an 18th in August! Hopefully she'll be able to do something... It was around results day and she has a friend with a close birthday so like DD2 she was planning a big end-of-an-era related joint birthday celebration. And she had two post A-level trips (an interrailing venture and a holiday to Greece - she's been saving for years) planned with friends that are most likely not happening so the 18th birthday/summer might have to effectively happen for her 19th

Oh that’s rough in your eldest Rosie.

It’s all a bit of a logistical nightmare. Options include deferring but then she would have to find work and doubt that there will be much around as she won’t want to spend a year here . Another option is to resit year 2 which she seems to be favouring as says hates online learning and struggles and worried she won’t get language to where it needs to be for final year. But then that’s another year we have to contribute to which wasn’t budgeted for. Am sure it will come good in the end but had a bit of a moment yesterday over it all,

@RoiseCap happy birthday to your daughter for yesterday , it's sad lots of plans having to be pit on hold. Then again i have Chinese students still wanting to come in to study t the Uni I work at so it seems like there is some hope .

@foolsAssassin logistically that sounds tricky -

Thank you @OrangeCinnamon! I wonder if there's no real taste for 'gap years' or delaying higher education in China. I know DD and a lot of her friends are considering deferring or reapplying next year if normality doesn't resume for fresher's.

I think DD2 had a nice enough day. The kids I feel most for in this lockdown is those who perhaps don't have as many close friends. DDs are all very lucky to have constant messages/calls to field in this period, but I know our niece has really struggled with friends not making an effort/reaching out. At least seeing them every day at school prevents isolation and is no effort.

DD doesn't have close friends. The ones she thought were her friends didn't even bother to tag her in goodbye messages or message her on the last day before lockdown. She had not been in school at that point for over a week .

She is a July birthday so it is always a bit of a washout anyhow but this year I am so worried about how to make it special for her...mind you she'd be ecstatic if it included Maccie Ds

@OrangeCinnamon I think there are quite a few DCs in that friendship situation, if they are part of a crowd the social interaction just stopped. Hope she finds some close friends at sixth form - that is what happened for a neighbour's DD, after 5 years of being a bit lost at her "nice" private school, she went to one of the local state sixth forms and blossomed socially.

Maccie D anticipation here too. I am assuming the queues are ridiculous at the moment and telling them to wait a couple of weeks. Queues now reasonable at local KFC.

DD’s birthday is July as well. She’s decided already that it will be quiet and that she can celebrate another time. Its sad, but at this point probably the best way to go.

OrangeCinnamon that sounds very hard. Fingers crossed for next year.

DS feels Nando’s is very overrated but he’s not keen on chicken so probably not surprising

@OrangeCinnamon it's so tough nowadays with everything on social media as well - at least without it you had no idea what everyone else was up to! Apparently my lovely niece was upset the other night because what she saw as her main group of friends had done a group call and put it on instagram stories. A few of them were left out I think but it still hurts so much at that age. Hopefully she finds her people later in life - college/sixth form or university, or even beyond. One of my close friends says she never felt she fitted with a group until she met us and was always an outsider to friendships before!

It must be so much harder for them now to see social events plastered all over instagram/snapchat. I would have been the one feeling left out, so I really sympathise with such youngsters. I think it's possibly an introvert/extrovert thing. The world has always favoured and lauded extroverts with lots of friends, as if that's the 'right' way to be and social media just makes it even worse.

Weirdly my dd is an extrovert with lots of friends, so she's been ok. It was her birthday too this week and I think she had a nice time with a couple of zoom quizzes, a BBQ, takeaway pizza and games with us. She also had her first 'socially distanced' meet up with friends, just three of them in a garden.

One thing I've noticed is she was absolutely fine until the last week or two with not doing anything, as no one else was. Now suddenly she's seeing on her stories groups of people meeting up - more than 6, no obvious social distancing - and she's started to feel a bit wistful I think, like she's missing out. Yet she's committed to doing the right thing and not flouting the rules. It just makes it harder when others do it so openly.

It's just struck me that we're about halfway through now, if sixth form starts (even part time or online) in September. Dd has managed to occupy herself for the last 11-12 weeks without any work to do but I think this next 12 or so might be harder, as this is when the fun stuff would have started to happen. Also, she's typically done lots of shopping/food trips and sleepovers with friends in the holidays and I can't see these activities being allowed any time soon.

She will have some A Level prep work to do once it's released by her new school, but it won't take more than 2 or 3 days!

Thanks all...I live in hope that she will make truer friends. She is a bit boy obsessed sometimes and that doesn't help.

Yes @crazycrofter still quite a way to go. Thinking about putting Dd to work in the garden over the summer

Has anyone’s DC started any small group sports training? Cricket starts this week for us - very exciting!

No - we have a swimmer - just land training stuff on the club website. Swim England are producing some return to the pool guidance next week so we are all getting a bit too excited!

That does sound exciting @kingscotestaff and intriguing 1

DD jazz collective has gone online - then again lots of music has ... I can't imagine the cricket though?

DS is thrilled to be back on a tennis court. Have to say the social distancing measures seem to be followed. Hand sanitiser bottles fastened to the netting around the courts.

DD is at a training session this afternoon to prepare for coaching 5 Under 7s on Wednesday!

Kingscote that will certainly prove a distraction ! I think it's great to share your passion and give back to your club.

Ds really misses his theatre group. He should have been performing in a show later this month, and we think the November show will be cancelled too.

Exciting that people are going back to activities.

Netball for oldest DDs (they do both local club and city U19/Y17 teams) have announced that they're rolling out plans for return which is exciting. DD2's online dance classes have been great and she's been jumping on other studios'. I am yet to see anything about being back to real life dance classes at either studio.

DD3 is a mad diver so has time for nothing else and like the swimmer is waiting on Swim England guidance...