GCSE Summer 2020 - Thread 11 Carry on Corona Cohort - Starting New Terms and Settings

[OrangeCinnamon1]

Welcome all to the 11th Thread for this year's GCSE cohort - The Corona Cohort!

This is a thread for supporting all young people post GCSEs regardless of the institute they attend or the grades they needed. It is respectfully requested that we are all supportive and helpful to each other. If you want to start a debate e.g state vs private - please don't within this thread.

Similarly it should be recognised that the grades our children need/deserve/want will vary across the board. One same grade outcome can simultaneously cause Joy and Despair for different posters. Please be sensitive when responding to threads about grades.

Some of us have been here since I started first thread back in yr10, some will be new. Everyone has been friendly and helpful in the past. It is hoped this will continue. Going forward any new threads should have 'GCSE Summer 2020 Thread # : Carry on Corona Cohort' in title just to make it easier to find. Not fussy about who starts those !

From now on our DS/DD may go down various paths such as employment, apprenticeships, higher ed, so we decided not to be exclusionary and stay right here in Secondary - at least until Mumsnet HQ chuck us out .

At this precise moment in time we have had GCSE results . It has been decided that the higher of Centre Assesd Grades and Calculated Grades will be awarded - the algorithim seems to have been applied a schol level to the detriment of some students. Lots of our young people have already started on the next stage of their journey with some still to start.

We are all STILL trying to protect our young people's mental health, which the government claimed was their priority...when they talk about wanting students back in schools/college in September...now we have their physical health to consider too as the mingling at various settings starts up again. Hopefully a positive experience this term!

First Thread

previous thread

That's really funny @icanbewhatiwant

My daughter has the £4.99 guaranteed pass one and it seems really good.

Except every time I drive her, I now have her pointing out all the road signs, hazards etc....

DS turns 17 at HT so driving lessons for his present. I’m not anticipating him taking his test until next summer so no rush on the theory, etc.

ASUS vivobook laptop & new backpack have arrived. Good spec for £500 budget considering it’s just to use his free study periods more efficiently. Booked UK HT break on our nearest coast. House right on the seafront. Looking forward to it despite it being just 1.5 hrs away. We normally visit on day trips but we’re pretty desperate for a change of scenery.

@icanbewhatiwant

Sarahbeans is that the same one Monkey suggested? The DVSA one?

Icanbewhatiwant hilarious 😆

Ds must think mumsnetters are always tracking their dc's. We have never had a conversation about tracking apps. 🤣

No tracking, just a bit of match-making!

Morning!

Wow lots to catch up on. Belated Happy Birthday to @KingscoteStaff dd! Hope she had a lovely time celebrating. Dds is in a couple of weeks, she's accepted that its going to be fairly low key this year. 17 does sound quite grown-up, I certainly felt very grown-up when I was 17, although my life was quite different to what dd's is now!

Re. all of the food chat, there's only me and dd and I'm pleased she seems to have outgrown most of her fussiness. My focus now is on teaching her to cook.

Dd really enjoyed her first week, I was impressed, and surprised, that her energy levels stayed high all week. I really expected a full week early mornings, walking to school and back, lesson etc would have her flagging by Wednesday but maybe lockdown hasn't had as much of an effect as I anticipated! She was even up and rearing to go on Saturday morning for getting back to her theatre group. She's still really enjoying Sixth Form, seems to be making friends with some nice people, enjoys that they have more freedom than school and the work seems to be off to a good start.

I'm wondering about buying her a Maths text book, not on the instruction of the school I just wonder if it would be beneficial for her to have the 'rules' written down somewhere to refer to. Maybe I'm overthinking it but I'm just conscious if she does go onto study Maths at a higher level it will be easier if she hasn't formed any bad habits.

Hope everyone has a good week this week.

@greenele My DS had the CGP revision book for his Maths A level syllabus. He had text books from school but they were so large it was quite overwhelming trying to find anything in them. The CGP was the bare bones of the topics so easier to look things up, refresh your memory etc (much cheaper too!).

I recommend the revision work books too. DS's school advises us to buy them (they do Edexcel so it is www.amazon.co.uk/Revise-Edexcel-Mathematics-Revision-Workbook/dp/1292190612)?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

They can work through everything by topic whilst revising and identify any weak spots.

My DCs would not have opened a text book unless told to by school!

Can you please tell me if this is a silly idea - DS has mentioned that out of all his subjects Politics is the one that seems to be going over his head a bit and asked if there’s a book I could get him to help a bit. I had bought him the book ‘The lean startup’, during the hols/lockdown because he is entrepreneurship mad and this book was apparently a best seller if you’re interested in that sort of thing. Since he has started doing Economics and business studies he’s been raving about how concepts he read about in the book are also mentioned in lessons and he could contribute so much yadda, yadda.

So I thought perhaps he would benefit from reading, ‘Life in the UK, test handbook’. It’s the book that you’re supposed to read for the citizenship interviews (to become a uk citizen) but in there it describes key things like government structure of the UK, etc etc I thought this might give him like a bride dummies guide to politics in the UK but in a fun way.

Do you think this is a good book for this sort of thing? He doesn’t want another academic book he’s already got those but just wanted a ‘fun read’.

@shimy sorry, no idea about books to help with politics but hopefully someone else will! Just curious about your son’s subject choices as my son (year 10) sounds a bit similar. Presumably there’s no issue with doing Business and Economics together then? There’s not too much overlap?

I'm a bit of a lurker (DD just started year 12) but I also work in a school library.

Brilliant that a student wants to read round their subject - I would advise a google search for reading lists for their subject. Lots of sixth forms and unis publish them online. And Exam boards sometimes have lists of teacher resources:

www.aqa.org.uk/resources/government-and-politics/as-and-a-level/government-and-politics/a-level/teach/resource-list

Newspapers and magazines like the Economist are great sources of info and they all have content online.

Hope that helps

I shall to join in a bit more and not lurk...

Welcome ACMEinc. Always lovely to see new faces; especially those who are also in the knowledge camp

@crazycrofter There is a bit of overlap between Economics and Business studies. Economics is the more traditional subject that underpins business studies. I was a bit concerned because some universities regard the two as too similar so would prefer you chose just one of them. However, we’ve looked at the universities (which DS has in mind)for any preferred subjects and found no such Clause. Also looked at past offer data on Uniguide.co.uk for most popular A’Level subject combination for his proposed course and surprisingly quite a lot did the two subjects together. But it depends on the Course & university. DS is thinking of Management or something along those lines, if your dc is thinking of e.g Economics they might have be slightly more fussy about doing Econs & Bus studies together. Some have more specific subject requirement eg LSE, so pls check the
university websites first to see if they have a list of preferred subjects for what your DS wants to study, or if there are any subject clauses.

Last but not the least, DS chose Business studies as a fourth subject together with Politics, so might yet drop it by xmas, we don’t know or continue with it and drop Politics. His two main subjects are Economics & Geography.

@ACMEincThank you very much for that link. Very useful.

Thanks @shimy! Ds is adamant he wouldn’t want to go to uni at the moment but he’s only just 14 so things may change. He very much can’t see the point of certain academic subjects like Maths, English - he only likes subjects which have a practical real life application! He’s taking Business GCSE and seems interested already and he often asks questions about the economy, hence why I think these subjects might appeal.

I’m surprised he can’t see how Maths and English would be applied in real life, I get not the whole Maths syllabi’s but numbers, statistics(COVID figs) graphical representation of performance, metrics etc there’s so much in there that is applied in everyday life. Engineering, Accounting, Retail, plumbing, carpentry etc they all use a Maths. He probably takes English for granted because he can speak it, but English is the lingua Franca in so many countries.

I think as he gets closer to GCSEs and his friends start talking about what they want to do afterwards, career talks at school etc it will all click into place for him. You could also get him to look at some virtual university open days to get him ‘in the zone’ if you see what I mean.

I know, he's quite stubborn and opinionated! He definitely needs an end goal to motivate him. I don't mind if he doesn't go to university as long as he's got a decent alternative plan lined up. We'll see, he's an August born so still quite young!

I’m surprised he can’t see how Maths and English would be applied in real life

My DS is studying A Level maths slightly reluctantly for just this reason. He can see that it has useful applications in other things, but maths on its own is just a bit dull for him. Same thing for English really - I hated studying English at school, but I have to read large volumes of material, pick out salient points and summarise all the time - which I'm happy to do as it's English with a purpose.

@crazycrofter He sounds like my DS1 and he’s August born too. There are always graduate apprenticeships, although I think those were casualties of the pandemic this yr, hopefully they’ll have found a vaccine by his time.

@RedskyAtnight I agree Maths is rather dull, I loathed it, but it does the opposite for the right person.

Haha, as a maths graduate, I loved the tidiness of maths and how it was all right or wrong. Although at degree level it gets a lot more abstract. My DC like it because they find it easy.

@crazycrofter it is great when they have strong views of what they want, DS1 always wanted to be a doctor, which was easy, DS2 flits around not knowing what he wants to do. He is considering Edinburgh because you can do a mixture of engineering and sports science in your first year and keep your options open! Maybe this might be something for your DS - www.pwc.co.uk/careers/student-careers/school-careers/our-programmes/flying-start-degrees.html.

...... just to clarify, I don't mean it is easy to become a doctor, just that there is a clear pathway and it is a nice vocational degree.

Thanks @monkey2001. I worked at PwC for nearly 20 years and I'd definitely recommend their school leaver programmes - these and the higher apprenticeships. At the moment, ds definitely doesn't want to work in an office though! He's thinking army ... or anything where he can be active. He's young though and may well really get into something in the next four years.

Army is great for apprenticeships, one of DH's godsons went off this weekend to start his apprenticeship to become a battlefield paramedic.

@crazycrofter My DS is also interested in joining the army - I've been trying to encourage him to think about what area he is most interested in, but he has no clue at the moment!