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

Sorry to hear about issues in the early days of Sixth form. It's all so stressful.

We're having a bit of a time with school. DD was told she would be able to drop her 4th subject straight away. New academic head has now said she can't.

DD has always wanted to do science, Biology at Uni. She's doing Bio, Chem and Geography which she loves. Philosophy was her 4th - no use to her future plans she only took it because she likes the teacher. We've Covid to deal with so school time precious in my view. Why waste the time on a 4th she has no interest in? She's dyslexic as well so the extra reading and writing takes forever.

Hopefully we'll get it sorted, but I fear I'll have to drag the SENCO into all. The previous academic head was great, so irritated that he left.

@MirandaWest i’d Love DS to tell me if my newly bought hat were awful. I’d be ever so grateful, much better than the usual grunts of ‘Sawright’, without even looking up.

STILL no Spanish teacher and no comms from school. Sounds like they had a trainee today.

The teacher is now in the country living in our village but now they are waiting for paperwork...past experience tells me this takes months. FFS.

I might just knock on all the doors in the village until I find her and send DS over.

Piggy Do you think at this point DS might consider a different subject altogether so as not to jeopardise his overall results? All this messing around after months at home must be so upsetting for the students. It really is it fair.

Trouble is Spanish was the number one choice!

DS having issues with login for Microsoft teams. Over a week and still not sorted. Minor breakdown over it tonight. Doesn’t auger well when the inevitable happens and lessons or notes etc online....

Oh dear Piggy you will justifiably have to become that parent.

Fools I hope the boarding element improves soon with a steer from the school leadership.

Having complained about sociology about 5 years ago and regularly complained about Spanish, and had a row about 'facilitating subjects', I fear I am already that parent.

At least it was always over academics!

Oh yes, not haircuts or toilet breaks!

Well, you’ve nothing to lose then Piggy. Complain away, it’s for good reason.

@Wheresthebeach DD having a similar issue in trying to drop her 4th A level (psychology). Tried on Monday with Head of sixth form, told to reconsider (even though went prepared with a list of reasons and counter arguments) and come back and discuss again today but then not available. She will try again tomorrow. It seems to be everyone starts with 4 but in reality they are not keen to let them drop one. DD is doing photography and this is incredibly time consuming already but she’s loving it and the coursework suits her work. And also loves her other 2 A levels (music and drama). She also has ADHD but I don’t want her to use that as an argument unless necessary.

@Alsoplayspiccolo glad your DD is feeling better.

@greenele my maths degree led to accountancy (70% of maths graduates from my university became accountants). I would advise her to be careful before choosing a maths degree, it gets a lot more abstract at university. We did a lot of pure maths and I had more Greek than numbers in my notes. If she is good at maths, engineering and architecture are interesting options.

@Piggywaspushed that sounds a nightmare. Agree that there is nothing wrong with asking for an update on when a permanent teacher will arrive. Its a genuine concern.

@PaddingtonPaddington We’ve tried pointing it the dyslexia...maybe best not to overload. Highlighted the support DD is suppose to get. Tumbleweed.....

Interestingly found out this week that our school had exactly the same proportion of 9-4 passes in English this year as last and 1% less in maths. Seems they did a very good job of self moderating as you’d expect if every child had been judged on ‘a good days result’ their results should have been higher, given that no one had a bad day the way they would have done on a usual year to bring down the scores.

I think quite a few schools applied an internal process to get the results to match previous years, but some "gamed the system" and came out with very good results. I don't want to start a private/state debate, but there was one private school referred to in an article on HEPI which went from 18% A-B to 48% A-B and one local to us had a similar hike. I can't help wondering if some did not want to face discussions with angry parents, so just put in very optimistic predictions, expecting to blame OFQUAL when they were moderated down.

We had a 'welcome to Lower Sixth' virtual event last night. All ran very smoothly and included a 1-2-1 discussion with DD's tutor. It worked really well. He's really pleased with how she's settling in and we had a good chance to chat through things she'd like to get involved in and her medical ambitions.

And today is DD's 17th Birthday. Driving lessons are her main present. She requested a Colin the Caterpillar cake for school today - you're never too old.

Happy birthday to @sandybayley DD - hope she has a good day (and love the cake!). I also joined the virtual event last night - but I had misread the correspondence so only joined for the 7pm head talk and missed the separate house meeting. DS's tutor did phone calls to all his tutee's parents last week - he said DS seemed to be enjoying sixth form and was there anything he (tutor) could do for us. I said yes, keep the school open!

DD's school sent out a "decision tree" to help parents decide whether they should send their DC to school (no doubt they've been inundated with queries). I've just stuck it on the fridge - it is Very Detailed. I really do miss the days when I knew what a cough was.

After hearing the difficulty in dropping from 4 to 3 A levels I now am relieved DD didn't have the option of 4 now with a view to "drop" not drop one later. What a palaver for you all.

DD has already got a meeting at 8.15 so left home before 7.30 - this will be worse once the darker mornings start. The joys of being a senior leader. She also has to be be filmed saying why the new intake for next Sept should choose the school which is at 9am today so she is being thrown straight in with only last night to prepare her speech.

Happy birthday to Miss sandybay 🎂🎉🥳 enjoy your driving lessons!

Happy birthday to your daughter Sandy! You are a week ahead of us with the same present and cake

The only issue we have is that DD has been ‘given’ her gran’s 22 year old car, but it’s in an area of the West Mids that has been placed under strict restrictions. DH will become my mum’s bubble...

It seems many schools did internal moderating, DD's certainly did.
Girls that got low 9's in mocks got 8's. Now I know that's nothing to complain about but across the board 9's were only awarded to those that consistently got high 9's in their work. The same process seems to have been applied to all grade boundaries. So a lot of slightly upset kids having to hear about grade inflation at the same time as feeling a bit hard done by.

The system should have been able to spit out exception reports, and sent the results back to schools that had inflated them, or moderated them down rather than the blanket approach they used.

Anyone else already feeling the stress of the frantic mornings? I don't drive her in now as she is preferring the long walk in to clear her mind and prepare for the day but the 45mins leading up to it are sometimes a bit frenetic. I have to keep calm and soothing throughout then collapse with my coffee and breakfast once she leaves. To be fair it's not every morning but I guess today's meetings are on her mind.

Also anyone else go in to their teens rooms and throw open the curtains and windows once they've gone?

@AnneOfCleavage my ds never opens or closes his curtains. If I go in a open them they stay open. If I go in at night when it's dark and shut them they stay shut. He can quite easily sleep all day with open curtains. He never opens a window either. He will shut it though as he worries wasps, moths, spiders etc. will come in.
Ds1 and ds3 are better at opening curtains and windows.

@icanbewhatiwant snap!

DS has managed to wake up this week and is walking in for the first time since sixth form started. He did Monday and Tuesday on Teams, which went smoothly except that his teacher did not make it to one lesson - apparently his WIFI let him down.

My DD has been told that the first opportunity for dropping the 4th subject is Christmas!! She didn't really want to do 4 - there was no obvious candidate, so she ended up doing comp. sci., and she is struggling already. Only one other newbie to the school in her class, and I think the existing boys covered the GCSE syllabus a lot more thoroughly than she did at her old school so there seems to be an awful lot of assumed knowledge. I think we'll have to see how it is going at half-term and then see of there is any possibility of dropping it earlier.