Corona Cohort’s Year 12 adventures

[FoolsAssassin]

We’ve made it into year 12 and rapidly approaching the end of the first half term .

Lots of challenges we could never imagined as we started the year but we’re all keeping on keeping on and this thread is for anyone who would like to jump on board to share the rather unusual journey this is turning out to be.

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We donated all our unused GCSE revision resources to school. They are struggling with all the additional costs of software for putting stuff on line, and have not managed to build up a big collection of "bonus" resources for 1-9 GCSEs and linear A levels yet.

We had a lot of unused GCSE revision books. Gave them to friends in the year below from his sports team.

Just bought A level maths for dummies. I am supportive!

Ds2 always used to be such a joker and played tricks on people. As he hit teens he's not really bothered to play the fool.

He was asked to do a covid test by imperial college. Which he did on weds and sent it off. He just sent me a photo of his email from them saying his test result was positive. Then he went in the shower. I had a few mins of panic, thinking who have we seen, dh has gone out to visit people this morn. I thought school will need to know, no one at school has had it, I thought we will be first etc. etc. Then I went up to his room to read the actual email. then I realised he'd edited it! Nice try!

Thanks for your kindness.
icanbewhatiwant, I'm sorry you've been through this this year too. We had our lab put to sleep at home a few years ago, and previously had our springer pts at the surgery. It's never easy, but not being able to be with her just made it so much harder, especially as we knew it was coming all week.
DH saw our vet in Waitrose yesterday and he was so kind - he asked DH how we were doing, and told him that she'd slipped away quietly, without fuss. 💔

@Alsoplayspiccolo I always think the fact they don't understand what is going on doesn't help. Unbeknown to us ours had a tumour on her spleen, she seemed perfectly healthy until it burst. We had her operated on at a cost of £3,000 but after the op. I googled prognosis and it said only a few months. So maybe we shouldn't have had her operated on. But she was back to her normal old self for about 5 weeks. So we had a few more weeks, then we'd get good days and bad days where other tumours developed then burst. We have her daughter, if she develops the same thing I don't think we will operate. But it'll be a tough decision.

Sorry to hear about the death of pets. We have been backwards and forwards to the vets due to a recent spay that went wrong. Grrr. No idea how the bill situation plays out.

Has anyone heard about whether there will be restrictions for older years going back after half term? Does anyone think this will happen?

Dd wants to do online lessons. She’s vulnerable and several Yr12s have had it. I know one boy in her class has a mum who’s had a transplant so I think he’s getting jittery too. She is so much happier out of school.

I suspect it will at least be blended learning soon. That would seem sensible given the rising rates. Dd has mixed feelings as she’s in a new school, has settled really well but feels like she needs to be there to really cement friendships. But a mixture would be ok I guess.

As DD has been off since 1st October having live online lessons, I am really hoping she can go in on 2nd Nov (as planned). I wouldn't be surprised if they get sent home again at some point though as the numbers are still high here (although are falling).

I don't think they will do the half in half out though as not needed. DD class sizes are pretty small and no form whilst at school. So it will be either all in or all out for 6th form I think. The live lessons have worked well enough so far, but they need that interaction with teachers and each other.

Sorry to hear about the dog struggles @icanbewhatiwant, @Alsoplayspiccolo. The friends I know who have dogs have found them such a joy and stress reliever over lockdown, and it must be an especially hard time to be dealing with vets too and having to not be present. Sounds like you both have lovely vets who have done their very best for your pups at any any rate.

We're on second week of half term here: ds did a bit of maths but not much last week, so I think he's going to have to knuckle down a bit this week, and he really needs to decide on his EPQ topic too as he keeps changing his focus!

I'm impressed with everyone on the thread who already has a good idea of where they want to apply for uni: ds knows what he wants to do, but we haven't really started thinking about where tbh: I'm not quite sure where to start .... any pointers?!

Heifer I agree that the best is interaction with the teacher and each other. So does she. It’s just really difficult when she is crammed into a classroom (no one wearing masks of course) with social distancing being non existent. Doesn’t help that her doctor (now on zoom) told her not to be anxious as they are all 2m apart and masked in schools . She put the doctor right and they were a bit shocked and had to backtrack! Then she sees groups of yr12 and 13 on social media together. There has probably been 4/5 confirmed sixth form cases and I keep saying the rest will give her herd immunity but it’s not reassuring her (or me). She has no close friends as she isn’t joining in out of school or between lessons.
On happier news she is sleeping better now on half term and didn’t constantly look and feel ill yesterday. She’s getting As and Bs in assessments (though she’s got catch up work to do). I keep getting bloody ‘memory’ photos from last year, automatically generated from my phone, pop up showing her so happy and healthy before she was ill. Sorry to unload but I am already dreading pushing her to go back!
Apologies. Will pull myself together before she wakes up!

Andwhenyou look at the various comparison websites for rankings in subject. The Guardian ranking is a bit odd as they weight things like student satisfaction (v subjective) differently. Also the practical side of train routes etc comes into play.
I would really narrow it down and scrutinise the course. Then go and visit as many as you can if possible for a feel of the place.

also have you caught this? It's rather wonderful :

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-54653205

Source tissues!

Piggy well that’s my composure gone!

Yes, me too.

You can watch and listen to the whole piece on BBC , YouTube and BBC sounds. I was in bits by the time Stephen Sondheim popped up to praise him this morning.

Has anyone heard anything re: Exam certs. The who year group have left DD school and I don't think we have anything - I also think they have some money for a prom - shall have to check that out !

Thanks for that I think, @Piggywaspushed. The impact that secondary teachers has really is extraordinary (not to downgrade primary teachers as my mum is one, but its usually secondary that we actually remember isn't it?). Thanks to the teachers on here, and for keeping going and keeping inspiring in these hardest of times.

That was lovely Piggy, thank you. Just returned my 80 yr old mum back to the Midlands after a lovely week with us. Whilst she’s lived on her own for 34 years (widowed for 46 yrs), reminiscing over many little things brought back a spark in her eyes. So lovely to see music having that power in this family to override what is a horridly challenging condition for all of them.

Absolutely Andwhen

Hey Zanda : "Sorry to unload".
Please don't ever say that. Being here for each other, to offload, is exactly what this thread is here for.

Zanda, I'm experiencing the same as you with the auto-generated phone cam 'Memories' - my younger dd has an ED and it's shocking to see the difference a year has made I wish your dd all the best and hope half term is doing her good - and that next year's experience of phone cam Memories will be entirely different

@Zandathepanda @TheySeeHerRowling sorry to hear you are both battling ED with your dds - our girls have so many pressure nowadays - it makes me simultaneously so sad, and so angry for them. Hoping both your girls are able to enjoy some down time over the half term
@Zanda, can school do anything to promote friendships for her? My ds's experience (admittedly with no school changes) is that there has been a real shake up with friendships coming into sixth form, and there seems to be a lot more acceptance and less posturing - at least from the boys...

Thanks everyone. And TheySeeHerRowling I wish you and your Dd well too. I try to keep upbeat but I don’t get much sleep (Dd has seizure activity 24hrs) and it gets a bit much.

I may see if Dd can do a mixture on online and at school, especially first lessons where she then has gaps til the next one. I know this has been happening in other years when half are in/ half at home. That’s if it’s ok with the teachers. I am an ex-teacher and what they are going through makes them pretty heroic in lots of cases. The thought of parents looking in on my last lesson Friday lessons with my ‘interesting’ Year 9 would feel me with dread. I kid you not, one boy that pinned me to the door (I refused to let him out until the bell went - I won) ‘grew up’ to go inside for murder. I took a blade off him once too. Happy days!

The friendship issue has to start with Dd wanting to join in. She’s scared of people seeing her ill and they are a bit scared of her illness, I think.

However I am heartened by news of vaccines. We had flu jabs and they caused no side effects with Dd which is encouraging. I am betting on end of Spring being a turning point.

ZandathePanda, the lack of sleep must make it almost impossible to cope - at least I know my dd is getting the rest she needs at night

Hybrid learning sounds like a good approach until she's safe and vaccine-protected - fingers crossed for this happening as quickly as possible!

(Weird coincidence, but I am also an ex-teacher with an ex-pupil who went on to commit murder - I trust it wasn't the same one )

Thanks, everyone, for kind words and good thoughts

Ermmm… yeah, me too. Two murderers, a murder victim , and two bank robbers here... all but one of those were while they were still at school, too.