Corona Cohort - Year 12 - 2021 - NO 'Self isolating' please.

[Oblomov20]

We just want our kids in school. Please. If at all possible.

And driving lessons. And good Mental Health. And happiness.

In-and-amongst all this Covid nightmare and lockdown debacle.

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Parents Eve went well solid Bs currently predicted with poss A in Music (hoping performance and taking Grade 6 theory helps to bump up) and maybe another. There is so much work in English Lit compared to mine at 1997! Sociology was a great choice for an unknown A level really helps with the English Lit and Dd EPQ will be on Music and feminism or Music and Education.

Is it just me that thinks they are doing so much in comparison?

Lovely big prospectus arrived from Cardiff today bumped it up in the choices for Music degree. It looks like such a fab city. I've only been once!

Music and sociology are great together! DS thinks ethnomusicology sounds interesting. I ahve seen it as units in some music degrees and a history degree.

Cardiff is really nice. Good size : compact , not overwhelming but a proper city. The waterfront is great.

Quite a few/ most teachers don't provide slides. This is often because students otherwise become very passive and switched off because they just expect the lesson. We get emails that say 'sorry I will be off. can you send me the lesson please'! These days I go for the compromise of putting slides online after teaching a whole unit.

However, if a teacher is going too fast I'd let her know. Online it is hard to know this and students should be able to say this imo. It is also fair enough to put resources online and there should be other tasks aside form note making. I do find this a bit of a psychology 'thing'.

The slide thing is a bit more thorny..

Is there a good study guide you could procure to support the learning?

Yup zanda. The uni experience has been shit really for them. Even worse for first years.

Cardiff is a great place to be a student, DD and I both recommend it! Cheap rents too.

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn at our school they start with 4 and drop one after AS ds1 dropped geography, that was the one he got the highest grade in. He did plan to drop film studies but ended up enjoying it too much. So our school don't make you drop the one you didn't do well in. Though I suppose if you did really badly they might.

Thanks @FoolsAssassin and @Piggywaspushed good to know I'm not just easily impressed.

@icanbewhatiwant I only discovered that information recently from an email. If you want to drop a subject that’s not your lowest then you have to get the lower subject grades up higher than the one you want to give up IYKWIM.

I desperately wanted to go to Cardiff uni but didn’t quite make the grades. I was a bit naive at the time and didn’t realise that you could contact them and see if they would still accept you.

I’m a bit at ‘mocks’ being conducted now.
Are these for DC doing AS levels that would ‘normally’ ( wtf is that anymore, as an aside) sit public exams in May?
@orangecinnamon my DDs EPQ is from a feminist lens
@JustHereWithMyPopcorn when is your DSs EPQ submitted?
My DDs is submitted in May this year. She’s found 3 A levels plus the EPQ very ‘time consuming’ even though her social life has been curtailed to date.

No idea Proggymat. He’s handed in the literary review last week. I’ll ask him what they’ve said.

I think the mocks are just trying to get some grades together for reports coming out and for using heading on to predicted grades.

The use of mocks for year 12 January exams might go back to when they sat AS levels, they often had mocks around this time.

Hello all: sorry, I've been off the thread for a while: good to hear everyone's news and updates. @JustHereWithMyPopcorn: wow, that's a huge workload, seems madness to keep it up given the stretches of remote learning.
@crazycrofter: I have to say, that doesn't sound like a great teaching approach. DS is loving psychology, partly because the teacher is taking such an interactive approach: it's a subject that really benefits and comes to life in discussion. Although ds has just started looking at ?abnormal psychology (that might not be the right phrase - but OCD/anxiety/ASD etc) - and as someone with a diagnosis of autism and a strong awareness of ND and a positive approach to difference, he's finding some of the approaches a bit old school, but isn't quite brave enough to speak up when it's so personal - it's the first time his psych teacher has wobbled a little on her (otherwise deserved) pedestal! ;-)

No exams/testing that I am aware of here, ds did a practice/prelim EPQ talk which seemed to go OK. Spurred on by the more organised on here (via me!), he spent this afternoon looking at courses and is currently debating comp sci with philosophy!!

Our school said they were doing mocks because they were concerned that this cohort did not have the same preparation as students do on normal years. They tried to have them in school, but after changing them following the initial week delay to start of term, did but want to delay angry further as they want to get some predicted grades. They are offering ASs, they will pay for 1. But if that the grade will be"given"

@ProggyMat DS says May sometime for EPQ hand in.

Grrr! Meant that it is a bit odd that the AS grade will be "given"/allocated.

DS of family friend is doing music at Cardiff. He loves it. He did not get the grades for his offer, but had a very good interview, and they were flexible. Lots going on musically in Cardiff.

Re who is suffering most at university, it may be worse for second years than first years. My first year has enjoyed himself and does not know what he is missing. Other first years are getting refunds for unoccupied rooms. Second years have had time to make friends and choose flatmates, but lots are paying for rooms they can't use and missing out on things they were anticipating. Rubbish for all of them, but I think primary schools children are the biggest loser's in education. On the whole, I think Y12 may be the least bad place to be!

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn ds1 at AS got BCCC. He dropped the one he got the B in, much to my annoyance. I was worried about A level, but he got better grades with A* BB.

Well done your DS on those final grades! We’re those AS ones his predicted grades when applying for uni @icanbewhatiwant? My worry for him is that DS wants to do a course that normally requires 3As and if they predict him lower then he won’t get an offer? If he were doing only three subjects he could really focus on them and try and get those higher predictions. It’s all a bit academic at the moment, he has a report coming out in a couple of weeks so maybe the grades will focus him on how to proceed once they are back at school.

That’s a heavy workload @JustHereWithMyPopcorn given the May submission of the EPQ
DD did a presentation of hers at Christmas and handed in a 2k ‘pilot’ write up before Christmas.
Some of DDs friends from ‘old school’ moved to a school where they start with 4 or even 5 if FM in the mix and then drop one after AS.
It seems like a crazy workload to me in ‘normal’ times let alone in the circumstances we find ourselves in now.
DD will sit end of year exams, hopefully in school, which I imagine will form part of her UCAS predications

@ProggyMat DS literary review was 2k words so probably a similar thing? He’s actually completed his first draft of the EPQ but I’m a bit concerned that it’s waaaay too long. Is there a limit? He’s covering 40 years of info so quite a lot and not easy to compress the info.

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn as far as I understand it, it’s 5K. There may be a plus/minus 10%?
DDs is still a bit ‘too broad’ so she’s working on narrowing her focus.
She’s not enjoying the ‘tick boxes’ of the log etc but that carriers a lot of marks, I believe.

Oh dear, it’s a lot more than that although it does include lots of references. I’ve told him to hand it in for feedback but he’s a bit reluctant!

The bibliography isn’t included in the word count.
Tell him to ‘hoy’ it in for feedback!

I will push him now, I’ve only been gently hinting before!

DD is pushing to drop her 4th subject still. She decided not to do an EPQ but her school still require them to write an extended essay following some research - that's due in March.

And she's just discovered that despite most teachers telling them that the pre-half term exams would not be happening, it has been decided that they are. Two weeks for revision (none done so far) and no let up in the 2hr+ homework. Will be a fun 2 weeks....

Oh and she's just announced she might be interested in Oxbridge.....! I know nothing about that process.

DD finally starting her EPQ stuff - school seems slow off the mark.

In terms of Uni's do we need to be seriously looking now? Eeeek