Thread 15 - Corona Cohort Year 12, 2021 Lateral Flow & Driving Tests

[orangecinnamon]

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@Piggywaspushed - My DS did Sheffield history thingy on Thursday as well. Did the French one too the week before. Said they were good but we are North Yorkshire so probably too close to home!

Do you think the selection process would help her clarify how she feels about the intensity that she will be facing if she gets in Sandy ?

I am firmly in denial that DD should be graduating at same time DS doing A Levels and I will have both off to pastures new at the same time. Time is going so fast.

Oh belatedly waves at Esther or at least at the DD!

I am rather late I know, but how stunning is your DD’s dress (and colour) Orange!

sandy agree, I was blaming the system not the choices - we are a family of mixed educational experiences too and I have taught both. I think you bring up a good point about the shorter terms at Oxbridge being intense. It is so difficult at the moment for Year 12s judging universities. Year 12 Easter holidays with older Dd were spent on overnight/ day trips to several universities to get a ‘feel’ of what she wanted.
I have ordered 3 old fashioned paper prospectuses which are for 2022 (whatever that year will look like).

Oh and I didn’t think my previous posts had posted as my phone keeps cutting out so I had posted some ramblings twice! Apologies.

Thanks @Zandathepanda - I get a bit defensive about it at times as there is so much stereotyping and assumptions made on MN. There was something on another thread disparaging all children at a particular independent school and I just thought what would that poster have said if someone had posted that about all children at a state school? I should just learn to be thicker skinned about it 😬

DD has had periods of high anxiety fuelled by a desire to uber achieve. She's had some CBT for it and seems very reflective and sensible about it these days. I worry about an intense university environment for her but to be honest medicine is going to be intense wherever she is.

@FoolsAssassin- feisty is an understatement!
Fortunately this thread has been very supportive from ‘the off’ and has avoided stereotyping those that are educated in the ‘state’ or ‘private’ sectors and quite rightly so as neither sector are homogeneous categories, let alone the children that are educated within them!
It has also stated that this space is not for state v private debates and hopefully that will remain so whether some DC want to have a punt at Oxbridge or not

Who was it who was kindly giving helpful info about Birmingham - was it CrazyCrofter? My friend’s DC graduating elsewhere this summer and has been offered a Ph.D there for September, pretty nervous about Birmingham being a big city and I was able to reassure her it’s not how she thinks on the back of the info here so thank you! Am going to suggest it to DS as has option to do 1 year computer science in the middle.

Dd has seen her older Uni sister working online most of the year and has said, is the debt of Uni worth it anyway?

I tend to stay off education threads apart from this one, precisely because they all seem to get so heated / point-scoring and this one stays calm. My DCs are at independent schools, largely because of SENs (one at a special school, the other at a small nurturing independent) but DH and I were both comprehensive educated. I like this thread because everyone is respectful, we have DCs with a range of academic abilities and I don't feel put out here if people are expecting higher achievements than my two are, unlike on some other threads which are downright sneery.

@sansou I'm 49 too. It's annoying just missing out on the vaccine. Almost everyone I know seems to have had one. It seems to be the thing to put a frame round a profile pic on Facebook saying "I've been vaccinated" I even have friends in early 30's that have put the frame up. I can't exactly ask why they've had one. Then they all start discussing how poorly they've been after. So I put "be thankfully you've had a vaccine" I think I have vaccine jealousy!

Ds finally came home from school with his gcse certificates yesterday. I wondered where they were. Thicko here thought he'd done a subject I didn't know about. Statistics. Then I realised it's maths. I didn't know it was called that. I'm sure it was mathematics when Ds1 took GCSEs.

Icanbe Dd got Mathematics. I though GCSE Statistics was an extra? Has he got mathematics as well?
On a side note Dd got her certificates back as well and it said ‘awarded for the examination in June 2020’! Liars!

@Zandathepanda there's no maths certificate.

@icanbewhatiwant I would query the maths thing - I think all universities require Maths, and it is very unlikely that they would just do stats at GCSE, much more likely to do just maths or both maths and stats.

I hope it did not appear that I was bashing independent school pupils. My Oxbridge point was just that if you don't attend a school which supports preparation for admissions tests and interviews, it is REALLY difficult to do well, whatever type of school you come from. At DS's school there have been no offers for STEM subjects for several years, but they do get some arts and humanities offers. Actually at Cambridge grammar school applicants are more likely to be successful than private school applicants and the regions with the lowest success rates are those with comprehensives. There are some comprehensives, or teachers within comps who provide excellent support, but it is the exception rather than the rule.

I saw a video once advising that all students will thrive most successfully in the second "best" university they can get into. Having drifted through A levels with minimal effort, DS1 has worked really hard at St Andrews and is in the top 15% of his year. He can't imagine how he could have learnt as much in the short Oxbridge terms, and would not have had the comfort of being near the top of his cohort, so it all turned out for the best, but I wish I had steered him away from Cambridge years ago when we went to visit friends there and went punting and he fell in love with the idea of it!

@Monkey2001 yes. I looked again and there is a maths grade too. It's on the certificate with English. I didn't notice first time I looked. So I was correct the first time...there's a subject in there that he's never mentioned before. It wasn't on his timetable in years 10 and 11. So perhaps it was combined with something else, not maths as that is a different exam board. He also has a certificate with a distinction in German. He hasn't done German since year 9. I shall ask him.

@Monkey2001 - I don't think you were 'bashing', my comment was a rather more general nudge to try and keep this thread non-judgmental - as we've done so nicely since we started.

I have a particular affinity for St Andrews having been at Edinburgh myself. Your DS1 has chosen well!

I'm sorry but I'm really laughing at the statistics and the German (none since year 9)

7.29 am on a Sunday and I get a humongous email from HoY. I'm only teasing, their communication throughout has been superb, I've been very impressed.

Students will sit exams in all of their subjects when we return after the May Half Term Break.

I did know this, but Good. I'm pleased. This'll be the 1st time our lot has sat 'formal' ones for ages.

Oxbridge is not a concern in this household , but Ds's school (average / standard catholic school) is very good supportively apparently and lots of candidates get in!

MN is certainly an odd place to read about education...sometimes when I read some posters offerings on HE boards I can't believe how bubbled and insulated they are. References to help that schools 'should' offer that are just outside of the experiences of your average child, even at a private school (I recently applied for head of sixth form at my school on a platform of improving aspiration and UCAS support. Got rejected for yet another male yes man. Their loss!). Some MN posters are the opposite of helpful and populate threads with out of date or just ridiculously combative comments ( a lot of tribalism about certain unis). I once started a thread on my older DS and it just descended into a pile on/character assassination of DS with a few usual suspects insisting he should go and work down the pits or something! The names of a handful of unis must set off klaxons in some posters houses or something .

I have never got the impression anyone regularly on here is like that at all! Everyone is nice

Sadly, MN has definitely put me off certain universities . However, I am not applying so that's OK! It is also very noticeable that the range of advice is very narrow. So, if someone starts a thread on -say- Aberystwyth vs Hull, with predicted grades of about BBB it takes about three posts before someone says 'they are both distinctly 2nd division and have they thought about the RG/Bristol?' or ' those grades really aren't very good. Is university really right for them?' or 'random irrelevant point about their child who can't bear the thought of a campus'.

DS is possibly focusing most attention on Birmingham (which is very under discussed on MN I find), although he does mention others. He went to an outreach day at Birmingham in year 10 or 11 and got lectured on how they all needed to work harder ( I think other schools had brought underachievers where his school had taken all the nice kids..) and did a tally of the number of times they said Russell Group. However, he knows the campus is nice and that Edgbaston is close. He does also mention other places so I am really hoping there will be some physical open days so he can get a sense of place. Open Days (popular MN belief is DCs should go unaccompanied but -again- your average 17 year old lacks the confidence and wherewithal) and I really enjoyed the mother/son bonding time with DS1 even if he sulked his way round some of them

I think if we stick together during the HE application process it will all go swimmingly. I have recently exited the uni thread (DS is year 2 now) but I had been with the same lovely people since DS was year 10 ( a few of you on here!) and it was always so supportive and kind and a real help to me.

I have lost track a bit - is there anyone else on here with DC not keen on uni at all? I am worried about what on earth DS is going to do after leaving school. He still doesn't have any particular career he's really keen on, has an array of impairments which will make a lot of jobs difficult and certainly doesn't think he will be ready to live away from home in 18 months. Whenever he tries career quizzes he answers no or not really to so many questions that they don't give any meaningful results.

We are looking at all options, possibly not Uni or Uni deferred.

exponentially DS1 went to uni precisely as holding pattern really for having no future plans. I do think there is something to be said for spreading wings and gaining independence.

However, the other things he (very briefly) considered were things like apprenticeships with Santander/Nationwide.

@Oblomov21 ha ha. I really didn't notice the mathematics on one certificate with English and a few others. Then saw statistics. So assumed that must be maths. Now I'm looking silly 🙃 never mind.

@ExponentiallyDepleted ds was very keen on university in year 11. But has gone off the idea now. He wants to look for a degree apprenticeship, but I think it might be quite hard to get one. There might be a lot of competition. But I've been told off by another family member for being pessimistic about an apprenticeship. Apparently I should be more encouraging.