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

[orangecinnamon]

Placeholder for new thread

ooo @orangecinnamon how exciting!

My advice as a lurcher owner would be firstly to start recall training from the first day and also to buy a crate that will fit somewhere snug and warm in your house - our DDog loves his crate beside the boiler!

@KingscoteStaff

ooo *@orangecinnamon* how exciting!

My advice as a lurcher owner would be firstly to start recall training from the first day and also to buy a crate that will fit somewhere snug and warm in your house - our DDog loves his crate beside the boiler!

Thank you @KingscoteStaff I've been looking at the soft style crates this morning...just as an idea for somewhere of their own to go we are a small household but there is always noise going on.

@orangecinnamon sounds exciting. I've never owned a greyhound. We have 2 labradors. Some people in the village have a greyhound called Toby. Apparently he's very lazy and never chases anything. I know they are often chasers. We often think Toby looks like a deer in the distance when we see him running in the fields.

Just seen on another thread that they've released details about the A level/GCSE retakes in the Autumn for current Y11/Y13s not happy with their TAGs.

Apparently there is to be no adjustment for any lost learning. Doesn't sound hopeful for next year's A levels

Thanks for the heads up @Seeline. Just had a google and found the link: www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-arrangements-for-an-autumn-2021-exam-series

I get so annoyed by all this last minute stuff...it's May FFS !
They have a consultation out at the moment regarding cutting funding for Music courses for Sept 21!

www.tes.com/news/gcses-a-levels-2021-autumn-exams-offered-all-subjects

This is the article referred to in the other thread I think the consultation has been and gone - this is the finished plan!

We're still waiting for certificates from last year. really don't understand what's taking so long!

Yes, some of my year 12ws are doing a sociology AS now which they will get no opportunity to resit...

[quote icanbewhatiwant]@orangecinnamon sounds exciting. I've never owned a greyhound. We have 2 labradors. Some people in the village have a greyhound called Toby. Apparently he's very lazy and never chases anything. I know they are often chasers. We often think Toby looks like a deer in the distance when we see him running in the fields. [/quote]
I love Labs ...but my sister lost one recently and the whole family is still quite heartbroken. He was such a gentle soul. I've heard about the laziness

@orangecinnamon we lost a lab last year too. She had just turned 9. Not old for a lab. We have her daughter still, plus a pup we bought last year. I can't imagine life without our dogs.

Lurcher here too! She has the greyhound binary behaviour - happy to run or just flop, I can't imagine a better pet. There was an interesting discussion on TSR a while ago where we observed that dog lovers did better in interviews than cat lovers!

I see they have gone for the same approach on NEA as last year for the autumn exams, so only art and design will have NEA. Music, drama, PE will be exam only - I wish DS could do that for PE!

That's bizarre, though. That basically means the autumn exams don't reflect the whole course and all the skills. But everything else has to cover all content... bonkers. As ever.

@orangecinnamon no driving news here too but news of a new addition to the family is very exciting!
Are you ‘expecting’ a pup or rehoming?
Several of my friends have ex racing greyhounds
We have a small terrier which we’ve had since she was a pup and she has a large (metal) crate.
To her, it’s her bed- positioned in a warm place- and she probably only’ occupies’ about twenty per cent of the space
We holiday in the Lakes and take her and her bed (crate) with us
Many ‘staycation’ holiday lets won’t allow Ddogs to be left in holiday cottages alone
We love the Theatre by the Lake at Keswick ( albeit in ‘normal times’ ) and were allowed to leave our doggo given she was in her bed (crate) whilst we were out.

Not that it applies to DS but the school is certainly doing its bit to try to help UCAS applications. They have just put out an email to all parents requesting work experience provision assistance for those applying for medicine and veterinary science. It's going to be that much more difficult in the present climate so it makes sense to try to tap in to their parental network. I know that parents also volunteer/are roped in to help with practice interviews too. They are starting to look at PS and prepping first drafts before the end of term.

[quote ProggyMat]@orangecinnamon no driving news here too but news of a new addition to the family is very exciting!
Are you ‘expecting’ a pup or rehoming?
Several of my friends have ex racing greyhounds
We have a small terrier which we’ve had since she was a pup and she has a large (metal) crate.
To her, it’s her bed- positioned in a warm place- and she probably only’ occupies’ about twenty per cent of the space
We holiday in the Lakes and take her and her bed (crate) with us
Many ‘staycation’ holiday lets won’t allow Ddogs to be left in holiday cottages alone
We love the Theatre by the Lake at Keswick ( albeit in ‘normal times’ ) and were allowed to leave our doggo given she was in her bed (crate) whilst we were out.[/quote]
We are looking to rehome an ex racer ...hopefully a younger boy. We have a holiday booked in Wales and the cottage says we can take one dog..but the kennels were we are hoping to get the new addition from also look after them.

Dd really needs something else to concentrate on at the moment she is going through a period of quite severe introversion

@Monkey2001

Lurcher here too! She has the greyhound binary behaviour - happy to run or just flop, I can't imagine a better pet. There was an interesting discussion on TSR a while ago where we observed that dog lovers did better in interviews than cat lovers!

How funny ..I do think of Lurchers and greyhounds as 'floppy' must be the legs.

Can I creep back onto the thread, after a long period of AWOL, please?

For those that don’t remember me, DD has ADHD and moved to a new school for 6th form (DS is in year 10 there), from an all-girls school.

It’s been a rollercoaster, tbh, but she’s mostly really happy and pleased to have made the move.
She’s found online learning difficult, had some issues negotiating old and new friendship groups, and the presence of boys in her life, and we’ve had the full force of teen angst and emotions, which has left us frazzled.
That said, she seems to be doing well in all her subjects now, having dropped the 4th one and the EPQ.
Still not sure what she wants to do at uni, which is slightly worrying.

I’ll try to keep up with the thread from now on and will do my best to get up to speed with how everyone else is doing.

Welcome back @alsoplayspiccolo good to hear that you have weathered the storm.

I think people have said it here before, but if she doesn't know what she wants to do, it is always with considering a gap year or 2. You only get a loan for 1 undergraduate degree, but if it takes a while to work out what they want so that they can do a degree which will really benefit them, it is a good thing to encourage. Schools can feel like a conveyor belt where you have to jump on the next stage at the right time, but our DC are all different.

Thanks, Monkey.
A gap year was what we always thought DD would take, but we have concerns about whether she’d struggle to get back into education, given her SEN, and also that she’d drift through the year with no particular focus. That said, one of her interests for uni is technical theatre (production), so a year of work experience would be really useful.
We’re hoping that her thoughts might become clearer now she’s back in school, and that her subject teachers might give her some pointers.

As for weathering the storm, I’m not sure we’re through it and it’s definitely taken its toll on all of us 😔

Hi Alsoplaypiccolo*, sorry to hear it’s been rough. I think it has been hard on some of those who changed places for sixth form, trying to navigate new surroundings on top of everything else. From memory with DC it is often the next few months that a lot of them do start getting their thoughts together on what comes next as they spend more time focusing on it at school and college. I totally get your concern about not going back with a year out but it can really help.

Sansou that’s really good with school and the work experience, must be much harder at the moment.

OrangeCinnamon that’s very exciting a new dog! My dog goes to a friend when we go away and they had a lovely greyhound (ex-racer) who sadly is no longer with us. Sorry to hear DD struggling, a bit. I do think that the Pandemic has really effected quite a few in different ways.

Welcome back @Alsoplayspiccolo.
I had a fantastic Gap year starting with techie-ing for NYMT in Edinburgh, then crewing at my local theatre, then follow-spotting for Panto and then it was time for NYT and NYMT again!

I got a huge amount of experience and made contacts that I valued for years afterwards!

Thanks, Fools and Kingscote.
The change of school would have been so much easier without the whole Covid/online issue, for sure. DD’s biggest struggle has been that, although she’s made lots of new friends, lockdown prevented her from feeling like she’s fully embedded into their social groups, and she’s obviously been unable to see her old friendship group either (they’ve all stayed at her old school) so she feels she doesn’t have a footing in either camp.
We’ve also had to contend with what I imagine parents of neurotypical girls have to deal with at 13/14 - the whole “You’re so boring, everyone else’s parents let them do x! I don’t care what you think/everyone’s got a boyfriend/having sex/drinks/smokes weed/gets piercings etc”, on top of her feeling frustrated that we live 30 minutes away from a lot of her friends, and she can’t get a job to pay for everything she wants to do/buy.

I think a well-planned gap year would be really positive for her; it would allow her maturity to catch up with her peers, and hopefully help her find some independence, social and life skills - very much needed. I think part of her worry is that she’ll watch all her friends go off to uni and will find herself “left out” again, socially.
Hopefully, a full term in school now might help her get a better idea of what she wants to do. 🤞🏻

Talking of theatre and the arts has anyone seen this today?

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/06/plans-for-50-funding-cut-to-arts-subjects-at-universities-catastrophic?fbclid=IwAR0rKfVqy886JT9nX5L40-DXyEM5eaE_DzQtXDDCcqd_NNoKaSuc-pVks4E

Am despairing.