Corona Cohort Y12 into Y13, braving the storm of the third wave

[Monkey2001]

Supportive thread for parents of Y12 students going into Y13.

Previous thread - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/4240252-Thread-16-Corona-Cohort-Year-12-2021-Zooming-through-Summer-Term

@crazycrofter we are hoping to get onto the access to Southampton stuff too. Closing date is Friday, but it’s inherited teens birthday today and then we are going away on Friday so unless I tie her to a chair tomorrow and make her write the application, it won’t happen. Reference has been done
I’m feeling really confused by how much to help with this stuff..I have a fear that if I’m too involved, at some point I’ll get told I pushed her. On the other hand , she doesn’t know what’s out there, she’s really busy and she does lack stamina from earlier deprivation.
There’s an Open day I mentioned to her but I know she didn’t take it in.

@Zebracat, your Dd deserves it far more than mine - we just happen to live in a very deprived area and Dd went to a failing primary. Even with my Dd, I do tend to do things for her if she’s stressed/got a lot on. E.g. I wrote some letters on her behalf to see if she could get some work experience and I arranged for her to do some tutoring work. I think it’s fine, she still had to do the hard bit! So in your case I think I’d write the application for her, with her at hand to check what you’re writing!

I was going to post that my DS's school hasn't had any issues, then today a bubble got sent home. Luckily mine isn't in the bubble, but he was so worried, he doesn't want to miss out on all the end of year/birthday parties this weekend. Hopefully the governement will change the ruling as it is so disruptive.

OThank you, crazycrofter. It helps to know I’m broadly in line. I think I was a bit lax with my others, or times have changed. The school aren’t as clued up with care experienced students as I would have liked, so I’ve been grateful for the knowledge in this thread. They have been good generally.

Just tried to book DD vaccine but couldn't go any further than the date of birth. She'll be 18 in October so guess we will have to wait until then

I still haven't heard about any being sent home or testing positive at our school. They probably aren't telling us. Though my friend works at the other local secondary and they haven't had any positive cases.

Must admit....I'm not keep on ds3 going on an end of year trip to a theme park in a few weeks. We are due to go on holiday 10 days later (only uk holiday)

@zebracat I wouldn't worry about pushing her, she can always pull out of she doesn't want to do it, getting the application in just keeps her options open.

DS had been told to isolate by track and trace, no idea where the contact was, but that means he is off school again, will have to miss concert tomorrow, shouldn't be going to the gym. Sigh!!

Wonder of wonders the mock results so far have been good (B, B) - no resits needed as yet. The maths tutor, counselling and kick up the arse generally seems to have had a result. I am well aware that we had the cultural, emotional and financial capital to do that though - lots of people dont and that seems unfair.

Just checking in! Ds's school are finally checking in with UCAS stuff: intro session online tonight and they have a day of post school talks and immersion tomorrow: heavily uni focused, and first draft of PS needs to be handed in by 12th July: put DS in a bit of a panic as he'd not heard that before (although I bet it's been mentioned!!) and has his EPQ presentation to deliver before then too (full draft of EPQ in today thank goodness). He's definitely starting to engage more with unis, but it's slow and somewhat uphill. We've booked in for the Bath stay and tour (thanks again for that link @Piggywaspushed) and booked an overnight in a cambridge college too over the hols (thanks to whoever put that link up!) He's not anticipating Oxbridge, but his grades to date would suggest it's at least a faint possibility, and dd is keen to see it so we thought we'd just enjoy a weekend somewhere beautiful anyway!

My mind is on the weirdness of Track and Trace imprisoning DS without telling him when and where he came into contact with somebody who tested positive. How do we know it is not a mistake? At least school tell you it is the tutor group or another class. The reality of the loss of liberty is really striking me.

I have to admit that the only time I’ve been pinged, I decided to ignore it. I’d not long had covid myself and I knew that the only place I’d been in the last 48 hours was the garage to pick up my car. I was in the reception area for about 5 minutes. As far as I’m aware you have to be in close contact for 15 minutes to have to isolate. And I wasn’t even within 2m of anyone! So I’m not sure how accurate they are.

@Monkey that happened to my DS too. He was boarding at the time but he was the only one identified by track & trace. No one else in the year was. He reckoned it was someone he sat next to in one of his subjects. He had to stay in his room for ten days ... going slowly mad. His meals were delivered to his door. In fact the first day they forgot him so he had no lunch. It was just a total nonsence as there would have been many more kids in contact with this boy in the school than DS but they hadn't downloaded the app. Making a mockery of the whole process. I told DS to delete it after that episode.

Icanbewhatiwant - my DD's school didn't have a case until last week, unfortunately DD is one of the ones who has had to SI, they haven't SI a whole bubble though, just those sitting closest in classes in the 48 hours prior (the person who tested positive is a staff member not a student).

I don't know whether this affects many of you but many international students may not be able to return home this summer. HK has closed to UK flights from today. Sparking a mad dash to get home in time by dd's friends.Vietnam appears to be completely closed. Even to it's own residents returning home.Dds friend is one of them. There are absolutely no flights. Singapore is closed to non-residents. So DS's friends parents can visit the UK to see him, but he can't go home. I feel very sorry for all the young ones who haven't been home all year.

   This is in total contrast to the UK talking about fully opening up on the 19th of July, whilst the rest of the world is closing to us.

It is so sad @Fferny1. I am starting to feel as though life is never going to be the same again. A lot of the time I manage not to dwell on it other than the immediate restrictions, but sometimes it does get me down.

Interesting comments about responding to T&T. DS said that most of his friends don't have the app and if he had not had it, he would not be isolating. He was supposed to be performing in a concert tonight too. @Fferny1 you must have wondered whether your DS's was a mistake and @crazycrofter's sounds very marginal.

I am not surprised that countries with lower vaccination rates don't want us at the moment, our death rate would be horrendous now if our vaccination rate was not so high. Greece and Spain may regret opening to to us without quarantine.

ChristopherT Great to see good results, whatever it took to get there must have included a change of mindset!

My DS hasn't downloaded the app. He is quite small so if he's with us people tend to assume he's under 16 and not ask. He hasn't been going places that need you to check in really though. I have turned the tracking off on mine, I'm really not going anywhere other than work (few, known colleagues), shops (brief contact only), sports centre (not near anyone for any length of time and don't want it pinging because it's been close to someone else's phone in a bag at the side of a dance studio). I put it on occasionally for sitting indoors in a pub or similar.

My university Dd had the app and was in the next bedroom to her flatmate who was really not well with covid. It never pinged. She was also in the same house with others with covid, the next door terrace all had covid as did several houses across the street. She even had to shut her window as she could hear all the coughing surrounding her and her window was in the middle of the positive cases! I don’t think anyone except her had the app. She actually did 14 days of isolation practically in her room as she had spent a few on her own before coming home to protect us from the virus/having to isolate. I think the everyone else must have caught in in those first days. How she didn’t get it was amazing but she said she was n95 masked in the kitchen and bathroom and spray dettoled the corridors before she walked through . Really took a toll on her mental health listening to the constant coughing from both sides and the bedroom underneath her, stuck in her room apart from dashes to the kitchen, bathroom and front door for food deliveries.

Then she finally gets home to her Year 12 sister having a cough (tonsillitis) and much of their year isolating! Still all negative.

Luckily Year 12 clinically vulnerable children can be vaccinated. How worrying must it be for 15 year olds and below, especially now it being approved for 12-15 year olds but the government seem basically to be saying the virus can run riot through schools as the vulnerable adults are vaccinated. What about the vulnerable children?! Get them vaccinated before September!

At least our year will all start to get vaccinated as they turn 18 too.

Mild annoyance in my household toady (first world problem alert) that DS's gradesheet shows ABB, even though exams were A A and A.

It drives me mad that (predominantly) state schools exercise this abundance of caution.

Just had the useless reply from his history teacher about 'that's what they have done so far' so they can't predict because of the topics they have assessed so far! If so, why bother at all,, since what he has done so far is A grade work! the unintentional implication is that he will get worse!

Oh grrr... sulk.... footstamp...

Miserly grade awards are yet another issue as to why bright state school pupils don't aim high. UCAS's own research showed that!

Piggy - what are these grades though? Ours have just got exam grade and 'most likely' grade. UCAS prediction is to come later - and we then start the process that is supposed to use teacher's professional judgement but ultimately becomes a negotiation process......... It drives me mad, particularly when I co-teach a class with some-one who has quite stubborn views. My UCAS prediction tends to be generous - what I expect them to get on a really good day .

@Piggywaspushed - oh how I feel your pain... DS didn’t do as well as that, but he has got predicted grades today. Two are fine, but French predicted B. Mock was overall B admittedly, but two thirds of it was A it was just dragged down by a B in one part. Every other test this year has been A* and the predicted grades are meant to be based on whole year with no weighting given to mock acc to accompanying letter. He spoke to teacher straight after mock result who said they would be predicting A. He has emailed asking why and the reply was has he been engaging in extra work as they know he will get a much better grade last year. Well yes he has - as teacher knows because they have marked it all and it has been excellent. So all this has achieved is for DS to be almost tearful with talk of why bother as I won’t get the predictions for where I want to aim etc etc. Oh and school letter that accompany says to discuss these grades with Senior Tutor - otherwise known in our house as the invisible man...

This sort of thing just makes me feel so impotent!

That is quite annoying @Piggywaspushed are these the grades that will go on the ucas application?

I didn’t go to uni so I am trying to read up on the application process and am excited to take DS on open days etc.
Something I was wondering about was if a course says it requires AAA (for example) but the predicted grades are lower, does that mean you definitely wouldn’t get into the course? Or do you still apply and hope they take you?
Obviously not if much lower but maybe if you had AAB or something. We have no idea what DS predicted grades will be yet

Sorry to hear the prediction stress. In our school the grade sheet has a pessimistic "motivational" grade, but the UCAS predictions (which are not revealed until autumn term) are optimistic grades. I have no idea what I expect to see. DS may have lucked out in Physics with reference to the rest of the class because he is completely indifferent to football, so was happy to revise for the Physics exam the next day whilst his classmates were watching the England match! We won't see grade sheets for another 2-3 weeks.

@Fiddlersgreen it varies by subject and university. The Admissions Tutor for Biomedical Sciences at Newcastle told me, back in 2018, that anybody who is predicted at least CCC is given the standard offer (this it was AAB). Then on results day they accept anybody with ABB, then review the PS for the more marginal candidates. Some of the medical schools don't use predictions, but most do. For DS, if he can't get AAA predictions, there is no point in applying to the 2 which accept his A levels for medicine.