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

Thanks @Piggywaspushed and @20newnames Yes I should think business is popular. He won't be wanting to go to a higher end university. He is set on Sussex at the moment. He is looking at history with philosophy, possibly a year abroad too. I wish he'd look round a university. Even just UEA our nearest one...just to get the feel of it. But he won't. My friends dc's didn't look round any either, they didn't see the point. Her ds1 is 2nd year at exeter and her dd2 is hoping to go to York in sept. If it were me I'd want to look round. I enjoyed looking round with ds1 but as I've said before it's our nearest university so we didn't get to go far. So I was hoping ds2 would like to go further away visiting a new city. There's always Ds 3...

@icanbewhatiwant I’m feeling really anxious about DS being far away. Maybe it was his tone when I mentioned visiting for a weekend

Does anyone know if you can take the theory test at any centre? Trying to book for DS but the site goes up to November and nothing anywhere near here in that time but have found a couple of slots in Devon when we’ll be there and wondering whether to book.

If you fail, can you rebook at a different centre or would it need to be the same one?!

I do think looking around is good for most kids (but if you are able enough to get places at York and Exeter maybe it isn't necessary if you know it's great anyway?) Sussex is a good uni.

I dragged took DS1 to lots of unis and Open Days totally backfired on me. He hated everywhere and became more and more apathetic!

@Fiddlersgreen - yes you can take the theory test anywhere you like. I can't see why re-booking would be any different.

Fools, DS (15) got really unwell back in February with a mystery illness.
Eventually, blood tests showed severe vitamin D3 deficiency and he was given 3 months mega dose, followed by a permanent maintenance dose.
It’s only in the last month or so that he’s been fully well again - makes me wonder how many other students have suffered from being locked in for so long.

Just took some vitamin D! DS2 "my body is a temple" has been taking a whole load of vitamins for ages now, he has colonised the cupboard over the fridge for his supplement stash!

Thanks for the reminder re Vitamin D - I bought loads and stopped taking it a while back - need to get back on it.

Thanks for the replies to my questions, really helpful, especially those about Swansea uni itself. Has anyone been to Swansea itself recently? what's it like?

@EwwSprouts - Nottingham is apparently on DDs radar - which I didn't know. Had a look myself and does look good, although she did say she would prefer a uni with colleges but wants to take a good look at the course. Hockey seems ok at the uni itself but yes Beeston HC would be great too.

Nottingham Uni has an actual opening day on Saturday but it's too short notice for us. It's over 2 hrs drive and can't leave the dogs at the moment. Hopefully there will be more.

Can you remind me which uni opening days you all have planned? either in person or virtual?

DD is pleased about the restrictions being lifted as it will mean that Leeds and Parklife festivals will be on but thinks it mad that person don't have to wear masks on public transport.

Are we the only family not got a holiday booked over summer? Is everyone else happy to go abroad if allowed? I am really start to regret our decisiont to leave it as we didn't want to go abroad of pay mad prices to holiday in the UK - We have 2 dogs (1 very tricky) so cant camp as we have often done, and I couldn't find a holiday cottage I liked within 2 hours of us (has to be walkable to the sea or not a holiday in my eye ;-). We decided we would save the money and use it to go to New York or something in December when DD is 18 and DH 60 (I am obviously lot younger) ;-) but then a doctor friend of ours pointed out recently that they doubted it would be ok to go on a city holiday to new york by December.

DD isn't going away with friends after all as they thought they would as the houses they could use were in the middle of nowhere.

I have a feeling this is going to be a long disappointing summer for DD who has been looking forward to it so much. PLEASE let the festivals be on at least.

Dd is horrified that restrictions are being lifted before they have been vaccinated. Cases round here seem worse than ever.
She has a ticket for Nottingham but now we can't go. That's the only place we've seen that is a real life visit.

@Heifer until lockdown last year we did 10 days in Swansea every summer/5 days at Easter - not for pleasure! - DS was swimming Welsh nationals. DH is from Cardiff, so possibly biased, but Swansea is not the most exciting city or that attractive although it has improved a lot since we first went in 2014. DS swum at the University pool and the sport there is fantastic and the University itself looked amazing re facilities etc and right on the beach. The beach is beautiful and the Mumbles etc, but the city was bombed to bits I believe in the war and is a mishmash of buildings etc. Cafes are improving though and by the marina near the museum etc is very nice now. We know someone at Uni there now and they love it.

We aren’t going anywhere over the summer either - DS only off for 5 weeks and one week of that is a lifeguard course. Probably just days out at Unis and wait for next year for something really good hopefully.

Yep, both DD and I are pretty shocked and nervous that anyone with COVID after Aug 16th only has to isolate but not their contacts so those contacts are merrily infecting whoever they meet. Would hope that our DC would inform their friends if they were a close contact of a friend who'd got it so they could make their own informed decision whether to meet up or not.
Is this new rule so that schools don't have whole bubbles isolating and therefore missing school when just one person has tested positive? Seems they want our youngsters to be the herd immunity guinea pigs

Dd is volunteering at a Christian festival at the end of July and they were confident it was going ahead even before Monday’s announcement. I guess they’d already reduced numbers and allowed for distancing? But my kids are pleased about the rule changes as their camps can go ahead.

I think how you feel depends on whether you’ve already had covid and of course, whether you/your children are vulnerable. I’m sorry to hear some of your kids are anxious about it.

There is no plan of uni visits here. We only did York online because Piggy mentioned it and I then sprang it on DS at no notice. I have said we will try to go and have a walk round St Andrews in the holidays as (at the moment) that's his top choice. I can't spot they have future online dates published.

I booked our summer holiday before Christmas because we have to be there, that week, for a family celebration. We wouldn't be going abroad.

heifer we have in person Bath overnight stay and have done all the virtuals (Cambridge is this week).

Haven't looked at September yet..

In the end , I lost the will to live a bit with booking all this virtual stuff. DS just does the subject talks really : Glasgow was a shambles so didn't really work. Done Bath, Edinburgh, Sheffield,York, Leeds, Birmingham . Missed out on Bristol and Warwick as missed the boat. Generally you spend ages booking stuff and the it's all on YouTube anyway!!

In terms of engaging subjects talks, Sheffield, Birmingham and Edinburgh win. Leeds was awful, Bath was dry. It does affect perceptions. Cambridge are busily recycling all their films from last year; some are even older!

I haven't spoken to mine about it yet, DS is away for a couple of days and DD was out at swimming last night, then watching the end of the football when she got back and we didn't get round to discussing it.

I feel conflicted, I hate the fact that you now can't plan anything without booking in advance but any bookings and plans you do make are always at risk of suddenly having to SI, especially bigger ones such as theatre trips or holidays. We are going away soon and I am so nervous that one of us is going to get told to SI in the preceding 10 days, when we have lots of stuff planned in that period so its a real risk. We have no plans to travel abroad at any time this year but have got two UK holidays booked over the summer (both booked in the Jan lockdown).

OTOH, DD hasn't been jabbed and at 15 doesn't look likely to be anytime soon. I worry about her getting long covid and I worry about it for the rest of us too even though we are jabbed. We have got a couple of theatre trips planned, and although they are after the 19th, in my head I had been thinking there would still be masks and gaps between groups in the theatres but of course there won't.

We have a cottage in Cornwall, so will go there for a couple of short breaks, although mainly renting it to friends as DSs prefer to be home, near friends, I should put it on AirBnB really as we have a couple of gaps. We also have 5 days in Wales with bit family group (17). We did not consider going abroad this year, not happy to fly for a while yet.

I think lots of people will still wear masks to busy places like theatres, but I guess the ones most likely to be passing virus around will be the ones who don't want to wear masks

Re open days, quite a few places are doing campus tours 1-2 days/week throughout the summer - Manchester, Falmouth, maybe Cardiff?

@EwwSprouts there is a nice St Andrews thread on here, although it has gone very quiet recently. Several subjects covered if you want to know anything.www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/4103843-St-Andrews-into-2021-new-thread.

One of the things to watch is how the universities respond to Covid - Manchester has now decided that blended learning is a permanent thing, they are not planning a return to large lectures. I guess they are taking the opportunity to redeploy their space, and they can recruit more students if they don't worry about teaching spaces big enough to accommodate all of them.

@Piggywaspushed I didn't realise some where on youtube, will take a look.

Has anyone signed up Step into Bath? Looks good but I'm not sure if DD will be keen as she was feeling overwhelmed and said she is struggling with having any committments at the moment. It's only 1 hr a day but I'm not sure if they will be expected to have cameras on and actively take part - which DD definitely won't be up for right now.

School has just sent this link which may be of interest.
www.brightnetwork.co.uk/internship-experience-uk/internship-experience-uk-on-demand-schools

How it works
The experiences kick off on 27th July (after all of the live experiences), at which point you'll be emailed your pack with links to all the sessions and the project work - these are all recordings. You have until 13th August to complete everything in your own time and submit your project work, which we expect will be around 12-15 hours in total across the three-week period. By completing the sessions and submitting the work sample, you'll receive the same certificate, which you can add to your CV.

Internship Experience UK On Demand Schools is available across all eight sector streams being offered this year:

Professional Services & Consulting
Technology
Investment Banking & Asset Management
Public Sector, Policy & Charity (NEW for 2021)
Business, Operations & Marketing
Commercial Law

@Heifer DS went to the Nottingham open day last Saturday. He loved it and so did DH. DS is also quite sold on the fact that a majority of students are female!

To those of you who have been through this before / are in the know, what's the likelihood of getting an offer from a uni when your predicted grades are one below their standard offer? DS has been predicted AAB but the course he wants says AAA. He did get an A* in his EPQ which I am hoping might help but, as it's law, I'm wondering if they have too many apply and so they don't need to make allowances.

I think children in a large bubble not having to isolate is a good idea. But I am sure I heard them say on the news that if someone in a household tests positive the rest in the house can go to school still. That doesn't sound good. I'm assuming the rest of the household will have to test daily. Also how can the test and trace take over? Ds2 doesn't have the app neither do his friends. 6th formers can have phones, but rest of the school aren't allowed them. They have to hand them in...so ds3 doesn't take a phone to school. So if they are in close contact to someone who has covid, how is anyone apart from teachers to know?

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn email admissions and ask, most admissions teams are very transparent. It will vary, but I would have thought that 1 grade down would be fine, but they would still offer AAA. Nottingham don't look at predictions at all for medicine.

We are going to Birmingham for an actual open day later this month. Have done lots on line, but DD has since changed her idea on what to study so they were useful

We have a week in Norfolk coming up (fingers crossed no-one has to isolate), so are hoping to at least visit the campus of UEA whilst there.

Also planning a trip to Nottingham over the holidays just to see the uni and get a feel for the city. Exeter is another on the list, but might wait until peek holiday season is over before going there....

I have heard that school bubbles/close contact isolations will likely be replaced with daily testing so hopefully it won't be quite so rampant. None of us have the app apart from Uni DS who had to have it to check in to uni buildings. School told 6th formers who had it to switch off whilst in school as the app could be incorrectly triggered if phones were left in lockers or pupils were sitting next to a wall during lessons! I don't trust it at all.

Well our summer is based around UCAT on August 5th. Study + practice until then and if it's a good result full systems go for Medicine application, if not... Well we're not talking about that!

But she's given herself the afternoon off today to go to Wimbledon with her Granny!

@Monkey2001 thanks, I will email them. Interesting about medicine, what do they do to select then?

Planning for the future with your wise words.

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn they use UCAT and GCSEs to shortlist for medicine at Nottingham. All medical schools interview.

Have medicine applicants been keeping an eye on whether interviews are on line or F2F? Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester all on line, I have not been following all of them, so would be interested to hear what decisions have been made. On line is so different!