Nice people thread 2 - now even nicer

fc123

I forgot to add above.......my fave export is a shop in Iceland....sells well too.

fc123

I was just thinking about Sues son too....the summer job, the mega results......I reckon his confidence will increase really quickly over the next year and there will be looking back.....has he got the girl bug yet? I remember son at that age.....so glad I don't have another teen boy to parent ;-)

SingleSue

Oh yes, the girl bug has hit but only in a small way, at the moment he is more obsessive about earning money so he can buy all the little things I can't afford to buy.

michaels

Good luck PN, not, I'm sure, that you will need luck.

Congrats on all the 'kids' grades and I am thankful it is still a decade away for me although given the cost of uni I have decided mine must make their fortune as glamour models or minor celebs so I need to make sure they don't achieve the grades to carry on in education...

misskool wrote: »

No offence, he won't get into Oxford with just one A* but he needs to show what makes him better than hundreds of other students wanting to study the same subject with better grades than he's got. The interview at Oxford is just as important (if not more) than the grades. What subject does he intend to read? Has he looked at the colleges?

I reckon I got on to my uni course by being the only one who turned up for interview in old jeans and a denim jacket (it was the 80's) whereas all the others were wearing suits (and indeed admitted in the first term that they had assumed I was a current student come to describe the course rather than a fellow candidate...)

SingleSue

carolt wrote: »

Yes, fantastically well done to all the kids - it all seems so much more stressful now than it did in our day - there were no league tables then, no comparisons or value addeds - you just did the best you could and that was that.

BTW, I was absolutely horrified with what your said your eldest's teacher said in front of him, Sue! :eek: No-one with those attitudes/lack of common sense/tact/knowledge of education or basic psychology should ever be in teaching. Amazingly well done to DS1 for rising above that so stunningly.

It's not just happened the once but three times! :eek:
The first was in year 6 as mentioned before, the second time around year 9 ish when eldest spoke about his wanting to go to a certain RAF college and the third, shortly after the start of year 10 by his form tutor...must admit to wanting to bop the teacher on the nose on the final one as eldest had just started his spectacular rise of grades in English (he had gone from a predicted F/G to a D/E in less than 3 months) and I didn't want anyone to undermine his newly found confidence again.

Thankfully the form tutor went on an extended break shortly after and eldest got a new form tutor who just happened to be his English teacher and the one responsible for his new found confidence.

He went forward so quickly from there on in, as she would spend time not only in the lessons but also in form time, after school, lunch and break times discussing the various ways around his dyslexia and also discovered his talent in creative writing, poetry etc.

Davesnave

Congratulations to all the young academic stars I haven't congratulated yet, and good vibes to PN too. :beer:

Treliac, I'm sure it was old Mr Grace in 'Are You Being Served?' who used to say "You've all done very well," but no reason why your MIL couldn't say it too. I'll say it also, just for good measure!

Special congrats also to FC's daughter for not falling at the first fence in the the Pre-natal Handicap. I believe there are those who base their entire income on this particular race, seeing it more as a jump off against the clock, but I think she's done well to play the long game.

Sue, now the exam results are there, (and what results!) I think you just have to move on and try to forget what's past. I have worked with enough teachers to know that a few of them are fools, and dangerously self-opinionated fools sometimes. Just as we can shape lives for the better, so teachers can also c0ck up months of confidence-boosting with a few careless words. I hope I never did, but I shall never know. It took time & experience to realise that my predictive powers were very flawed.

JonnyBravo

Youngest just found out her results.... (she's currently in India)
3 A*, 5 A, 2 B

Yayyyyyyyyy!!!!

She worked really hard to get them.... the maths and the languages especially. Maths cos she struggles with it (got a B though!) and the languages cos it's what she's going to continue with at A level.

LydiaJ

That's great JonnyBravo. Congrats to her. :T

Davesnave

Excellent news Jonny! Good to see hard work rewarded too. :j

Like yours, mine struggled with the maths.....and she's 21!

GDB2222

misskool wrote: »

No offence, he won't get into Oxford with just one A* but he needs to show what makes him better than hundreds of other students wanting to study the same subject with better grades than he's got. The interview at Oxford is just as important (if not more) than the grades. What subject does he intend to read? Has he looked at the colleges?

An excellent way of ensuring he gets in is to gain relevant gap year experience in the subject he's interested to a point where he can say what he is going to gain from the degree. PM if you want to have a more detailed chat.

Thanks for the very helpful advice. He wants to study history and Politics. He says that the Oxford course is the best-structured course, dealing with the aspects he is most interested in. Obviously, that's a strong point to bring out at the interview. I agree that he'll simply have to shine at the interview, so they'll overlook despite his lack of an A* in politics. He got an A* in history, which is helpful. Above all, he should be taking the chance to read some books this summer, so he can talk about them at the interview.

Workwise, I'm not sure that he can get a lot of directly relevant experience, and the work he has got is quite interesting, and he enjoys it. If you know of any openings at the Downing Street think-tank, I'm sure he could be persuaded to go along, though!