Nice People 13: Nice Save

Doozergirl

I've barely procrastinated at all today.

Just a bit earlier with you lot, but even that was really, very helpful, thank you!

mystic_trev

michaels wrote: »

I do love the 4x4 drivers who feel they can safely drive faster in the snow because 4 wheel drive means they can accelerate more quickly....

…but can't stop! For driving in snow and Ice winter tyres on a 2WD will beat normal tyres on a 4WD by quite a large margin.

This explains it better than I can….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l2cMlNRX_A

hjd

Doozergirl wrote: »

I've barely procrastinated at all today.

I have. If procrastination was a sport I'd be up there with the medal winners.
Mind you, I have dealt with everything that I deem to be urgent. Everything else can wait. So there.

silvercar

GDB2222 wrote: »

I cannot say whether I am a good driver, but I am an absolutely dreadful passenger!

They say the safest drivers are those that think they are not good drivers. That would be me then!

lostinrates

silvercar wrote: »

They say the safest drivers are those that think they are not good drivers. That would be me then!

I will not drive when I feel impaired by health. I just won't. I'm aware I'm not as sharp witted as I used as I used to be, but......well, they don't do reaction tests or iq tests for the driving tests, so a lot of people aren't, I'm no worse than very many....I just would be a pants stunt driver or something like that, and doubt I could drive spilling nothing from a cup of tea. . But I don't drive when I shouldn't.

New car has made a lot of difference. Last car made problems with lights from dash and the radio area and click. This one everything is subtle and a mellow colour and causes no problem whatsoever. This is something I couldn't have hoped or planned for, I just wouldn't have thought of it. No more trying to drive with post its over the clock and cardi over radio to reduce impact! Its incredibly better.

LydiaJ

lostinrates wrote: »

Yep, that's what its like here.

Its interesting to note that repairs in concrete paths, for example are better covered. Why would they be colder?

They won't be actually significantly colder - just less conductive, so heat can't come upwards from the layers below the surface where it's not frozen.

Doozergirl wrote: »

We had snow last week on Thursday. None today, it's totally clear, thankfully. Car is booked in for new tyres on Monday.

DS also has his GCSE options to decide on.
He has to do:
English Language
English Literature
Maths
3x Sciences
Short course RE
Short course PE (I don't know what these mean!)

He has three options. He wants to do:
Business Studies
Economics
Geography.

It looks a bit heavy to me and with two brand new subjects to him. I suggested he leave BS or Economics to A Level and did Art instead, but it looks like Art might go on the reserve list with history, at the moment.

The whole BS/econ thing is not my area of expertise, I'm afraid.

silvercar wrote: »

You know your child best, at first glance I would say that drama art and DT are all practical subjects. Does he need all 3. Practical subjects take up a disproportionate amount of time IMHO.

No foreign language may be an omission unless he is really bad at them.

Yes he is. Very very bad at them. Has already had a special exception made for him to give up French. If he took Spanish to GCSE it is pretty much 100% certain he would fail it. A good GCSE in yet another practical subject has to be better than a fail in a language, doesn't it?

I do know what you mean about the large numbers of practical subjects. It isn't that he "needs" to do all 3 of them, but there aren't other options that he could do well at. That's why I'm so frustrated that they don't offer triple science - he could do well at that.

He is, I think, quite intelligent, even quite academically strong, and he behaves well and tries as hard as he understands what "trying hard" means. However, reading is onerous for him, and he does is slowly and significantly inaccurately. Writing is physically painful after the first minute or so, and so painful that he has to stop after about 8-10min. Typing isn't painful, but spelling is a complete mystery to him, and punctuation isn't much better, so essay subjects fill him with dread. He is, sadly, "not bad enough" to qualify for extra time because he can read single words quite well, and that's what the test is about - even though paragraphs of text take him several attempts to absorb.

The school doesn't really know how to handle him, IMO. All the others who do "study support" instead of French are generally not very able or academically minded across the board, and these seem to be the type of student that the senco is interested in helping. DS, however, really does have "specific learning difficulties" with the emphasis on "specific". He's top set for science and 2nd set (of 7 or 8 I think) for maths, and the IT department marked him out within his first term there as one of their star people that they wanted for the proper GCSE in programming rather than the certificate in IT.

He's v keen to do drama and food, it's obvious he ought to do computing, and he's willing to do history. I wish the 5th one didn't have to be art - which he will do mostly through graphic design and photography rather than drawing and painting - but there's nothing else in that option box he can do. He's not remotely interested in business, doesn't have any talent for music or PE, doesn't need to do the ICT certificate if he's doing GCSE programming, and doesn't feel inclined towards philosophy and ethics. I wish he could do geography instead of art - it would take a bit of persuading but I might be able to get him to give it a go - but it isn't available in the box where he needs to put something.

LydiaJ

hjd wrote: »

I know this seems a long way off, but other universities won't accept candidates for any degrees who don't have a modern foreign language GCSE. Just making you aware in case this could be a problem. Schools don't flag it up often enough.

His school have flagged it up. The booklet says "If you aspire to achieve ... success in the sixth form and higher education, it is highly recommended that you choose a language ..."

I've told him that when he's picking universities he'll have to check which ones require a language and not pick those ones. He's happy with that.

hjd wrote: »

Those 2 universities were the only two which did the course DD wanted to study...
She hated GCSE French.
In her second year at sixth form college she did AS Italian (from nothing to AS in one year) which was taught differently, by total immersion in the language, and loved it. Went on to do her language degree, then her Masters in Translation Studies and is now working as a self-employed translator. Very busy and having to turn work away.
The Italian has come in useful as she now has an Italian boyfriend - he is also a linguist and works over here, but she can communicate well with his father and brother in Italy when she goes over there. She is taking more Italian classes.
Had anyone said to us (or her) when she was choosing GCSE options that she would end up doing this, they would have been laughed out of court.

Well, if DS ends up like that I will fall over with shock. I've tried helping him learn Spanish vocab, and it's :eek:

Doozergirl wrote: »

He is a bright boy, but awful at Languages; I'm not sure I see the point of the struggle.

My feelings about my own DS exactly.

LydiaJ

zagubov wrote: »

Three sciences will be regarded as hard currency when applying for A levels.

He would do 3 sciences if the school offered it. They don't.

However, he will probably do his A-levels at the same school, so he'll be amongst others who also only have double science.

I imagine he may very likely end up doing something like maths, physics and computing at A-level - either with a 4th separate subject (at AL or AS) or with double maths, or 1.5 maths, or something. (1.5 maths is A-level maths with AS further maths, just in case some NP don't know how these things are organised.) I chose my A-levels (2xmaths, phys, chem) to avoid having to write any essays, and I'm not dyslexic, just didn't like writing essays. I shan't be at all surprised if he chooses similarly.

And if we can get his English good enough to keep him in the 2nd maths set even after the reorganisation at the end of this year, he will be able to do ad maths, which will be good CV/UCAS points for him.

lostinrates

I'm kind of horrified a school can 'get away with' not offering three sciences tbh.

silvercar

LydiaJ wrote: »

They won't be actually significantly colder - just less conductive, so heat can't come upwards from the layers below the surface where it's not frozen.



The whole BS/econ thing is not my area of expertise, I'm afraid.



Yes he is. Very very bad at them. Has already had a special exception made for him to give up French. If he took Spanish to GCSE it is pretty much 100% certain he would fail it. A good GCSE in yet another practical subject has to be better than a fail in a language, doesn't it?

I do know what you mean about the large numbers of practical subjects. It isn't that he "needs" to do all 3 of them, but there aren't other options that he could do well at. That's why I'm so frustrated that they don't offer triple science - he could do well at that.

He is, I think, quite intelligent, even quite academically strong, and he behaves well and tries as hard as he understands what "trying hard" means. However, reading is onerous for him, and he does is slowly and significantly inaccurately. Writing is physically painful after the first minute or so, and so painful that he has to stop after about 8-10min. Typing isn't painful, but spelling is a complete mystery to him, and punctuation isn't much better, so essay subjects fill him with dread. He is, sadly, "not bad enough" to qualify for extra time because he can read single words quite well, and that's what the test is about - even though paragraphs of text take him several attempts to absorb.

The school doesn't really know how to handle him, IMO. All the others who do "study support" instead of French are generally not very able or academically minded across the board, and these seem to be the type of student that the senco is interested in helping. DS, however, really does have "specific learning difficulties" with the emphasis on "specific". He's top set for science and 2nd set (of 7 or 8 I think) for maths, and the IT department marked him out within his first term there as one of their star people that they wanted for the proper GCSE in programming rather than the certificate in IT.

He's v keen to do drama and food, it's obvious he ought to do computing, and he's willing to do history. I wish the 5th one didn't have to be art - which he will do mostly through graphic design and photography rather than drawing and painting - but there's nothing else in that option box he can do. He's not remotely interested in business, doesn't have any talent for music or PE, doesn't need to do the ICT certificate if he's doing GCSE programming, and doesn't feel inclined towards philosophy and ethics. I wish he could do geography instead of art - it would take a bit of persuading but I might be able to get him to give it a go - but it isn't available in the box where he needs to put something.

I would strongly suggest not taking art, it takes up so, so, so much time. Even DS2, who got the school prize and an A* in art, regrets it.

Back in my day, people for whom the option boxes didn't provide a good range were allowed to omit one box and self study for one subject in that time. Those good at maths would self study further maths or statistics, sciency students who took geography often picked geology.