22 Foxhole East

f0xh0les

Back in LeShire.  
Got disappointing GCSE results this week. He has his English and Maths at C ( in old money) but the sciences he was supposed to be getting A 's in, came out as D's - and he was confident he did well in the exams ....  so we need to find out next Weds if the college will take him with 5 passes instead of 6 - although the Chemistry paper was only 4 marks off a C.   Is it worth asking for a remark?  I don't know! 
The A levels he wants to do have no relation to anything he has studied before, so maybe the college will look favourably on him?  Keep things crossed for him please 🙏 🥺 
 The fail rate in English and Maths nationally was 40%!!!!  That is obscene.  It is nearly half the kids!  What is going on??? 😭 😭 
On the work front I have my job sheets for the first two weeks in September, so there will be some money coming in. 
The trip to Ireland has worked out at £800 that I have to find some money to pay for.  DH has had to pay for his flights to USA in October for work, so he said that he can't help with it.  Once again it is all on me. I was actually surprised he thought to offer.. 
So I went outside and hacked back the hedge, which was hilarious in the wind, but I chased all my leaves and twigs down the street and swept them all up. No littering on the pavement for me! It is back to being just under 6 feet tall instead of 8 feet.  Next door shonky builders did it for me last time, well, they did the sides back to bare old unsprouted  wood and totally left the top! and they seem to have abandoned the house for nearly  two months.  
I fixed my energy tariff on Tuesday, in readiness for the energy cap rise. 10%?!?!? Flippin' Eck!

KajiKita

Does he need chemistry for anything? If he doesn’t, I’d leave it be. 

I was shocked by the maths and English results too. Anyone would think we had country wide deprivation and schools with diddly budgets these days, or some such … 

Its good to have you back. How was the trip? (I won’t call it a holiday, as I get the impression that it’s more of a duty than a pleasure ….)

KK

slm6002

My son had a couple of some 3's and is 3 marks off the magic 4 mark.  The school said they advise if 1-2 marks off they would suggest a remark but 3+ not so much.   We are still considering it.  My DS didn't pass his english exams and is dyslexic.  However the school said that he had been working at a confident 4 maybe a 5. Gutted for him as he will need to retake until he gets it.  I hadn't seen it was 40% fail - we always knew that one would be hard for DS as he cant spell and grammar is terrible.  However for RE which is all essay writing where he needs to be good at english he got a 5.  Plus got his 7 in maths so was happy.

I hope your DS gets into college without his sciences.  Especially as the course he would like to do is nothing to do with his science.  Fingers crossed.

f0xh0les

I think they have finally noticed they are getting old, that they.live in the middle of nowhere, and that if one of them dies or gets sick, they are shafted.  They basically will not be able to continue at their normal level of selfish. 
Plus sectarianism and nationalism are alive and well and proudly rearing it's ugly head again now Sinn From are in power in the North and Ireland is getting some migrants and they really really don't like it.
The in-laws  built a massive house in half a dozen acres, they are slowing down, have a couple of horses, and  a couple of niggly problems with the plumbing ( actual plumbing not a euphemism).  Her sister is mid 70s and has her first grandchild and is loving looking after him. But the kid is in London and she lives in deepest Cornwall, but she comes up to help out as often as possible. Which is a lot, and so she is not available as much to m-i-l and so m-i-l is jealous.
 They are realising they only have each other..... So of course what do they do? Worry about how to avoid inheritance tax 🤬. They should be having cruises and drinking at lunchtime, but they travelled a lot while young and insurance after 75 can be tricky.  They are just not 'holiday' people.  I think they are getting frightened of the future.
As expected Dr F-H plugged himself into his iPad in another room and regressed into a teenage boy who only joined in for meals and watched the football instead.
 I now know more about my in-laws sex life than I wanted to,  but thank god nobody talked about their bowels. I had enough of that with the invisible-work-friend last month.  It is NOT okay. 
So I listened, nodded, smiled, sympathised, and then went into the garden and weeded.  DS's 3 and 4 were proper helpful little garden gnomes, but we would have had to have been there for a fortnight to make a proper difference. 

f0xh0les

DS1 and DS2 appeared for meals and then hid in their rooms.  They are embarrassing.   

greent

If you are considering a review of marking (ouch to the cost of doing so) for any papers you could get the papers back first and teachers might check them over to see if they can find any marks? Boards provide them free to schools, but schools might charge an admin fee (ours is £3) 4 marks is quite a lot to find - but last year I saw papers with up to 20 extra marks found - that's unacceptable, imo.  Most, though, were 1, 2 or 3 marks. And don't forget marks can go down - I've had 2 students have that so far this year.

KajiKita

Ugh …. Nothing worse than seeing ‘impending doom’ looming …. And their sex lives - why on earth did that get shared with you ….? No, no, no!!! <hands over ears> 😂
I can’t help noticing that DSs 1 and 2 did exactly what DH did … 🤷‍♀️
Bravo to DS 3 and 4 😊
I did wonder what the rise of Sinn F might do …. It’s always been what I would describe as ‘edgy’ out there (there is a manager, here in the UK, working with me, who won’t tell me what church affiliation he grew up in … the effect-tentacles reach a loooong way) but it sounds like it’s getting a lot worse again. Sad for such a beautiful, kind place. 

KK

VintageHistorian

I've seen quite a few people on Twitter saying they appealed in the past and got quite a big swing upwards. If he really does think he did well and the grade is below what the school predicted then I think it's worth the money to get it double-checked.

redofromstart

May be worth checking with the school to see if they have plans, ours asked for consent to appeal on 2 for my DS, he was a point or 2 off. One got upgraded, the other didn't. They paid, I wouldn't have done as it was 7/8 and 8/9, might have done if it had been english or maths and a 3/4

f0xh0les

I can’t help noticing that DSs 1 and 2 did exactly what DH did … 🤷‍♀️

Bravo to DS 3 and 4 😊

DH was visible and helped with cooking, but apart from that, yes. It was not lost on me. 

I have read two books which are not sci-fi/ werewolf trashy nonsense in the last two weeks. Both of them made me so annoyed on finishing I immediately threw them across the room into the box for the c/s.  It was enough to turn me into a card waving Feminist.  If women are putting up with such manipulative behaviour in men, but think it is all okay as long as they get a marriage proposal at the end, even if the man is a bit dim and has only killed one of his wives, his unborn child, another of his children, and the future Mrs Idiot's own father. But a wedding!! 💒. FtLoG!!  Not a happy ending!!!! It is a car crash!
Currently reading a book by the chap who wrote The Remains of the Day, called ?? erm... something about a sleeping giant??  I am half way through but I have no idea what is real and what is imagined yet. DH bought it for me a couple of years ago because the cover was pretty. He buys me 'literature' which is utterly depressing 🤣.    It has lain in my tbr pile but I am now on Operation Read and Release. No new happy trashy books until this 📚 📚 is depleted and removed. About 12 books left after this one. I can do 1 or 2 a week I reckon and then buy myself some utter carp as a reward ( for reading Prize Winning Authors ) for Sproutmas.