The Things You Are HAPPY About Thread.

[YoungWolf]

Well done to her! It just shows that it is never too late, nor should results at 16 define you.

My friend who I met at uni as a mature student decided at 30 to go back to college and then go to university. He's just done the same masters as me, had journals published and has considered doing a PhD. Having been told at 16 he was too thick to do A Levels by his teacher!

Good luck to your step daughter with whatever she does next!

 

[SLA]

step daughter got a 7 on her gcse maths today.

she's cleverer than she realises. she messed about at school and left with no qualifications, but took it onto herself to go and start doing foundations english and maths, and it's now bearing fruit!
Not sure if it'll be this year or next, but she's looking to do an access course and get into nursing.

Nice. Good for her.

I reckon most people are cleverer than they realise. (And some are not as clever as they think!)

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Still waiting to hear about mini's results.

 

[lemonjelly]

Well done to her! It just shows that it is never too late, nor should results at 16 define you.

My friend who I met at uni as a mature student decided at 30 to go back to college and then go to university. He's just done the same masters as me, had journals published and has considered doing a PhD. Having been told at 16 he was too thick to do A Levels by his teacher!

Good luck to your step daughter with whatever she does next!

Thank you YW. Hope your mate pops a note to his old teacher :icon_wink: maybe enclosing a copy of his thesis.

Nice. Good for her.

I reckon most people are cleverer than they realise. (And some are not as clever as they think!)

& SLA

Also, I do agree, indeed I'd argue there are additional types of intelligence, and some people are so rich in these, yet because they are not academically clever/qualified, feel inadequate. My mum has always been thus. I'm trying to talk youngest stepdaughter into taking her english and maths. She has no academic qualifications, and constatly says she's think, but she isn't. And in raising an autistic son who cannot speak, she's brilliant at communicating, understanding, and also frequently shows up the professionals, because she understands his needs!

Still waiting to hear about mini's results.

he'll do great mate, I'm sure!

 

[Parkins left foot]

Paddy I'm sure that Mini will do fine, but exams in themselves aren't the only defining factor in having a successful career

My youngest got virtually no qualifications at school (though did get the equivalent of HND level via an apprenticeship) & would have been happy to leave at 14 if he was allowed to. Now runs his own business turning over at least £300K per year with very good profit.

Plus can remember when the bank had to reduce the entry qualifications in the 80's down to CSE's rather than O levels (for younger people this preceded the current exams) - I was a an Admin Manager at the time & we took on 2 lads one of whom had A Levels, but could not follow basic instructions & had to explain things at least 3 times (though could probably have translated it into ancient Greek) & a lad who just scraped in with the minimum requirement at the reduced levels.

Could tell the latter once what you wanted & how to do it & he was off - a real hit with the customers as dealt with their queries with a smile & at speed

 

[Dublin Drummer Wolf]

Agree with all of the above about academic qualifications. I scraped through school and dropped out of college half-way through my sound engineering course.

I worked my arse off in shitty jobs for years, did all the early/late shifts known to man and basically just kept an open mind and made sacrificies when it came to learning new skills and networking.

I agrre with LJ about additional levels of skill and intelligence and thats why our schools/colleges are flawed when it comes to the grading system.

At work, we introduced a 2 tier system which measured you on things like Application, Navigation skills, Behaviour, Attendance, Class Participation Innovation etc.
To pass our training and be offered a contract, you have to pass 3 exams. But often we see trainees fail one of the 3, even though we can tell they are suitable for the role, so we use the 2nd level attributes to assess whether they can be endorsed by us and given a pass from training. It's saved a few people from being exited for missing the passing mark by a few percent so i believe it's a good system.

It also works in the opposite way, where people pass the exams but we can see they fell short in the other key areas and this means we dont endorse them for a contract.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

If the world worked on the basis of academic excellence, I'd probably be living in a castle or something by now. I do not.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Mini did very well indeed. Exceeded expectations and even bloody passed Chemistry which is up there with the wedding feast at Cana on the miracle front. Celebratory slap-up binge from House of Canton is in order methinks. I am very proud of him.

 

[YoungWolf]

Well done to Mini!

 

[Parkins left foot]

Congrats to Mini

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

He even got one grade 9, which is absolutely stonking.

 

[SLA]

Good on him.

 

[SLA]

We're fortunate enough to have a year off exams this year. Next year is A levels and GCSEs. Going to be a stressful few months chez SLA.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

We're fortunate enough to have a year off exams this year. Next year is A levels and GCSEs. Going to be a stressful few months chez SLA.

Yeah, same cycle when me and our kid were growing up. My parents got away with it to a point though as the whole thing never bothered me (why would it, I was good at them without having to try very hard).

I think the only time I actually gave much of a shit about it all was on results day. I think even then I was more bothered that we'd just sold Robbie Keane.

 

[Parkins left foot]

We're fortunate enough to have a year off exams this year. Next year is A levels and GCSEs. Going to be a stressful few months chez SLA.

From memory you will need Valium

 

[SLA]

Yeah, same cycle when me and our kid were growing up. My parents got away with it to a point though as the whole thing never bothered me (why would it, I was good at them without having to try very hard).

I think the only time I actually gave much of a shit about it all was on results day.

I've got one daughter who'll probably be fine stress-wise but the older one can have an anxiety attack when deciding what to have for breakfast so she'll be fun. Schools don't help by telling them day in, day out that their entire future rests on the results (though I understand the context of why they do this) and the rancid government doesn't help by telling everyone we're going to eaten by the Chinese if our kids don't reach some imaginary international benchmark.

And parents (hello!) probably don't help when they say, "hey, I just cruised through mine, didn't take them seriously at all, and look at me, I'm great!"

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I've got one daughter who'll probably be fine stress-wise but the older one can have an anxiety attack when deciding what to have for breakfast so she'll be fun. Schools don't help by telling them day in, day out that their entire future rests on the results (though I understand the context of why they do this) and the rancid government doesn't help by telling everyone we're going to eaten by the Chinese if our kids don't reach some imaginary international benchmark.

And parents (hello!) probably don't help when they say, "hey, I just cruised through mine, didn't take them seriously at all, and look at me, I'm great!"

I'm sure "they were much harder in my day" and "we didn't have the Internet to help us out with research" would make equally excellent pep talks.

Do they still do General Studies A-Level? That was made for me. All you have to is argue and articulate it in a reasonable manner.

 

[Paul]

G.C.E.'s were proper exams, none of this girly stuff they do now

 

[Boozad]

I always help our daughters when they need it but always try to coax them into finding answers for themselves if possible, now I know that if they do ask for help they're really stuck. It was good that both told me that they learned more than they thought by looking for information themselves, so it's sort of learning plus. Still a few years from the GCSEs and such yet though although both are pretty bright and don't shirk their schoolwork and both seem to handle pressure really well. We'll see when the time comes!

 

[SLA]

I'm sure "they were much harder in my day" and "we didn't have the Internet to help us out with research" would make equally excellent pep talks.

Do they still do General Studies A-Level? That was made for me. All you have to is argue and articulate it in a reasonable manner.

I think they have similar - and on a lot of the university prospectuses we've been looking at they have entry requirements like 2 As and B (*not General Studies) :icon_lol: