Not sure how many of you have children taking GCSE 's and A levels shortly but if you have what on earth are the Education Authorities playing at.
At DG central we are all stressed.
At just GCSE level Miss DG is working 12 / 15 hours a day at weekends and holidays and at least 6 hours after school. That has been the case for 15 weeks just on art and graphics. She has 8 other subjects with exams in 3 weeks and not been able to start revision yet.
As I post a 16 year old child has stayed up until past 12.30 am
to complete final art books tidy up and has to be up at 6 am
this morning to do the last minute presentations.

I know Sminkys daughter is doing A level art which must be worse but do any of you have the same problems ?
We are at beaking point and what is there at the end of it all
UNEMPLOYMENT !!!!

was talking to a customer other week and their kid went to uni cost them 15k (which they have to pay back) he can`t get nothing. At mo working part time as a shelve stacker in sainsburys.

There`s no work out there. The biggest problem is all these facking poles over here doing brits out of work. Farmer up the road employ more poles than brits, if wet the brits have to go home early.

this country needs to wake up, i could go on but whats the point?

My sympathies go out to the DG household. Bloody exams are a nightmare.

Miss S doing Art and Textiles A level final year - the general concencus of opinion amongst many are that these are "easy" subjects!! NOOOOO!!! She has a talent for both, art especially, but spends an incredible number of hours working . Her standards are high as well as the cost of materials - I shelled out £30 at least yesterday on buying materials for her final pieces to submit - that's two Blackburn away tickets!!!!

On the other hand Mr S junior is in the third year of a physics degree - I will leave Rex to explain. I don't think i have had a proper converation with my son for weeks due to his workload. He lives away most of the time but is always stressed due to deadlines. His exam timetable is horrendous so i am trying not to nag him to return phonecalls. He is also p***ed off about Villa, which doesn't help!!!

On that note I am glad I am no longer 18 or 21, though I have enough stresses as a parent and being self employed!!!

I suppose we all have our reasons to moan.....

Sminks.
We have just shelled out £ 70 on Miss DG 's final piece.
I would anticipate that on graphics and art GCSE's over past 2 years we have spent well over £ 1000 on materials.
That includes about 50 pritt sticks to stick in pictures / critical analysis etc into 6 folders each containing 100 A3 sheets.
She has made a vase of beaded flowers from scratch as part of the display that has over £ 150 of beads and took over 200 hours to make. This is just for GCSE !!!! Also beads to look like coral sowed to a shoe which took another 100 hours.

The A3 folders are to be laid on the floor !!!! as part of next weeks exhibition as they cannot afford tables in the atrium which was part of £ 12 million PFI project ! We have to buy one and take it in !!!!

Graphics mark for coursework counts as just 60 % of final mark but she has got 100 % for this although the edge has been taken off when teacher ( not even a graphics teacher as previous one retired ) hinted it was not her own work and as she took over 20 hours allowed ( we estimate over 400 hours ) she may get it reduced to 0 % as it has now been set away for double checking.

Coursework now finished BUT revising for all the other subjects
( all predicted A * 's to live up to ) she has no time left and 2 exams before they break up for revision and all the remainder minus maths in the following 2 weeks before the end of May.

I toatlly despair at the education system !!!!

I feel so sorry for you both at what must be a stressful time , and as RP says after all that hard work and expense , there may be no job or career at the end of it .

luckily for me , NY was WELL laid back with all his exams !! I remember him making a cardboard model of his new design for a new South Stand , which amazingly looked almost identical to the one that was actually built 15 years later . He painted a fabulous oil painting of the Titanic at sea, WHICH HE STILL HASN'T FINISHED 15 years later !!!!!!

I don't remember him doing much else ! ! !

Edited by yellow belly 1/5/2012 11:54

Times have changed.
I took Art A level and it was a doddle. Just a bit of work for 2 years and a 10 hour final exam which the entire mark was based on.
No sketch books, no crit analysis, no exhibitions.
Miss DG Art teacher says A level steps it up to another level.
Miss DG is already spending ALL her spare time on school work so she is not taking A level. GCSE has destroyed her love for art although she has learnt a lot and hopefully will appreciate art
for entire life as a result of her studies.

Miss S hoping to go on to a do an Art degree. However she has to do a foundation course first as do all potential degree stdents. Next year she has a place at Birmingham city Uni in Bourneville next to Cadbury Factory close to where Mr S junior now lives. He heard about his siser's impending arrival and has now moved around corner on the infamous Bristol Rd!!!

Miss S has also been doing Textiles A level and has been finishing off her final piece, which she has kept well hidden. Despite getting A* at GCSE two years ago, last year's AS result was a huge diasppointment. She has shown me the piece to be submitted in a weeks time for A level after hour and hours of work and i was bowled over.

After Art and Textiles are all done with, she has the small matter of resitting her A level Business Studies exam from Jan, due to a disappointing result down to workload from other subjects, aswell as sitting the June paper.

Sorry to bore the pants off everyone else reading this but perhaps a few Prem footballers could do with reading this thread.

Sminks. You are assuming that they can read

Exams!,

Mrs Barrik is 3/4 the way through her Open Uni Degree in English and Spanish, I wouldn't mind but she already has a degree, just that they don't recognise qualifications from Ukraine, ...........

What has pissed me off, is that for the last 2/3 years she has worked in schools here, firstly as a volunteer teacher, for no pay of course and then lately as a teachers assistant , supporting teachers who have no where near her experience or knowledge. Some little upstart even had the nerve to try and put her down as coming from a third rate country where standards would of course be lower.

She's to modest, I would have just slapped my CV down and said, 'Beat that, Bitch'

I admire the restraint that the fairer sex appear to have over us chaps.

Teaching assistants. I have been told that applications are now being recieved from post grad and generally brilliantly qualified people just to work as an assistant to teachers on a very poor wage.
It seems to be all wrong to me.

Just as education appears to be settling down Micael Toad announces plans to go back to O levels instead of GCSE 's.
What a total

I can't take that bloke seriously. I wouldn't mind re-sittiing a couple of my 'O' levels to up my grades.

Edited by sminky 22/6/2012 00:08

I had to

Trip to Wymondham College tonight for 6 th form introduction evening. Looks like Miss DG will have to step up even further with work load

Miss S officially finished A levels yesterday with her last business exam. Now we have the usual lengthy wait for results. Worse than waiting for fixtures to come out. Hope Miss S fares better with her results than I did with fixtures!