Tonight I have the honour of driving several of my daughters friends to the 'Prom'.
I thought I was going to miss out as she is getting ready with others at anothers house :(
All is well, I am driver.....

Dont want to share this excitement on facebook as wouldn't be cool either.

I am a proud mum she has just finished 12 GCSEs and unlike her brothers before she has actually seemed to done some revision too!
I will FB a photo when she is in finery for tonight she will have to expect that, but at least I can come here and rave about my pride in her :)

Karen

How lovely, you must post a photo and you should be proud.  I'm extremely proud of my children too but they do cringe when I tell them !!

:-D :-D Rave away, our children have no idea how much these things mean to us, sure you will be gushing with pride.

As well as my boys who I drove mad with photo's and seeing them off, I've done the same with my nieces and nephews I always mark the date in my calender so that I can see them dressed and ready for prom, it is so exciting for them and us. :-)

Enjoy!

> Dont want to share this excitement on facebook as wouldn't be cool either

How things have changed :) When my son left school after A-levels in 2001, my OH and I went to his leaving dinner/dance as did all the other parents and teachers :) :) :)

How long have proms been on the go in our schools?  I know they are a big thing in the US, but I don't remember them when I left school (although, it is 20 something years ago!).  They just kicked you out the door and said good riddance to some of us.  I feel a bit short changed lol

It's really great to hear about your kids doing well.  There's a lot of bad press about (supposedly) 'easy exams', but I think it's a bit insulting to the students who put in all of the hard work and effort and endure a great deal of stress to get those grades.  As I recall, they weren't all that easy.

i work in a school. Weve had prom for over 10 years but only in recent years has it been become americanised where there is a huge emphasis on dresses/suits/limo's etc

I get really angry when people say exams are easier.They are not.Kids work bloody hard and i bet a lot of adults couldnt pass them and do the neccessary coursework and revision

> Kids work bloody hard

I don't think anybody is saying that they don't :)

> I get really angry when people say exams are easier

But, IME, they are easier :( Why is it that at, for example, a really top grammar school, the best pupils were only allowed to take 3, or a maximum of 4, A Levels 10 + years ago and today, some pupils are taking 7 ? When I left school - many years ago - with three A Levels (of mediocre grades), actually having PASSED the exams was considered as an achievement - now only top grades are considered worthy by a lot of universities and employers ??

It is not that pupils are actually any brighter, it is that the exams are easier. In fact, a lot of students going to universities now have much poorer maths and English than their counterparts years ago and universities are also having to spend time bringing the new students up to the level needed to do the university course in other subjects as well. My son who passed 2 maths A levels at grade A in 2001 and has done maths also at university, has seen the A Level papers that I sat in maths in 1973 and says that they are a lot harder than the papers he sat.

Nobody is criticising the hard work and effort put in by current students. Most undoubtedly work very hard. It is unfair to them, though, to let them believe that they have reached a certain standard in a subject, when really some of them haven't. There are only so many top jobs available and the 'really' top students will still fill them and the less able students, albeit with 'A Levels', will end up working in routine office jobs, just as they would have done 40 years ago when they would have left school with 5 good O Levels !

>Nobody is criticising the hard work and effort put in by current students. Most undoubtedly work very hard. It is unfair to them, though, to let them believe that they have reached a certain standard in a subject, when really some of them haven't.

That's got it in a nutshell. The children are being cheated by the system, and they don't deserve it.

When my son was about 8 he told us that he really liked having hard school exams. Why - we asked ? Because if the exam was difficult he came top, if it was easy he either shared coming top with lots of the other pupils, or, if he had made a silly mistake, he might come lower down the order :) :) Yes, a lot of his fellow pupils were happy because they came top (or nearly top) if the exam was easy, but it didn't tell their teacher anything :( Who was understanding the work and who wasn't and might need more help ? :(

Our daughters first year in Biomedicine , they spend going over the biology they have already done...the approach is different , they need to look at things from a different way  from how they do for A level .It's not cramming , getting it down on paper within the time allowed .It is to check the work they have done as well, conflicting stuff sorted , english and math bought up to par.

Back in the days when only 10% of pupils took A-levels, and only about 10% of them got Grade As, they were a good test of who would go on to have a top career. Exams that are hard to pass are far more valuable at preventing teenagers making the wrong choices and wasting their and everyone else's time at university (getting a 'degree' which used be a diploma) when in fact they'd be far better suited to a different course of action and no student debt hanging around their necks.

Get the universities to set the questions so that the students who pass have been taught what they need to know.

Its interesting that my daughter is expecting an A grade for maths, but she and all the others who are going to do maths at A level  are to do a 2 day bridging between year 11 maths and A/A2 maths in the 6th form.

Karen

Hey guys lets get back to the proms and away from the controversy of exams.!
Yes they are americanised now but the kids have a wonderful time and its amazing seeing how well they scrub up ! Boys you could never imagine knew what a suit was let alone wear one and the girls in their dresses When you have spent years watching them go through school and dragging them through all sorts   sometimes you wonder if you are a teacher or a social worker its great to see them as young adults

Patrick same here apart from a group of us got invited round to the Head of PE as she wanted to thanks us personally for making the last few years the best the school had seen both for school records ( I held four for the 100m, 200m, long jump and high jump )

We then won hockey and netball tournaments as well so a good year !

It was a lovely meal with her and her partner and all four of us had a great time !

Better than dressing up in a ball gown as would have dreaded the thought ! Lol !

> Weve had prom for over 10 years but only in recent years has it been become americanised

Haven't they always been an American thing?    I had never heard of Proms until we started seeing stuff like "Happy Days" on the television.

We never had a prom at my school, I guess being a girls school we'd have had to do it in partnership with a boys school or something. We did have one ball at Uni but I didn't enjoy it much, I'm not really into that sort of thing, being the girl always picked last for everything, I would have just been sitting there not being asked to dance. :-)

> xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Why is it that at, for example, a really top grammar school, the best pupils were only allowed to take 3, or a maximum of 4, A Levels 10 + years ago and today, some pupils are taking 7

I dont know of anybody who's taken 7 A levels. I dont think it would even be possible with the amount of tuition needed for each subject so not sure where you've got that from.
In Year 1 at college its 4 AS levels with a subject droppd for year 2 so the student walks away with 3 A levels.

There is more demand now to go to univeristy to get a 'good job' so of course its not just about getting a degree (which used to be the big achievement)  but getting the best grade possible :-)

It was wonderful to see them in the finery and the seperating of the ways as you could see the diversity in fashion choices.
In so much as we had the glamorous, the 'wagalike' and the conventional girls. The boys were also distinct in there groups too.

Karen

Keep a sharp eye on her.  Those prom dresses come off MUCH easier than they go on.  :)

I want to see pics :o :o
Lea :) :)