geek84

Thanks for your replies

Good Morning folks I hope you're all well. My son will be sitting his GCSE exams this summer. However, he is not confident that he will achieve the required minimum 5 GCSE grades between A and C in order to progress to A level study. This is going to have a domino effect because in the long run he wants to become a secondary school teacher and in order to get there, he would need to study for a degree at university, In order to study for the degree, he would need to achieve his A levels. And as stated in the previous paragraph, he may not be able to get on to the A level study programme since he may not achieve the 5 GCSE passes. I know most of you would say wait until he sits the exams and the results come out then plan ahead. But we both want to plan as far ahead as possible. If he achieves his 5 GCSEs then great he would be able to progress on to the A level study. However, what if he doesn't achieve his GCSE passes? What would you suggest? I think one route is going on to the BTec course which has less strict entry requirements. However, I get the feeling that most teaching courses at universities do not look favourably on BTec applicants. Is that true? If my son does take the BTec route, would any particular Btec be more suited if he wants to progress on to a university degree teaching course? Or is it just a matter of ringing around local universities and finding out which Btec courses they would allow entry on to their university teaching courses? Finally, another option would be to retake the GCSEs for another academic year, in order to make sure he achieves his required 5 GCSE passes and progress on to the A level course and then the university teaching course. What would you suggest? Thank You.

Good Morning A friend of mine seems to have a gift from an early age of repairing/fixing things and the other day he suggested that he was thinking of becoming a handyman or an odd job man. He can do a whole host of things such as: putting up shelves, putting together flat pack furniture, tiling, laminate flooring, fixing curtains/blinds, fixing faulty toilets, painting, building and repairing fences, guttering, gardening. However, to get a ‘feel’ of the work and reassure himself that he will not be the only odd job man in the region, he would like to meet up either face to face or online with other individuals who are already doing this type of work and thus to discuss the pros and cons of doing this type of work. Is anybody aware of any such places where odd job/handymen meet up/socialise to discuss the type of work they do? Finally, my friend is not very computer literate, which is the reason why I am writing the post for him!! Any advice greatly appreciated. Thank You.