Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Original poster

Help with A level choices.

29 replies

CreamyCooler · 15/11/2013 15:15

My son is in year 11. He's predicted and on track for grade B in all his GCSE's apart from French which is C/D and Maths which is C/B. He has a late August birthday and until this week has been very reluctant to talk about what he wants to do after his exams. However this week he has really opened up and decided he wants to stay on at the sixth form and study English, History, Ict and either Geographpy or Biology A levels ( he would drop one at the end of lower sixth form). My questions are if he chooses geography are his choices broard enough? He is doing double science not triple so would he struggle with the Biology? My son has no idea what job he would like to do.

OP posts:
secretscwirrels · 15/11/2013 15:40

I recommend looking at different sixth forms as they often vary a lot in subject choices. Also Sixth form colleges give a different experience than school sixth forms.

Original poster
CreamyCooler · 15/11/2013 15:38

We had the open evening last night and got to talk to lots of sixth formers which was helpful. After that was a presentation and it mentioned taking a wide range of subjects so I was a bit confused. I think I'm comparing it to when I did my A levels 25 years ago and was steered into picking all sciences or all arts.
I will investigate the applied science subject. Thank you.

OP posts:
CareersDragon · 15/11/2013 15:36

Hi CreamyCooler,
If these are the subjects that interest him most & that he wants to study, I'd suggest they're fine. A levels inevitably narrow choices, and the only areas to beware of is that if he decides he wants to study something science- related at university, they often prefer candidates to have 2 sciences. This said, there is no hard & fast rule so some Unis will be less bothered, and there's always the option of taking a foundation year anyway. I'm guessing that he's not that into science if he's only taken double science for GCSE. Some schools that I've worked in advise against A lvl Bio, after double science GCSE as it is a BIG step up.
His choice of English & History form a nice "package", and along with Geography are counted as "facilitating subjects" by the Russell Group of top British Unis, leading to a broad spectrum of uni courses. See their booklet, "Informed Choices", at: www.russellgroup.ac.uk/informed-choices. In Year 11 it needn't be a problem if he doesn't know what he wants to do career-wise, but it IS a good time to start researching some options and window-shopping jobs/careers...look at the National Careers Service website.
Hope that helps!

secretscwirrels · 15/11/2013 15:30

Those are very good solid subjects, but all quite heavy workload wise.
Biology at A level might not need GCSE, the main thing about Biology compared with the other sciences is that there is a huge amount of material to cover. Applied science is a possible alternative?
Do you have a parents evening coming up when you could discuss with those subject teachers whether they think he would be able to tackle the A level?
What about sixth form open evenings (all on this month around here). You can talk to the 6th form teachers and get a feel of what's involved.
I have one in Y13 and one in Y11. My Y11 is just trying to narrow down his subject choices.

Swipe left for the next trending thread