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Original poster

How late is too late to swap A levels?

56 replies

Oldowl · 09/10/2017 21:23

DD is taking Maths, FM, Geography and Politics at a super selective Grammar at the start of Y12. She achieved 9 A* and 3 As at GCSE and at the moment wants to apply to Oxford to study Geography.

She is finding FM really tough and is stressing every night about it. She is desperate to give it up, but knows her school will insist she chooses another A level as all pupils take 4 (or 5) A levels. The problem comes that she does not have another A level choice that she wants to do. I have suggested economics, but it's a NO. Is it too late to start another A level if her peers are a month into the course? She asked her Head of 6th form if she could just do 3 plus EPQ about a fortnight ago and was told, 'No, all students do at least 4 in the lower 6th.'

The other problem with giving up FM is that she will have to change maths classes and will lose some brilliant maths teachers who get amazing results. She is in a real dilemma and is upset every night as the pace of the lessons and the workload is killing her love of school.

OP posts:
antimatter · 09/10/2017 22:13

wait until she gets her results, if she is struggling with FM it is only fair to give it up

I hate when school insists on 4 A levels where 3 are enough

Original poster
Oldowl · 09/10/2017 22:09

RE might be an option. I will check if it is running this year as very few choose it.

OP posts:
Original poster
Oldowl · 09/10/2017 22:07

It is the first time she has found maths difficult. She does ask for help from the teachers, attends maths clinic and asks friends to work on exercises together. She is very proactive but feels she is holding the class (of 18 students) back as she keeps asking for things to be explained again. I have told her that probably half the class are not getting it but won't ask so she is doing them a favour.

I don't think she is failing. She has a test soon so I said to see how it goes. Her reaction was, if I do badly they will chuck me off the course so the stress will be over.

What online resources/videos are there for A level maths/FM?

OP posts:
sendsummer · 09/10/2017 22:06

Sorry missed the fact that she said no to economics. Philosophy or RE or biology? A lMFL? Business studies?

sendsummer · 09/10/2017 22:04

First decision: giving up a subject she finds too hard and is stressing her versus losing the best maths teachers. I would think that having less good teachers is surmountable with all the online resources, help from friends and possibly outside school help.

Then if she stops FM what subject can she do which will be in line and overlap with her other subjects and degree interests and therefore engender more motivation for the initial hard work of catching up. Does the school do geology? What about economics? If the school does not do AS levels for subjects other than maths she could take a bit more of a gamble in her subject choice since she will not have a result going against her at the end of year 12.

noblegiraffe · 09/10/2017 21:55

If she doesn't want to switch maths classes, doesn't have another subject to switch to (and it's probably too late anyway - if she did switch there would be a lot of work to catch up and she's already stressed) and her school won't let her drop it, then perhaps she needs to tackle the FM differently. Is this the first time she's ever found anything difficult? Often students who have sailed through GCSE run into problems at A-level because they simply don't know what to do when they are stuck.

Has she asked her maths teachers for help? Like to take an extra 20 minutes or so after school to go through stuff with her?
Is she genuinely failing, or just not getting as good marks as she is used to? Girls in particular can lack confidence, catostrophise, think they are doing worse than they are.
Has she tried using online resources - videos etc to help?

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