A-level course full - what to do?

Look at the two degree courses and the prerequisites for them. PE is unlikely to be a prerequisite for Sports Science as it’s not widely offered. Geography - well I suspect it is more likely to be a prerequisite but a quick look at a few university websites will tell you.
That might help inform her decision. If she is really keen on Geography I wouldn’t take a place and hope someone drops out - it’s a gamble. Where as a different combination of A-Levels that do include Geography are likely to keep Sports Science an option.

she ideally wants to go geography/PE at uni.

That's an unusual combination. Is she sure it's offered anywhere?

There is a Dorling Kindersley book in their 'Big Ideas' series called The Economics Book that gives a good flavour of the subject.

DD is having to run backwards and forwards between two different sixth forms, as she couldn't do her choice of A levels at one sixth form because of how the subjects are timetabled

How did you not realise this could happen? Of course there are only a certain number of spaces in each subject. All sixth forms are the same, no one can possibly have unlimited spaces in any one class....

Your sixth form options are limited by the timetables of the school you are applying at, the entry requirements and the spaces available - most people will get their first choice of topics but a very sizeable minority won't.

You can ask if they will consider going one over, as it is something she has set her heart on, and there is a good choice someone will drop out in the first few months...

But you are asking a massive favour, so I suggest you forget that "tiger mum" attitude, because that will not work in your favour at all.

Good luck

She could consider Economics (if it's not full as well). There's considerable crossover with human Geography. I've had a couple of students do that in similar circumstances. They both did very well and one to her surprise fell in love with it!

@CarrieBlue Spot on! Schools don’t run classes of 7 or 8 just for fun. If a department has “slack” in their timetable then they might run a subject in two blocks like that to help overall retention by solving clashes, but school sixth forms are constantly walking a financial tightrope. We don’t just put on an extra class because teachers like teaching A Level, we just can’t afford it.

DS's school are actually teaching A Level geography as a group of 9 and a group of 8, rather than 1 larger group of 17, which would be rather more usual (and is the case in his other subjects) because they have plenty of teachers who love teaching A Level!

It will have absolutely nothing to do with how many teachers who work there who love teaching A-level, they are probably over staffed if they are running two classes instead of one for such low numbers and you may very well find that there’ll be only one yr13 class, combining the two yr12 classes. I’d be very worried about budget issues at that school. Teachers get no (or very very little) say about which classes they teach, however much they ‘love’ teaching that particular key stage.

@NotQuiteHere I know that the blocks can seem confusing and frustrating but it is just part of running a school sixth form. There really isn’t a way around it.

We have 4 academic blocks on our timetable and most students choose three subjects. We actually have some of our sciences in more than one block, which helps, but back when we only had one class for each science then the starting point for our timetable would be that Chemistry, Biology, Physics and Maths are all in different blocks. If you then put computing in, it has to clash with one of those. It can’t clash with Maths or Physics, so that leaves you with a choice between Chemistry or Biology.

When you’re a small, school Sixth Form it’s just a fact of life that some things will clash. We only have one class of history on our timetable and it causes a clash for someone every year, no matter where we put it. If you’re a big college with a thousand students in a year group you can have every subject in multiple blocks and people can do any combination that they want. Most school Sixth Forms are teetering on the brink of financial viability as it is. If they only have enough students for one class of each subject, then that will mean that not every combination will work. Likewise, if you offer a subject and you have one teacher timetabled in a room with 24 desks and 24 chairs and 35 students sign up, then 11 students are going to be disappointed. We run subjects with some very small classes (2-3 in some cases) but we won’t run a subject for one student for various reasons. That means we’ve had to withdraw one subject this year. Last year that subject had 10 students, so we would not have expected not to be running it this year. The subject that we were worried nobody would take has had 7 sign up so far. We do our best, but we don’t have crystal balls.

My DD had this, phone call to say she had the grades but they were oversubscribed for biology could she take her forth subject instead. After rechecking biology was a must so she sent an email to decline. I didn't think about waiting lists etc.
Luckily I had encouraged her to have a plan B (& c &d!). She is happy with her choice but it has been an added stress that she didn't need. Incidentally another school she had applied to her email went into their junk account so they phoned us the next day to apologise and again we had the rush of resending results just as she was being called into the dentist! Applying and accessing 6th form places and subjects can be a minefield.
Hope it all works out well for your DD in the coming days.

I had this. They don't publish their timetable till the last minute and Ds1 couldn't do his 3 subjects.

I too would email HoY tomorrow, and ask for her to be allowed. Many schools do 4, and then drop one, so it's highly likely there'll be big drop outs later in the year.

DS's school are actually teaching A Level geography as a group of 9 and a group of 8, rather than 1 larger group of 17, which would be rather more usual (and is the case in his other subjects) because they have plenty of teachers who love teaching A Level!

I suspect your DD needs to have a long hard think about whether it's more important to do her chosen subjects or be with her friends (and unless her friends are doing the same subjects as her, she may find she doesn't see much of them at sixth form anyway).

Geography has a fieldwork element and I actually suspect it would be very hard to do this as an external candidate. Plus the sixth form would want her to take 3 other subjects so that will increase her workload. I know that isn't your ideal situation but I'd personally cross it off your list as an option altogether.

I’d definitely try to speak to someone next week. I’m Head of Sixth Form at my school and would be happy to have a conversation with a family about this.

There are certain subjects at my school that would be full if someone wanted to enrol for them today. We apply oversubscription criteria at the end of the day on GCSE results day if courses are full the and that’s done by highest grades first effectively. After that, we give spaces to those who meet the entry criteria on a first-come-first-served basis until it is full. I can’t call back someone who I gave a place to on Thursday who just met the entry criteria and tell them that I’m giving their spot to someone who is enrolling today with higher grades. The person with the highest grades would be top of the waiting list if a space opened up on the first day of term though. Sometimes people just don’t turn up on the first day, or change course, or start with four and then drop down to three. The school should be able to give you an idea of how likely it is that a spot will open up. We aren’t an oversubscribed Sixth Form (in fact it’s a struggle to fill all our places) but there are always a couple of coursed that end up full within the first two days of enrolment.

We had this but dc school don't publish the timetable in advance so two of his subjects were in the same band and his other options were full....fucking nightmare day...he had to choose between his best subjects and is now doing sociology instead of geography!.....if she like human geography maybe worth a look....he's quite keen now looked through syllabus better....