Year 10 - 2023/2024 Support Thread

@SuperSue77 my background is paediatric nursing but you had to do adult nursing first (RGN) back in the day. I’ve travelled ALL over the world and had lots of amazing roles. I’d highly recommend it - even now with the state of the NHS. Good luck to your niece and I’m delighted she’s enjoying it! 😊

Hey!! That’s definitely okay! Unless he’s wanting to do A level maths and get a high grade. If he works then there’s a chance of an increase. What are his thoughts?

I agree if they’re existing subjects but It can actually be incredibly useful if some subjects are new and you’re unsure. Dropping from 10/11 subjects to just 3 is quite a tough choice for some teens. Therefore starting with 4 gives them chance to try them. DD3 is thinking Business, Politics & Sociology which will ALL be new subjects as none of them taught for gcse at her school.

Mocks finished for ds3. He has a school trip paint-balling thurs. Sports day Fri. Work experience next week. Then we are nearly finished year 10. I dropped ds2 off at the airport this morning. He's en route to Brisbane to do a uni year abroad. So ds1 and ds2 will both be in Oz. Ds3 will enjoy being an only child for a year.

@SuperSue77 great to hear she's loving it! I'm still learning about different nursing degrees - DD is thinking adult nursing will give her the most options, and has work experience in the nursing dept of a uni later in the summer which should help. Why do my kids never pick anything I understand?

My niece is doing Paediatric Nursing at York, just finishing her first year - well, not really finishing as all her non-medic friends have gone home for the summer and she’s still on placement! She is loving it though and there are loads of opportunities career wise.

Wow, yes, I had no idea we'd got to that point! Hugely impressed anyone is that organised!

@SuperSue77 my Year 12 DD1 is determined to go into nursing, so we're looking at various unis with Adult Nursing degrees at the moment. it's not something I know anything about - and her grades meant she could have gone for medicine if she'd picked the right A-Levels, but she's adamant nursing is right for her. we will see. Good luck to your daughter, medicine looks like a huge journey...

oh my gosh I didn’t even think open evenings for 6th form had started yet!

Just been to an open evening.
Am glad we turned up as seemed to say it had sold out on their website but think that was for the principal talks and you could wander round the subjects without booking.
Was great as meant DS was forced to think what he wanted to do as he chose to go to certain rooms. We went to Maths ,Business & Spanish and has taster lessons in Law and Economics at other open days through school so he can see what he thinks of them.
An evening well spent!

Ds2 has only got his maths paper back so far. A 6. I guess that's ok.

Agree with @Oblomov24 about only doing 3 A levels. I think it’s a bit pointless to start 4 knowing you’ll drop one.

Mine thinks he’d like to be a lawyer.

His mocks are nearly over, a few more days to go.

Tell me about it! The more I have found out about it the more I worry! DD has wanted to be a doctor since the age of 5 and isn’t budging now. Luckily her A level choices are subjects she excels in. I don’t think she’ll go for Further Maths (I hope!) though her teacher has pushed her to do Further Maths GCSE (I advised against it but teacher was keen and it will help introduce some A level topics). Not sure if she’ll be expected to do a EPQ or not - I read something about extra curricular activities.
The UCAT is my biggest worry as without a good score there you will really struggle. I’m in a few medicine threads in the Higher Ed forum and they have loads of good advice, but the stress of it all worries me. Great that your daughter is interested in a different side of bio-med as doctors are having a really rough time of it, especially the newly qualifieds.

Just been catching up on the thread. Reading about 6th form investigations makes me very glad DDs school has a good sixth form and she wants to stay on. She knows what she wants to study (maths, biology and chemistry as she wants to do medicine) and her teachers are already expecting her to be able to do those subjects. It really takes the pressure off, and there has been enough of that with mocks, which are thankfully now over.
Does anyone else in this group have a year 10 interested in medicine?

@Oblomov24 yes exactly. He is clearly very clever. He went on to Exeter university and gained a first in psychology. He's a policeman in London now, with plans to use his psychology knowledge in the future. So his firm university missed out on an excellent student.

See @icanbewhatiwant
That's my point exactly. What a shame that clearly one of the brightest of all candidates misses out?

@NotDonna I'm in east anglia.

The other local school, just over the border were doing 4 A levels when my friends Ds was there. He got 2 A* and 2 A's. He needed 3 A stars for his firm choice uni. So he had to go with the insurance. If the school had them taking 3 A levels then he may have had the A star required. I expect it was a case of only those capable were taking 4.

Our school start with 4, but drop to 3 by Christmas. Ours do EPQ in year 12.

I too kinda wonder what the point of EPQ's are, because many unis don't use / aknowledge them.

Likewise I'd recommend only doing 3 A'level's. Because that's all that matters for all Uni applications - your grades for your best 3 A'levels. So do 3.5, ie an AS, or 4, an extra A'level, but only if you are so bright you can cope easily, and only if it never compromises the top grades your'll achieve for the 3 grades that matter for Uni applications.

So many schools do the EPQ / core maths in Yr 13 which does seem daft.
They get ucas points for AS so that can be useful. I thought that had all changed for England once they became linear? Are you in Wales /Scotland @icanbewhatiwant ?

@QueenMabby yes that makes sense to do it that way. I don't know why they wait until year 13 at our school. Unless it's just ds2 who left it to year 13. He leaves everything to the last minute. I'll find out when it's ds3's turn.

For ds1 he took up 4 A levels in year 12 with AS levels at the end of the year. Then after AS they drop one subject. They get ucas points for AS so that can be useful. Ds2 didn't take AS because he was a Covid cohort and hadn't taken GCSEs so the school dropped AS. He still started on 4 though, then dropped one for year 13. I have no idea whether they do AS's now.

Most schools do EPQ in year 12 but our school does it year 13. So ds1 didn't bother as he wanted to concentrate on his other subjects, plus he was doing core maths so had extra lessons. Ds2 did an EPQ but he was trying to finish writing it up and revise at the same time. So he felt he rushed it and didn't do as well as he could have. But it wasn't included in university offers. So it didn't matter. It would make more sense to do it in year 12 and maybe only 3 A levels. But I can see that starting with 4 might be helpful too. Ds1 hated geography at A level. It was his best AS grade too. But he dropped it as he didn't like it. Whereas ds2 dropped the subject he felt was not getting the best grades in.