.....to think that these A'Level options clashes are ridiculous?

[EllieArroway]

My DS wants to do Maths, Physics, Chemistry and possibly Biology for his A'Levels - a fairly sensible group for anyone wanting to go into science, I would have thought.

But he can't because Physics clashes with Biology and Maths clashes with Chemistry.

There are other odd clashes too - English & History, Dance & Drama.

I know they can't please all the people all of the time but.......that's a bit strange, isn't it?

My DS also did maths, further maths, chemistry and physics. I think there were a few of them who took the same subjects. (in a huge sixth form college offering loads of different A levels) He took computer science as an AS level.

Wow Evil, tiny. We have 550+ in sixth form. Nearly 100 y12 biologists.

Different worlds! My 6th form class is a mixture of yr12 & yr13 and there are only 12 of them!

I wonder if the EPQ is a bit like Duke of Edinburgh in that if it is real and relevant for the student then it will add depth and weight but for many it can be rather artificial.

Last night I listened to a group of cadets talking about Duke of Edinburgh. For them D of E was providing structure and recognition for activities which were taking place anyway. On the other hand I have heard people talk about D of E activities where the activities actually seemed unimportant to them, it was the D of E award which mattered.

Is there a danger that the EPQ is the same?

My sixth form college had blocks, A-E, and you could choose max 1 from each. Just before summer hols, got the sheet, with the subjects in blocks. Maths, block A. Physics? Also block A!! Cue mass complaint to school (just to clarify, this meant you could not do maths and physics A Levels, it was either/or). Came back in Sept and all they'd done was add one maths lesson. So for AS levels, there was 28 of us in Physics (block A), 25 of us in Maths (block B) and 3 in Maths (blockA). That dropped to one person in A level, whilst there was still 22 of us taking maths and physics. This was from a school with "technology college" status too!!

YANBU
Over half my very ordinary comps, six form would have exploded, we had far more scientists than anything else.
And despite being in the wild of deepest rural Wales before the interweb far better advice it would seem. School quite happily ran Welsh A'level for one pupil. She need English and MFL to do SALT (our French dept were shit and our head of Welsh wasn't, she needed a good grade to get into a competitive London uni).

I did Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology for "fun"

Did a year of Physics at a now RG, failed the maths (everyone else seemed have done further maths, which my school didn't do)

Went and did Biology instead and ended up as a postgrad in Biochemistry.

So in the end I used all of them.

I have also outed myself totally to anyone who went to my school

Well,considering how intelligent the OP's son seems to be,not wanting to go to another place to do the all the subjects he needs for a future career seems to be very immature.

Again second or third that he really should be considering further maths if he wants to do physics.

If there are not going to be that many academic students there he'd be far better off at a 6th form college too.

Looks like he needs to go to the nearby college.

FFS, piglet. All I have said is that he'd rather stay where he is. Having a preference is immature? He's not about to throw away his future career just to stay with his friends.

Jeez.

But 99% of this advice has been completely superb, so people, really thank you. I feel much, much better informed now and so does DS.

SparklyAntlersInMyDecorating.

You are confusing computer science with IT!

As mention earlier in the thread Computer Science is maths based and is not seen as a a soft option by any University. It has nothing to do with IT .

It's a bit frustrating to see so many posters saying "I couldn't have done my subjects at that school" and that taking sciences together is ridiculously common. The thing is, it sounds as though the school asked students which subjects they (probably provisionally) wanted to take, put these choices into computer program and options blocks were generated which suited the students choices. So far from the timetabler losing sight of the human element, it is completely built around student choice. If the op's son can't get his choice, assuming he took part in the consultation, then I'd imagine he's only one of a few who can't. OP has said it's not a very academic school so perhaps there just aren't many students wanting to study sciences together.
I'd also be very surprised if the HT isn't aware of this already.
I'm a timetabler and science teacher. I'd advise your son to select subjects but also look into local colleges to see where he can actually do his chosen subjects. Then if the schools option blocks don't change, he can go elsewhere.

I left my school and went to sixth form college and did every A Level going.

Quite liberating.

OP

If they can't even get the time table right how well are they going to teach A Levels and how well are they going to prep her for uni.

Havent read the whole thread so sorry if this has been suggested, but when I was doing A levels there was a consortium of schools in our area that meant that you were based at school X but if you wanted to do a subject that wasnt offered or clashed then you went to another school in the consortium for those lessons, or to the college. As the lessons where whole afternoon or morning sessions, it meant travel was do able. It meant that as a town, every A Level subject was offered, with each school doing a couple of the less popular subjects and making up a class out of students from across the area.

Might be worth suggesting that for him? Would the school be ok with him being based there for say maths and physics and then at another school for Biology and chemistry?

The philosophy A level is awful, despite valiant attempts to improve it. It has nothing to do with the philosophy degree.

EPQs mimick the elements of research projects, with more tutor and general background materials support. In a 'standard' essay students are given a specific question (which gives quite a bit of guidance with respect to the structure of the answer) and a specific bibliography (which points to relevant ideas and guides the student through the existing research). In an EPQ, like a dissertation or thesis, the student has to formulate their own research question (a very demanding task in itself), work their way through the literature as well as answering the research question.

A good tutor is indispensible for an EPQ as he/she needs to guide the student through research techniques. The projects (well, as far as I know from the one I was involved in) are supported by training materials and I have taken part in training days and workshops (at Rugby) which try to teach students how to think. They can then take these research and thinking skills and apply them to their particular project and anything else they want to do from then on.

That's interesting about the Extended Project. I'd never heard of it so obviously know nothing about it. I also do graduate recruitment not university so my interest in A levels is a quick glance over their grades to check they have a nice long string of As.

But I stand by what I said - if I saw it I would assume it was like General Studies and so pretty meaningless. As will other graduate recruiters probably even if Universities value it so I would've a bit careful having it advise taking as something that is relied on. (As 6 years from now Op's son is going to be meeting an equivalent of me.)

Arguably I should spend more time investigating changes in the A level system but as I only spend 4 days a year (at the most) doing graduate recruitment and on average we have 6 different nationalities at our days extensive investigation into the one system I do understand is blatantly not going to happen!

What Jins neatly says. That is beyond fucked up - I would probably tell the headteacher that allowing it will reflect very poorly on their regime.

Also (assuming your son is bright, which I would expect him to be to have an interest in those subjects at A-Level), do they really want good, league table boosting pupils to bugger off because of administration?

I wonder if posters saying that the school should offer this combination simply for the kudos rather than the fact kids want to study it are aware just how much sixth form funding has been cut in the last couple of years. My school is having to cut subjects left right and centre, and cut teaching hours in general. The school may simply be unable to afford to offer an unpopular combination of subjects.

This suggests funding cuts for A-level sciences from September.

he nees to move schools/colleges. you mustn't let his future be affected by poor timetabling.

and don't let them give you any b/s like 'he can study x in his spare time, one to one with his teacher'. doesn't work. doesn't work. what if the teacher is off ill? no.

I think that this sort of problem will occur much more in the future where pupils who do not really want to stay on for A levels are 'forced' to do so. There will be a lot more pupils and an awful lot of them will not be capable of
the highly academic subjects - the sciences, maths/further maths, history etc
and so the choices of subjects will be 'dumbed down' to suit the collective 6th form population. This will result in a loss of teachers in these areas as the schools will not be able to fund enough staff to cover the options that SHOULD be available and these teachers will move to the top ranked academic state sector and the private sector.
It should not be a case of just offering 'popular' courses, the schools should be
teaching at all levels for all pupils, but of course this will not happen. I do believe that in the future we will end up with more schools not catering at A level to the brightest pupils and that these brighter pupils, will, if they are unable to access other schools, be sacrificed to cover the desire to make 'all things fair and equal'.

Schools not having a clue about what groups of subjects tend to get taken together is madness. Likewise, forcing too much breadth of subjects isn't ideal either. One of my friends wasn't able to take both English Language and Literature A levels because they are 'too similar'. They really are not, and well, if the school considers they are, then perhaps they shouldn't run them as separate subjects.

If students are enthusiastic and engaged with their subjects, whatever they are, then that is the main thing. If they aren't subjects that Russell Group university's care for, then that's fine too...as long as it's an informed choice that a subject choice could impact in this way. Not everyone aspires to a Russell Group education.

I think what's happening to A levels and young people consequently is a sad state of affairs.

Forcing people to stop on because of a lack of alternatives is not productive. This will probably happen to my youngest brother this year.

Schools which won't keep on some pupils leaving them to go to other provision that might not be for them either also not great. This has happened to my youngest sister...because her GCSE English was downgraded in that whole hoo-har, she couldn't stay at her sixth form. This may have been for the best if perhaps she isn't up to A levels (which could be the case but perhaps doing A/S would have given her a chance to see). However, the BTEC at the local college she was able to get on wasn't for her either. She was only in two days a week and has now dropped out completely.