Help DD with her future please!

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DD is in Y11 and has to give in her preferences for A Levels over Xmas online. The deadline is Jan 1st for her school and she has had countless talks at school and support but she still has little knowledge of what she would like to do and what would facilitate her future etc.

She is toying with these subjects but will have to narrow them down to three.
-History
-Geography
-Spanish
-English Literature
-Drama
-Biology

Biology is the odd one out in a sea of humanities/arts

She also isn’t sure what she would like to do after University and thinks something to do with languages (she also does French but not as keen) might be good at University but she wouldn’t want to just do languages and isn't sure that she would be academically inclined enough to do something to challenging at University.

DH and I are little help as DH is in Politics but had a very maths/IT based career beforehand, which she isn’t interested in and I’m in the art world, but again she doesn’t enjoy art.

Honestly we are desperately running out of time and I can’t believe we have let her ignore the deadline for so long but have dealt with a very traumatic bereavement on DH’s side before the Xmas holidays so this was understandably not at the front of our minds.

Do you need to see her predicted GCSE grades/mock grades to help? I wasn’t sure.

This just feels terrible and poor DD is so overwhelmed.

Interestingly Cambridge were fine with Eng Lit, Politics and Drama.

I don't think Drama is soft. It's actually very hard work and takes a lot of commitment, so I would only suggest it if students have a real interest. As I said, I teach Economics, but I have listened to my Drama colleagues moaning!

What is worth doing is checking which A-levels have coursework and/or a practical component, as 3 A-levels of that kind create a huge burden during the course, while 3 A-levels all assessed purely on exams at the end of year 13 create another sort of pressure.

OP, there should be a booklet from school that gives the practical info on e.g. whether there is coursework.

Biology
Spanish
English literature

I believe this will give her most options beyond a levels. I was tempted by drama
Instead of english lit, but she could join a drama club.

My Dd was quite jealous of people doing drama as they only had one exam. She had a couple of back-to-back exams where she was ill and it really took it out of her. There is 20% coursework in Eng Lit, History and Geography from what I remember. Nice have something in the bag before exams. Also recommend the EPQ as it often lowers the Uni offer by a grade and helps pupils learn how to research and format uni essays.

If she’s not yet sure what she wants to do as a future job, then keeping her options would be a good plan. You can never go wrong with English and then a language and a science would enable her to diverse in either direction. Studying them at A level might give her a feel for which she might enjoy most/least as a higher level subject area at uni. I run a postgrad professional programme and a variety of A levels is viewed as a good thing - foundation across a variety of areas. The other thing is to reassure her that there really aren’t any wrong decisions at this stage - good grades in any subject will prove to future employers that she has ability and if she needs an a level in a different subject at some stage she can always do it via a college or distance learning course. Sounds like you’ve had a massively stressful time OP, so that may be making the decision making harder for everyone. Try not to fret too much over this if you can, no decision is irrevocable long term.

I haven't rtft but those suggesting dropping biology as it's different is not a good idea ime. I teach biology and closing off all stem subjects at this stage is not a great idea. Especially if she is capable and expressed an interest.

The new spec apparently contains a lot of maths and inorganic chemistry, so if your maths isn't great. I would seriously rethink it

DD did biology and chemistry and I can concur that doing chemistry helped a lot with doing biology at A level. Those who didn’t take chemistry at A level struggled with some of the A level biology paper.

My friend’s son who went to private school didn’t take any biology at GCSE and couldn’t get into the local 6th form college to do biology because he hadn’t done any chemistry since year 9. He stayed at his school for A levels in the end.

I did a science and 3 arts subjects. I wouldn’t really recommend it to be honest as I think it’s far easier to do sciences in combination with maths etc as there is overlap. I also had some weird exam clashes (3 subjects scheduled for one day) and there was a debate as to whether I’d have to stay at a teacher’s house. I think it would be more important to look at likely university subjects and work backwards.

In my experience (4 Children now in 40s) This situtaion is really common and in the long term doesnt matter all that much. Choose subjects she is good at and go together. None of mine have careers that remotely relate to their A levels ( one missed that and has a high flying careet post aprenticeship) One did a vocational degree, one did a second degree age 35, 3 have had a career change post children. Life these days has opportunities to grow and develop right through till your fifties. Her choices now will not define her life. Neither is university the only route

If she doesn’t know what she wants to do and it sounds like she isn’t going to be able to choose in the next few weeks I would opt for the subjects she thinks are good and then concentrate on finding out what she actually wants to do before she starts the A level courses in September

She can always change them or decide not to go down the A level/degree route if she decides on something that doesn’t require a degree or A levels

Dd left school at 16 to run her own business. She also works through an agency to bring extra money in whilst her business got off the ground.
By 17 she was managing big events and training people who had spent the previous 5 years doing A levels and getting a degree in the subject to do the role Dd took on at 17.

There are always a few raised eyebrows when she gets new people coming through who are a little perplexed why they were told they needed A levels and a degree to do the role and have run up thousands of pounds of debt for something they could have walked into and started working straight away at 16 and been promoted to the job they hoped to get in their mid 20s whilst still being a teenager.

I would concentrate on finding out what it is she wants to do or even just an idea where she sees herself.

Unfortunately I can see the pull to do what everyone else is doing can be very strong but her future needs careful planning otherwise she could end up £30k in debt, 5 years older and having to go back and train in what she actually wants to do.

Ultimately in 2 years time everyone will be scattered across the country and pursuing their own paths.

Some will do a degree because their chosen degree is needed for their career

Some will do a degree for the pure love of the subject.

Some will do a degree because it is what everyone else is doing.

Some will do a degree to put off making a decision of what they want to do for another 3 years.

Unless your dd is in the first 2 categories then I would question the need for a university degree.

I know it is a big step but she needs to start thinking of work even if it is just to find out what she wants to do.

Totally agree with OliversMumsArmy. My DD was academic and loved Drama from a young age too. DD didn't know exactly what to take for A Levels or degree, so advised** her to chose 2 facilitating subjects she enjoyed maybe to keep future options open, but most importantly, what she'd enjoy for future years of study, especially with overhaul of subjects & more subject/case study content to learn & understand. She chose Geography, Biology & Drama. She got top grades in all 3. She got 5 RG uni offers but also applied for a Degree Apprenticeship - her decisions, her way. After a tough application process at 18/19 she was offered a place to do a BSc sponsored degree with a top 100 firm in London. Come A Level results day we left her to decide which button to press for Uni or DA with paid employment - she chose the DA route & 1 year on now hasn't looked back in a paid job with a sponsored degree. There are different options out there now for everyone and you need to research it as things are moving on and evolving for the next generations.
Drama A Level is not an easy, 'soft' option at all. It is like English Lit but with essay writing exams, performance & portfolio on top. Plus a bad group performance can drag marks down too. However, our DD loved it & got an A* in it. Very interestingly, a RG uni interview & the top 100 company were very interested in her A Level combinations because it was unusual, quirky & made for a stand out PS & CV, plus the confidence it gives you in a group Assessment/interview situation, in projecting yourself & now in doing client presentations & meeting/working with clients. Our DD did LAMDA exams too outside of school, which at the higher end of the scale do count towards UCAS points. If she'd gone to Uni she was looking to study Geography (Human). No big surprises that she's ended up loving working in Data Analytics, A.I., coding etc., in a global company. Get your DD to work backwards, look at degrees carefully (Modules etc), possible career choices using online tools/apps/Which/Milkround/NotgoingtoUni/Top 100 graduate firm website programmes, but ultimately she should also enjoy what she picks for A Levels & please don't underestimate the power of A Level Drama

Some of the services that I've worked on during my adult life weren't even invented when I was at school. So how would I ever have said that I wanted to be an X or a Y !

DD is in first year of Uni-she did English lit, history and geography.

Unis-in her expérience -do not expect you to have a language unless you want to do it at uni. Having said that it can't hurt to have one that she will get a good grade in.

DD did not enjoy the geography as much as she did at GCSE because it was much more physical (think it does vary and the rumour was as a back lash to previous year that was too much human but this may be urban myth) but they were absolutely fine to do together and not too similar.

DD doing history and politics at Uni and loving it!

Good luck to your DD

Would seem a bad idea to drop Biology - as others have said that might close off multiple potential paths - plus doing it would show she has skills and ability in multiple areas and isn't limited to the "softer" stuff.
I did 2 sciences, a language & a humanities and it was a great combo & people seemed to like the range on my CV.

Geography and Biology work well as a combination and opens up the way to more science-based degrees (Ecology etc), if she has an interest in those areas.

English Literature and History will complement each other well. If she's interested in a language at university level she should continue with Spanish, too in my humble opinion.

She needs to enjoy the subjects, too, as well as being good at them, but that goes without saying.

Good luck to her!

I think for now just shove 3 subjects down, they will be allowed to change later.

Between now and results day get her to think in more detail about where she is going and some potential jobs that she thinks would work for her (real ones that exist in the real world). Then work out what to do to get there.

All this 'do what you enjoy' is what leads people into getting a degree then working in a bar, particularly these days as 50% plus go to uni.

From experience working and supporting Sixth Formers.

Geog - excellent course and can lend itself to loads of choices. Very analytical and interesting ( I studied Geog so may be biased). If she likes it and is good at it then that seems obvious.

Biology. Omg it is hard. Really really hard. You realise how completely basic the GCSE is when you look at the A level. Some aspects go with Geog but as you can make Geog do anything ( historical geographer here - I wrote one of my dissertations on location of religious sites), it's not the be all and end all. I would only chose Biology if she has an aptitude for learning vocab, definitions. The papers are hard.

History. Can be very interesting and anyone with a reasonably enquiring mind would understand and enjoy it, however, lots of wider reading required and must be able to write cogent, thoughtful essays. It is very essay based.

Eng lit. Depends on how much she likes reading, how quickly she reads and how well she writes essays. I was very good at English. Found A level dull.

Drama - again biaised as I did Drama ( with Geog - yes really, at uni). Essay based. Great fun but need to be competent at acting. Final piece is devised so reliant on others in group. If she is good then that would be better choice than Eng Lit. Getting a top grade is hard.

Languages. Always useful but it is a massive jump up from GCSE to A level as need to write 300 word essays re literature in the language. If her teachers aren't making noises about her suitability then would proceed with caution.

To be honest, the school's deadline is to give them some idea as to who is doing what for timetabling and staffing. I doubt very much it will be a set in stone thing as there will be changes made come August so don't worry too much. I think if she puts something down and it looks like it might not be a good choice for her, then the school will let you and her know. I would say that she shouldn't chose any subject that she is unlikely to get a 7 at GCSE. Of course she can but a 6 at GCSE ( 6 got with hard work) would most likely outcome at a C at A level.

We are in a similar position and are discouraging biology because it is a huge leap from GCSE to A level - and that was when it was the AS level. DC wants to do biology A level but we are thinking she would be better with physics or chemistry because they have been getting 9s in mocks but 8 in biology. Obviously all are good grades but they find biology is harder, physics is easy and chemistry is ok. Eldest DC did Biology AS back in the day when they chose 4 and dropped one and was surprised at how much harder it was, they dropped it after AS because they were predicted a low B after getting A at GCSE.

It's very hard to know what to advise really.

I'd say defiantly English and Biology - both really good A levels to get into a good course, universities look at the A levels you chose and if she gets good grades on them two it'll be really impressive

Go for whatever subjects she enjoys the most. Life is so much more pleasurable if you are studying/working in a field you enjoy.

If she’s got no idea my suggestion would be
English lit (traditional, literary based)
Geography (can be both a science and a humanities)
Biology (trad science)
Spanish

Personally, my A levels were a massive rollercoaster. I chose Physics (which I got an A in at GCSE) Maths (A at GCSE) and Law. In first year of A Level exams I failed with Us and I can hand on heart say that I worked my socks off. So I dropped out of sixth form and went to college as I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do, but decided those subjects just weren’t for me. I took Business (A at GCSE) and Law again and Welsh bac. I passed with AAB, got into Uni to study International Business Management with a language. I then did my masters in supply chain management.

So, from my experience, let your daughter go with her favourite (which I did at first) and then if they don’t work out, it is honestly not the end of the world. Of course, failing was heartbreaking and I felt like I was going down a route that I didn’t really want to go down, but looking back I am so glad I failed my first year and changed my mind.
In year 11 you are way too young to be deciding what you want to do for the rest of your life!

I’d suggest that English Lit, Spanish, and History would give a good base for whatever she chooses to do afterwards.