AIBU to discuss GCSE and A-level realities with my Year 8 daughter?

[roughtrenches2]

DD is still young so I am aware this might sound a bit crazy. She is going in to year 8. So will pick her gcse options at the end of year 9. She is adamant she knows what she wants to do and has done for a long time but I don’t think realistically she is going to manage academically what it requires. Her friends older sister was talking about her GCSE choices the other day when I realised how much daughter has her mind set on this path. She soon told everyone what she was choosing for GCSE because then she could do her chosen A levels science ( biology and physics )

The issue is maths ! She is very science motivated and has done amazing in science this year BUT she will not get the maths grade required to do any A level sciences.
when do you start nicely having these conversations with your children without it sounding like you are being evil.

she has had a very turbulent start to education which she had done incredible considering but to catch up in maths would be a real task that will take a lot to get to a grade 7 she would need. I’m not sure if she even knows she would need a 7 in maths. Do I just let her go ahead and think this is the plan and dream until she finds out later on that it will be unlikely ?

sounds silly being worried about this now but I don’t want her to get crushed later on either.

There's still a long way to go. The conversation you should be having at this point is "here's what we can do to get your maths to the level it needs to be to pursue your ambition of studying science", not "your maths isn't good enough so give up your ambition".

You don't just let it build until there's nothing she can do and then it's a big disappointment. There are two things I'd do just now:

1. Throw everything you can at getting her caught up in maths
2. Any time she mentions physics, casually say something like "I'm surprised you like physics when it has so much maths," so she can put this together herself

It’s great she has high aspirations, don’t dampen her interest and enthusiasm. She will realise the different options as she progresses through school. At this point I would just say fantastic and what can we do to help with that.

Is there a chance to get a maths tutor...if she's great at science then one to one maths might bring her on

yes we work a lot on building maths. We really do and it stresses her out so we have to do it at a pace.
at the moment she is mastering in all 3 sciences, securing in English but still working towards in maths.
the underlying skill is there but she missed most primary school education and so the catch up in maths is really really taking its toll.
Her end of year 7 exam scored was 50 and 48 percent.
that was with a lot of revision.

Are you sure she would need a 7 in maths? My school only requires a 6 in maths to do A-level Physics.

What sort of maths grade is she headed for? What did she get in her SATs?

Is her maths teacher sny good? I had a very bad one, then a good one and that made all the difference.

I'd just support her for now.

The worst that will happen is she will pick something she likes but might struggle for grades.

If she picks Geography, she isn't going to suddenly like Geography. Even if she gets top marks, she's not likely to pursue it.

If she does science and doesn't get high enough marks, at least she knows she tried and you supported her.

Just get her some revision and practice papers so she's prepared and let her work it out for herself.

Of course you don't "just let her go ahead" and dream but you also don't tell her she is not going to get the maths grade she needs. You tell her that she can achieve her ambitions but this will require getting her maths grades up and give her time and resources to do so.

She will have to attend her 6th form ( for many reasons ) and yes only let you do science if grade 7 in maths.

she scored 98 I think in maths sats. However she only attended primary school a very little amount as she was undergoing significant treatment.

Grade 6 maths needed at my kids' school too.

Maths can be caught up on if she wants to do it? Has she had any tutoring, or weekend maths classes?

See this is where we struggle a little with the maths lessons. I think she can make progress but the set system in her school means she is often side lined for support and maths can be chaotic.
she had a really bad first half of the year health wise ( really bad ) and a much better second half. What I actually found from her send of year exam was that the topics she did well in were ones she learned at home during her absence and the ones she struggled with were ones she was present for in school.

She wouldn’t be able to physically do tutoring the school day for her is already a stretch. We do revision in small manageable chunks.

It says 7 but even a 6 I think it would require a lot and as much as I hate ever telling her circumstances will hold her back ( which I never have done ) I don’t know if she will manage the catch up as well as full time school hours.

Ok, so a 98 in her SATs would generally be headed more for a grade 4 BUT if she achieved 98 despite missing a lot of school then that's a lot more positive.

I don't think you should be thinking of it as 'she isn't going to get a grade 7 and needs to be told' I think you need to reframe it as 'you want to do physics and because you missed a lot of school that means you have gaps in your maths that need filling - here's the plan on how we're going to achieve that'. Then you need to think about either hiring a tutor with that specific aim, or buying in resources and doing it yourself. It's most likely not going to happen if you just leave it up to the school.

Get her some independent maths support. Assuming you are not a teacher she might need a different approach and feel less pressure or doubt from you

In year 8 and 9 I was in a low-middling set for English. Accelorated set (above top) for everything else.

Guess what my degree and MA were in? English.

I had a great teacher in year 9 who recognised that I had been divided into the lower set based on SATs and that my English had been growing in leaps and bounds since then. My year 10 teacher was amazing, she saw a spark in me and bolstered it. Her books are probably still covered in my writing.

Despite it being my worst subject at your DDs age I got one of the highest GCSE scores in the country in English Lit. I had won awards for my writing by A level and got a first from a top 10 uni in my degree.

I spent the last 10 years working as a writer before deciding to retrain.

There is so much time left for her to get better at Maths. Don’t ruin her self esteem and guarantee she doesn’t do well.

Can you get her a tutor for math? It sounds like she would be highly motivated. By the way, my mum didn’t want me to go to uni because I’d be upset when I failed. I went (STEM) and for a first class.

Yes and I do try to do a lot. Her overall primary attendance was well under 50 percent. Some years as low as 10. She scored 98 98 and 108 in sats which was mainly I suppose home education when we could.
I just realise that going in to secondary is a completely different struggle and the work load to keep up with whilst catching up on missed foundations is going to be hard graft.

Yes so at the moment her maths teacher says right now if he was to predict she would be a grade 4 at GCSE.

I absolutely think she is amazing and she has done incredibly well and I am so proud of her I just would hate for her to get crushed.

I think you should offer her a maths tutor if you could afford it.

Sounds like she is rather gifted if she managed those scores under that level of stress and with such incredibly low attendance. Don’t write her off.

I'd have the conversation with her so she knows what she needs in maths and has realistic expectations. From the angle of working towards it though, not 'its hard and so you shouldn't even try'!

I will look in to it and possibly ask her school ( who knows the circumstances ) that if landed on a day where she didn’t have a core subject at the end of the day she could leave early for maths tutoring.

my only issue at the moment is her school hours are 7 and half hours and she has a lot of care after school that needs doing for the next day.

but I could reasonably ask for permission I will speak to the Senco.