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.

You know all this now when shes about to start Y8
Instead of pissing on her dreams, support her.
FInd her a tutor, explain the missing basic maths, and have them work on grounding her in the basics and then catching her up with her year group.
2 years is plenty of time to build up the missing knowledge & skills.

Sounds like she us doing amazibg. Support her. Dont tell her she cannot
Get her a great engaging maths tutor.
She may take longer to follow her dream pathway but so what
Plenty role models eg
https://linktr.ee/AlexandraElaineAdams?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio&fbclid=PAb21jcATruKVwZG9mAmV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDzU2NzA2NzM0MzM1MjQyNwABp4pHyc2wkH3DNzpwdb9z_zDGb-mUSBrOIonsD0-2nVopQ3e3FP3NqtkJjTdy_aem_uPFSSpLrgo2x_stE8aUgsQ

And others with chronic illness or disability

For gcse she could focus on six core subjects and not do 10 for example . Conversations to have with school later

Ok. From what you w written it sounds like your DD has a significant health issue?

Sounds like she misses a lot of school
due to that?

Maybe if she has her heart set on a specific route she can have a personalised education system whereby she only follows those subjects she must by law and wants to.

The law allows for reasonable adjustments so this can be done (work in education and seen it done) but everyone has to be willing to do what’s right for her rather than the status quo.

If she has missed a significant amount of schooling and is achieving in the subjects she’s spent time on she is obviously academically able.

Id start by having a conversation with the school sendco and the LA inclusion officer.

I’d get her a Maths tutor if it’s a real issue. Two of mine had a tutor and they went from being unsure in Maths to really enjoying it and doing well. The one who got a great grade without a tutor is also the one with no confidence in Maths.

Agree that dropping subjects to concentrate on Maths is the way forward. At my Dc's school, several kids with special needs are encouraged to do fewer options to concentrate on the core Maths and English.

It sounds like your DD is bright but has just had a tough life meaning she's missed lots of school. Hopefully she'll be able to catch up but I guess it depends on how her health is.

The maths she needs for physics is the algebra skills! My mental maths is shite, apart from very basic fractions I struggle and I still don’t know my timetables - but I am great at algebra. (PhD in theoretical physics)

Primary school and lower secondary I am OK at maths but really came into my own late GCSE and Alevel.

She is doing amazing given how much school she has missed!

What does she want to do longer term?

If she's doing that well at physics she ought to be able to master maths.
Look for a tutor just an hour a week. If she's missing basics sign her up to timetables rockstar or fables world maths. Don't be put off that they seem babyish. They really helped by secondary child to get basics under the belt.

Your daughter sounds an amazing girl OP. You must be incredibly proud of her.

I am dreadful at maths (I probably have dyscalculia). Even as an adult I can't do more than the absolute basics of mental maths in my head. I was in bottom set in secondary school, and was more or less written off. I got a C with extra Maths tuition (not sure what grade that equates to in the new number marking system mind?). Not quite the same as your daughter but I did biology A-Level. I then I did further science study (including physics and chemistry) through the OU - while working - and I work in a scientific field.

I didn't have the health struggles that your daughter clearly has, but it sounds like your daughter has much more natural ability than I did, given how well she is doing having missed so much schooling. So I wouldn't rule anything out, although I appreciate not wanting your daughter's hopes to be crushed. But she has so much potential. However I agree with PP mentioning she may be on a slightly different timeline to other students without her health struggles.

i would be so pleased if my kids wanted to do sciences. Can you afford a maths tutor?

Saturday mornings?

I really would think about a maths tutor. Just having someone e explain at her pave and not the class pace and having the time to get the foundations correct to build onwards can make a huge difference. It really helped one of our DC's who loved science and struggled with some areas of maths.

Could you talk to school about longer term options. I'm wondering if she could do get gcses over 3 years or take a year between gcse and a level to focus on maths and anything else.

It sounds like given the time off and I'll health she just needs to take more time than most people

Agree to be pragmatic as to things like (a) what provision she attends later on; (b) the timing of milestones; (c) timetable and subjects now (breadth is important but her time is a stretched resource given her health needs); (d) what type of science qualifications or careers she considers; (e) her possible future maths gcse grade (as learning is not really so linear and she is clearly able). Speaking as a teacher, I think passion means an awful lot and even if pursuing it leads to a course correction in response to information en route, that is still an excellent route. You are carrying a lot of feelings here having to do so much for your daughter so I would seek support for you and just tell her strong maths will be the foundation of future work and study in this field so let's go little and often and see where we end up.

I don't read your posts as writing her off OP.
She will obviously already be aware of the impact her illness has had and it sounds like she's doing an amazing job of keeping up with the pace despite it all. I'm sure you are doing and have always done what you can to keep her above water with it all too.
You are not wrong to worry about her future mental wellbeing either! It can swing both ways and throwing everything you have at Maths in one go might lead to her getting where she wants and being too mentally exhausted to actually enjoy the reward. Likewise not throwing enough at it might mean she doesn't quite meet the mark.

Firstly you can resit GCSEs and SEND(including medical) can be reasonable grounds to appeal A-Level offers too in some cases.
Secondly, what does she want to do that particular A-Level for, look at alternative avenues to get her to that as well as the traditional A-Level route, there is often more than one way.
And worst case scenario, she doesn't necessarily need to achieve that A-Level directly after her GCSEs. She's shown she can do it, but given her circumstances it's not unreasonable to understand she might need an extra year before she undertakes the A-Level.

I don't think it needs a wait and watch, or a sit down you might not make it chat. Explore with her what her interest is, where she wants to go by the end of it all, and then you can research together how she gets there. Talk to her, does she feel capable of taking on tutoring? Does she want to see out year 8 and see how she's doing first maybe? Give her any alternative routes you may find (AI can be quite helpful for this)
Give her some autonomy over the decisions, she's clearly driven and clever.
Well done for giving her the scaffolding to get as far as she has.

If she missed the maths from primary school she might be missing some of the foundation principles taught in the early years that makes maths in secondary easier.

I imagine a lot of the focus will be on getting her to understand the maths work she is doing currently rather than going back over the maths taught on years 3-6. It might be worth going back over much earlier work until some of those aspects are at her finger tips and then the current work will be less draining on her resources.

Has she been assessed for dyscalculia? I did some work with a friends GCSE aged child in maths and science and it became quite quickly apparently that her problem with the science was the grasp of numbers and that was holding her back in chemistry and physics. She is now being assessed for dyscalculia. If she wants to follow a career in the sciences really a decent background level of numeral literacy is required. My partner got a B in GCSE maths and that has been enough at times to limit his understanding in his science. Something else to consider is degree courses - I did a chemistry degree and most required a level maths and those that didn't had additional maths classes alongside the core subject in the first year. At the university I went to we had to pass this course to get on to year 2 and there were additional courses everyone had to take which covered principles that part of year 1 maths degrees.

I don't think it is too soon to be looking at what needs to happen over the next 4-6 years should she want to follow the path she wants to go down

This! 👏

Op, I chose YABU (just for stressing in Year 8) but after all your updates I think both you and her are doing an amazing job, and can see why you worry. Sending best wishes 💐

OP - crack on with what you are doing.

Talk to your daughter, ask her how she might like to go about raising her maths grades. She might have ideas of her own, but discuss the suggestions here - or maybe you could find a tutor who would go to the school to do maths during the lessons you could consider dropping anyway.

Speak to the school as early as possible about the options and whether they would support this.

You sound like you are encouraging but realistic, and not overly pushy.

Don’t clip her wings before she’s even had a chance. She wants to do maths and science, get her some support with tutoring or tutor her yourself. If she genuinely has the drive, she can do it with the right support.

I didn’t grow up in the UK so different educational system and different exams. But when I took exams at roughly Y6/7 (think like SATS now), I did so poorly in maths that the head teacher had a meeting with my parents and told them in front of me that I was ‘unlikely to ever finish school’ with results like that. My parents put me in a secondary school where they were willing to support me. Within a year, I was moved ahead a whole year in maths. So I was, say, Y8 but doing maths with Y9.

Not only did I finish school, unlike projected, but I finished top ranked in my year. I went on to get an undergraduate degree, then a master’s and a PhD in a science. It’s absolutely doable, but you need to be there to hold her up and support her in the trenches if it’s what she wants to do.

I don’t believe bright dc should be encouraged to give up subjects. There is time to tutor and re-evaluate next year. In y7, maths is pretty separate from physics. From GCSEs onwards it’s not. So there’s a reason why anyone doing a degree with a physics component needs A level maths to access the course. It’s not that you need all of the syllabus but it’s the subject that’s required to get on the courses.

We don’t really know what the school thinks about how her education should be managed and this should be the next step for the op.

OP I went from:

• failing 11+ on maths and having no confidence (got into grammar on appeal)
• being in set 5 of 8 for maths in year 9 (I think the lower down the set the smaller the student numbers)
• having an amazing teacher and going up to set 3
• being moved up to set 1

Once maths 'clicks' you can make an amazing amount of progress.

You said no to tutor but what about on weekends or school holidays?

Yes I think this is all it needs. There is time to sort out the maths and age may yet change her mind. Around this age DC had been convinced for some time they were going to do medicine but by GCSE they had decided they didn't like science enough.

Not if the child isn't well enough. The OP needs to be pragmatic.

Focus on core subjects if child has limited attendance. Dd attended a hospital linked secondary level day school. Allstudents had different health issues. They focused on english maths science art (great programnes like theatre workshopping photo etc) . Many were v bright. Many went on to a levels uni

@TeenLifeMumthe op has talked about missing primary but has attended this year I think? I’d still talk to the school and make a plan. Extra tuition is not great if child is unwell too! Extra pressure.