Yet more A-Level advice: humanities combination

[EdmontonOilers]

My DD (Yr11) is having a hard time narrowing down her A-Level options and so turning here for pearls of wisdom. She is trying to choose between options below at different colleges (although any combination possible).

Eng Lit, History, RS
Eng Lit, Philosophy, Psychology

She loves History but is struggling with the exam technique needed for a high grade at GCSE so I worry it'll be even tougher at A Level. Also nervous about 3 x essay subjects.

She's had taster lessons, looked at syllabuses and past papers, and thinks they all look great so has now run out of ways to help her decide! She has no clue what to do long term/at uni so that's not helping any decisions!

Any advice from your experiences on these combinations?

does she have any idea of her ultimate aim? Uni or job?

ultimately either of those combos is fine. Psychology might keep some science courses open - is English, history, psychology an option? What is their current grade at history?

sorry when I say aim I mean really general e.g. in a field related to history, rather than a job as such

2 new subjects is a bit of a risk, maybe?

My DD is doing A level RS but the content is a lot more philosophy and ethics rather than religion. She is enjoying it, so check the course content for your A level exam board, that might help make the choice. They seem complementary, the essay skills needed for English lit will be equally useful in History, RS and Philosophy, some post 18 courses will take psychology as a science so that perhaps keeps future options more broad.

Thanks for input so far everyone. Good to hear some are enjoying the RS course! Good point about philosophy and psych both being new and therefore a risk.

DD has no firm ideas about uni courses or fields yet: Theology is an option, and also she seems keen on a Liberal Arts degree which her headteacher recommended for her.

She's currently looking at a 6 in History, probably same in Science although biology stronger than others so hopeful for psych crossover. More like an 8 for English and RE. Predicted 8/9 for music which is her passion, but she thinks the ALevel course looks really boring!

Still interested in experience of workload of 3 essay subjects at A'Level...

Hopefully I can offer a little insight…

I did Eng Lit, History & RS (many moons ago)
DC1 did Eng Lit, History, RS & Politics (dropped History after AS and continued other 3 to A2)
DC2 currently doing History, RS, Politics & Geog (likely to keep all 4 on next year to A2)

RS is an excellent A level - I know some will dismiss it as ‘less than’ other humanities but it really isn’t. It’s rigorous and very interesting. What board will your DC be under? We’re in NI so it’s CCEA for us and there are 8 different modules to choose from ranging from Biblical studies (Acts, Pauline epistles etc) to World religions (Islam) and Ethics, Philosophy or Church History so lots of scope for variety. As it happens my DC (at different schools) both have Ethics & Church History, whereas the school I used to work in teaches Acts & Islam. (Having done a Divinity degree myself and with current A level DC looking at Theology degrees I would highly recommend keeping RS in there if considering a BD/BTh)

English Lit is intense because of the coursework module in the second year. It’s a lot of work and if done correctly should be an independent study. A lot of schools ‘teach’ the coursework and spoonfeed their pupils through it (while doing their best to stick to the JCQ guidelines) but it really is meant to be an independent piece of work. My eldest loved doing it, and got a very high mark (72/75) but it was a huge amount of work with pretty much zero input or support from their teacher. The rest of the English content I think is fine - there’s less on the spec now than there was in the 90s when I did it. (no coursework component then though) There is a big step up at A level in all subjects but I do think RS and English are two which surprise a lot of people. In English it really becomes much more analytical at A level - much moreso than at GCSE - there is a lot less to do with characters or story arcs for instance, and much more about the techniques used by the author/poet.

History is A LOT of content. I’d say it was the most content heavy of my eldest’s subjects by far. 2nd one would say that Geog is also very content heavy, but history still is worse. From experience, a lot of pupils here in NI who start with 4 subjects (very normal in grammar schools here) and have history as one of them, drop it after AS due to the sheer volume of content. I know quite a few who have been put off history as a result of A level study. Having said that, I loved it when I did it. My eldest dropped it after AS, but current one is thinking of keeping all 4 on next year to A2.

3 essay subjects is fine - IF essays are your thing. For my two it’s natural so it was never a slog for them, but the hardest thing to navigate is that they are all looking for different things, and recommended structures and techniques are really quite different in the subjects your DC is looking at. An English poetry essay is a very different thing to a History source based question, which is very different again to an RS synoptic essay etc so while they are all essay based subjects, and yes, they will spend their life writing practice essays, there is a fair variety in the style, structure, technique and obviously content, to keep it interesting

My advice is that your dd can change her mind once she has obtained her GCSE results!
I would check that the combination is one where you can move onto take a degree in any one of the A level subjects with that combination of subjects.
Psychology is quite a popular degree subject and it would be harder to progress to a degree course in this subject without another Science (or Maths) at A level than with her current options.
8s in English and RS suggest either RS or Philosophy at A level rather than Psychology to me.

I was a strong student (and then an A Level teacher ) but found History the hardest and dropped it at AS back when that was a thing. English lit and RS is a good combo, English language too is interesting. I'd then put psychology alongside this though I recommend she looks at the exam papers for all as this is what she will end up needing to do and see which interests her. I struggled with pure philosophy at university but loved RS.

These are SUCH helpful replies, thank you everyone. Lots of really useful points for DD to consider, thank you for taking time to respond!

Hi @EdmontonOilers !

A lot can change between now and GCSE Results Day. Many students do not decide upon their A Level choices until late August or early September. Many also change in Year 12, especially in the first term.

That said, she should choose the subject she enjoys. This is the best chance of good enough results and will naturally lead to a Uni subject choice.

My daughter did History, RS and Psychology. She really enjoyed History but it was a LOT of content, such that she didn’t manage to get through it before the exams (disorganisation is an issue!) and was lucky that the ‘right’ content came up. There’s also the coursework which is very time consuming.

Psychology is also quite a lot to learn but I think dd found it easier than History overall. And there’s no coursework. It was a bit more boring with all the case studies though.

RS she found really interesting, quite challenging intellectually but nowhere near as much to learn. It felt like there were far fewer potential exams questions they could be asked so she was able to learn sample answers. Dd didn’t have any regrets about the subjects she chose.