Daughter not being allowed to sit A-level?

[MellowSnail]

DD got 7s to 9s at GCSE at her current private school

Unfortunately in 6th form she got disrupted by boy issues.

She initially was doing maths, biology, and psychology, but maths was downgraded to AS, and finally dropped.

She is now due to sit biology and psychology, but the school don't think she should sit biology, having scored Es consistently in mocks. Her psychology is at C.

She has an offer of 32 pts for foundation psychology, so can do that with a C or two Es.

Her other offers are typically 2 Cs, so a C and an E or D wouldn't realistically help. (She has an AA non-foundation offer)

Her exams are

psych 1 16 May
Psych 2 21 may
Bio 1 5 June
Psych 3 9 June
Bio 2 13 June
Bio 3 18 June

She has been of the opinion that she will improve. However her attendance is very poor and reasonably this is in doubt.

The school have said:

Come into school (when others are on study leave) and the psych teacher will help you one to one until the end of exams.
Drop biology.

This makes some sense as she might therefore do better in psychology. However it might be she is lazy and doesn't want to go into school idk.

Anyway, can anyone advise:

1. Can we insist that she does biology? ultimately if she's informed of the consequences it is her decision to make
2. Is she likely to get anywhere with, say, 1 A in psychology, and no other A-levels, in clearing? I.e. is the school's suggestion/decision in her interests?

Reading between the lines here, it sounds like you are exasperated and fed up with her.

If so - don't compound the problems by ensuring that she makes a very expensive mistake whilst too immature to realise the consequences.

Sometimes a few years out makes all the difference. I went to university early... total disaster... so I took 2 years out and worked and then went back and did a completely different course. But with a completely different mindset and perspective.

In hindsight my parents must have been having kittens over what I was up to. Luckily I didn't screw up my university funding in the process.

I would write off this year. Go for the best grades she can get (and sit both exams). Then look at options for next year that might include resits, new course (don't just look at A levels, there are other equally valid access routes to university), part time job etc.

Check her mental health is okay. Check there's no ND stuff going on - her executive function sounds suspiciously challenged. Help your child get back on track.

She is obviously intelligent otherwise she wouldn't have got 7s-9s in her GCSEs.

However pretty much from the start of sixth form things went awry with her habits - she met a dodgy boy in summer after Y11 and they had an unpleasant relationship, which is now over, but has changed her for the worse

I don't live with her - she lives with her mother, and her mother has had enough.

To be clear, she wants to go to uni. There hasn't been a debate on that. She had a youth worker and her youth worker suggested she shouldn't, but that hasn't appealed to her. I personally got a full time job at 18, but I suppose it's not really clear that she has the maturity/responsibility for that - she can't even get into school in time, even for 1130am

Her mother isn't per se kicking her out, it's just that she thinks it would be a bad idea for her to stay at home next year in that she has lost much of her patience with DD's behaviour. It is not that she would be unwelcome at home in school holidays or whatever.

She has been hanging around with some BTEC boys at a local college. I believe that a number of them are going to the same uni that she has a 32-point foundation offer for. So it is quite possible that she is planning to acquiesce into that, although she knows that we don't think much of this idea.

So if she doesn't go to uni you are going to throw her out to live on the streets?

If they don't want to enter her for an exam they don't have to. You could ask if she could sit it as an external candidate so her result is not on their records - they may ask you to pay.

A student with those grades and such a poor attitude towards study should not be going to university and if they do , they’ll likely drop out pretty quickly and return home in any case.

This. There’s a local school to me which do this. They say parents can pay and the kid can sit the exam as an independent student. Then if they pass they refund the parents.

could you offer to pay? Not that you should have to.

It’s just not possible to move out and rent with a shitty job at 18 anymore

Can she move in with you and retake her A levels or do an access course?

This is what it's about

They don't give a shit about your daughter.

> Check her mental health is okay. Check there's no ND stuff going on - her executive function sounds suspiciously challenged.

It hasn't been ideal. She saw some people after her issues with her ex and she may be autistic, but in that she does struggle a bit with anger etc , they said. Unfortunately she was offered various forms of counselling etc and didn't want them, so I suppose it's a question of how she gets back on track.

I am concerned if she goes off and does her Foundation year with the BTEC crew that she might just spend a year doing nothing.

BTEC boys?!

Look I get it. My DD was an absolute nightmare in her second year of 6th form. There was also a boy involved and a terrible relationship. She managed to get to university and completely screwed up her first year which ended up being the making of her.

But you can't just dump your child because she's not following what you had planned and hoped for. And she is still a child. I'd take the advice from the school. Resign yourselves to the fact that her future isn't immediately going to be what you envisaged and just try and help her deal with it.

If you have the money… look in to crammers for tutoring and re-takes. If she focuses she can still get some decent grades. Then look at Uni if that still suits her.

And stop the snobbishness around different qualifications too!

> could you offer to pay? Not that you should have to.

We are paying. Have paid, in fact.

It's not clear whether this is lost - I assume so. Also not clear if she can be excluded from their output at this point : do we need to then pay a second fee plus probably a very late fee? And the practical endorsement as well.

The school did email today saying that withdrawal is what they were recommending. I have asked them, in advance of my fuller reply, to clarify whether we have any choice in the matter.

Should probably clarify that we don't have any money at all. Grandparents are paying fees, but only in default of me doing so - DD has been at private school since age 3 and GPs paid the last year, effectively.

This is relevant obviously in the presumed context of 'child at private school'.

No wonder she can't concentrate on her exams if her parents are kicking her out whether she goes to uni or not.

Poor kid.

Crammer courses was the term I was looking for! My friend mucked about and her parents invested even more money into this on top of her very expansive eduction and she passed her A levels very well

What about getting a job in a restaurant when she has finished? If she can't get up early, shifts often start later. I think she should sit her A-Levels though having come this far. Has she not had a part time job so far?

Surely school have to let her sit them if they have entered her as a candidate- they would have done this some time ago. There wouldn't be time, surely to book and take an exam at a private exam centre? DD2 is taking exams at a private centre and this was booked and paid for in October 2024.

DD1 worked for a year before going to university and saved up £15,000.

If she does go and do the foundation course at uni then she probably will spend the year doing bugger all. Personally I wouldn’t be funding her dossing about for a year at uni when she’s demonstrated she doesn’t put the work in. She’ll just spend a year partying.

id be saying access course at the local college or get a job. I appreciate that would mean staying at home though. But she doesn’t sound mature enough to go to uni yet.

So either way, you're kicking her out?

Might as well not bother turning up for the exams, then.

Are you cutting her off preemptively for having a baby? Because that's as likely an outcome when you're going to be making her homeless and parentless in either case.

Or she reapplies for a foundation course as an estranged student.

If it's any consolation, my dd was expelled just before her GCSE's , she did no work at all, wasn't allowed in any revision classes. She was allowed to sit the exams and got C's in 5 subjects, including maths and English, I was over the moon ! She did a business apprenticeship and now has a good job in telecoms.
I was also at my wits end with her behaviour.
Please don't give up on her, she needs your support more now than ever. (You can scream into your pillow when she's not around) .

So she’s got into a bad crowd, probably ND but neither parent has bothered working out if this is an issue and she’s going to be chucked out regardless. You and her other parent should be utterly ashamed of yourselves frankly.

She won’t make it to uni - if she does she’ll be turfed out by Christmas. Then what. Sofa surfing with the crappy crowd she’s got in with. She desperately needs parental help and support - not to be turfed out of both parents homes.

Have to say I couldn’t kick an 18yo out unless physical violence or similar. I get she’s hard work. I have a 24yo who’s had her moments, she’s still at home. It’s been bumpy. But she’s definitely on a good path now. If she’d been kicked out at 18yo to freefall further she wouldn’t be where she is now. Your dd needs support even if she seems very ungrateful/undeserving.

I think you may need to do some planning.

you probably can persuade the school into letting her sit the biology. Private candidate would be tricky at this stage not least because of the practical requirement but school may let her sit as a private candidate.

either way, you need to think about planning for what if she makes the offer and what if she doesn’t.

it doesn’t sound like she has been thinking sbout it much (except in an “uni is the next stage” sort of way).

if there’s no money then crammers are out. They are crazy money anyway and require a lot of effort from the teen in question which frankly it doesn’t sound like she would put in.
if she has a level 3 qualification (which a levels are) then she wouldn’t normally get another one state funded. This might be different because she sat them privately so she might have the option to study something else at the local FE college. Access courses are for over 19s usually.

there is also the issue of where she’ll live. If she doesn’t make her offer for whatever reason then she isn’t going to uni. What happens then? Could she move in with you/grandma/similar for a year?

if she does make her offer uni finance is a whole other ball game. Tuition fees are covered by the loans, but living expenses are rarely covered by the loans and many students have to get a job.

not yet the time to be having those conversations with her but worth thinking about.

For the school to suggest this Op, they really must be of the very strong belief that a pass is incredibly unlikely and better to focus limited time on the possibility of a pass with another subject.

Basically I think they are trying to make the best of a very unpromising sounding situation

At the moment, your daughter is not cut out for university op