Does your year 10 DC know what a levels they want to do yet?

[dollybird]

DD wants to do maths a level, but other than that, she is mostly just choosing things she doesn't want to do. Has dismissed German even though it's her best and favourite subject due to the literature element, doesn't want to continue English, history or science and none of the 'new' subjects take her fancy.

She has no particular career plan and DS already knew by this point what he wanted to do. Are most other 14/15 year olds not sure until much closer to having to submit an application??

Sounds like Maths, Geography and Design then :-) Sorted.

(When I was in year 10 about half of the pupils didn't have a career plan that relied on an obvious set of A-levels and didn't know what to choose, or chose by elimination/timetable clashes/so they got a free afternoon every week etc)

Haha, yes, I think I had maths as a definite then chose the two subjects I got the highest grades for in my GCSEs! Things seem very different these days. Going by her parents evening today she would take maths German and a science. She says sociology and psychology sound interesting, but not sure how well they go with maths...

I'm a head of year 10 / 11. Our students have to submit their options at Easter of Y11 and the vast majority are still umming and ahhing the week before that, despite plenty of assemblies and PSHE lessons and parent meetings to help them decide. I think it's quite natural as they've spent 12 years studying a full curriculum so the idea of actually having lessons in just 3 or 4 subjects seems alien. In Y10 in my experience it's far more typical not to know rather than to know.

DD1 changed her mind many times. Even at enrolment, but to be fair that was because the college had cancelled a course she was going to do and hadn't updated their website! It's hard to choose before you have your actual GCSE results, so colleges aren't really interested in choices before enrolment day.

DCs school asks for choices next February, though obviously wiggle room after that.

DS2 says he wants to do either Computer Science or Music at uni so is fixed on Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Music. Will be interesting to see if it is still that next year! DS1 had his mind fixed on Physics from Y10, so that made most of his choices straightforward also.

DD was always History but the others took more thinking about. And she couldn't do two she wanted as they were timetabled together.

There are very few of DS2s friends know what they want to do yet.

My ds is in year 10 and is currently in a state revising for his GCSE Englsih Lit ( 2 papers next Tuesday and Friday ).

At the moment he hates everything.
He hates Romeo and Juliet more than anything in the world

What has surprised me though is the subjects that have always been his strongest which are history/art/English have taken a back seat and he's talking about going down the maths/physics route as wants to be an architect today

I think it will likely change again.

dd2 is still changing her mind / wavering, and sh'e Yr11

Mines taking his GCSEs right now and still hasn't decided :)

Yep, same here. Mostly he thinks it's maths, biology and psychology, but the maths could become English.
I'm not letting him change anything until he gets his results!

Same here Loose
Not going to stress until results day tells us if there will be a choice or not

Ds in year 10 said he will do A Level maths, art and design, and history. This will change weekly no doubt.

Mine has decided on Maths and a MFL, not sure of the third. She thinks one of the sciences, but is not seeming that interested in any of them so not sure if that will work out well.

I've suggested maybe a non-core subject like Economics, DH thinks this would be a bad idea..

Dd wants to do PE, biology and geography. She seems quite set on them. She's yr10.

DS is Year 11. Can’t decide if A levels or IB let alone which subjects! I think IB is appealing as there’s still lots of subjects so you don’t have to narrow the choices!

DS is year 10. Probably History, an MFL and maybe business studies or similar. He's no idea what he wants to do but isn't a fan of science so won't carry on with science or Maths and he likes reading books, not dissecting them so no English Lit either, maybe English Lang though.

I wonder how sixth form colleges will tailor their entry requirements - at the moment they seem to be assuming that people will do as well on the new GCSEs as they would have done on the old ones which seems unlikely for the majority. So maybe a requirement to get a 6 will be downgraded to a 5 or 7 to 6 etc and that might also have an impact on choices once grades are known.

I changed my mind loads of times over my A levels, even as late as October half term of year 12/what was then lower sixth!

The grades for entry seem to vary a lot. I think DS1 only has to get 5s in theory to get into his preferred sixth form, but in practice individual subjects set certain grades and there's more competition for places on some subjects.
I think he's changed his mind quite a bit from end of Y10. Sixth form induction days have been very helpful for subject choices and reassuring on the maths. So, barring the unexpected on results day I think he's happy with maths, biology and psychology.

I have found visiting sixth form colleges helped my year 10 explore her options and decide what she is really interested in.

at the moment they seem to be assuming that people will do as well on the new GCSEs as they would have done on the old ones

They will, by design, at least initially. The same proportion will get a 4 or above as got C or above. The same proportion will get a 7 or above as got A or above.