Confused over A level choices

[ihearttc]

DS1 has just finished Y11. He is a fairly bright boy and is predicted 6s, 7s and 8s for GCSE. He has picked his a level choices…PE, Geography and Biology. These are some of his best subjects and is predicted 8 in both PE/Biology and a 7 in Geography.

He had his induction day at 6th form this week and PE/Geography are ok, the Biology didn’t go well. He thinks the teacher is great (he taught him before) but the others in the class are just not on his wavelength. I’m aware that sounds really shallow and pathetic but 2 of the boys especially are very hard work and he said he was only in there for an hour and wanted to walk out. There are 10 of them and he said there is literally no one he could talk to. He is rather cool and sporty…they are the complete opposite so I can see why he found it tricky.

Anyway…my question is does he suck it up and just accept the fact that he is going to hate a lesson just to do the subject or walk away and chose something else. He wants to do something sport related…either sports science or become a Secondary PE teacher if that’s relevant.

The other option is his other choices are limited due to timetabling. It would have to either be the biology, Media Studies (which he did for GCSE), a BTEC medical science (which seems not at his academic level) or Maths. The obvious one is maths but he is freaking out over hard it will be and he doesn’t want to fail.

Any thoughts if that makes sense at all?

I'm so annoyed on your behalf that you can't do psychology

No, ucas points are meaningless except for some lower ranking ex polys - not to discount those places as some v good for sports science (Liverpool John moores for example and Nottingham Trent (although we hated NTU when we went to visit)

At the moment he likes the look of Loughborough, Cardiff and Canterbury. The other one he likes is the UEA (University of East Anglia) however it’s about 30 mins from where we live so don’t think he’d get the whole experience in our home town!!

Will have another look at subjects on there rather than UCAS points and get him to email them. Thank you once again.

May have changed, but he's talking about Cardiff met as Cardiff uni doesn't do sports science

UEA is pe education ONLY not Sport and exercise science

Disclaimer this info is from. When dd applied 4 years ago

Swansea also excellent
And if he's bright and looking at Loughborough then also look at Birmingham and exeter (just double check that a single A level equivalent BTEC would be OK with PE and Geog A levels)

I know that about UEA because dd really wanted to do physiotherapy afterwards so we had to find out if the degree she chose had enough sports science/anatomy/physiology to be accepted onto a physio masters. UEA doesn't nor does Bath Uni Health and Exercise Science. Both degrees good for teaching or public health education

I think if he wants to do Biology and is good at it, it would be a shame to give it up and narrow his future opportunities over what might be just a wobble.

He may be worried about not keeping up, or being bottom of the class, I guess. I would be telling him that he deserves to be there just as much as anyone else and that he should forget about his classmates and keep his eyes on the prize. This is about his future, not about them. How will he feel later on if an opportunity isn't available to him because he hasn't got A level biology? Will he think - argh I should have just done it? Tell him, don't let other people make you feel you're not good enough, and don't let them stop you from pursuing your goals.

I'd also be telling him that his idea of what it will be like is almost certainly much worse than the reality, there will be nice kids there for him to be friends with, and that come September it will all work out OK. And that you've always got his back if not.

(Btw we had the same scenario, DS didn't feel comfortable in his biology class, but luckily his school is big enough that he could swap to another. So I do understand the worry.)

Appreciate this thread is 2 months old now but thought I’d update if anyone is remotely interested.
DS got a fairly decent set of results in August…mostly 7’s with a couple of 6’s. But no 8’s. Spoke to Head of 6th Form and they have had a juggle around (I think there must have been more kids that wanted to do it) and they’ve have moved Psychology so he can do it. He is now doing Psychology, PE and Geography. There are 8 of them doing that exact combination (it was in the same column before as PE). He is absolutely loving it, so far (appreciate it’s only 2 weeks in!) it’s his favourite subject and it works as a science for applying to Uni.

I do like an update! Great news OP. Really pleased that it worked out so well for him.

Glad it's worked out for him!