Need urgent advice re A level choices (with maths and further maths)

[flippinecknotagain]

Name changed as identifying..

Back in January DS made his A level choices for 6th form at his college. He has chosen Maths, Further Maths and Physics. (He wants to do something like Maths, Physics or Astrophysics at Uni) Today school have told them in an assembly that those who chose Further Maths as an A level have to chose another A level!
School are supposed to be calling us but nothing yet!

I have heard of other schools where you have to do 4 a levels if one is FM but no mention of this at his school till today. Obviously I'm fuming. Back in January we went through lots of course entrance requirements to help with choosing. Just done it again really quickly and my brain is scrambled and they would suggest you don't need 4 A levels.

Any advice please. Apart from 4 levels being hard work he doesn't really have anything he wants to do. maybe Biology at a push?

This is standard at our school- annoying they've only just told you though.

Is there a subject he would find unchallenging but isn't necessarily one he'd need for uni, maybe computing etc? Something he'd find interesting but totally different so classics etc? Do they still do general studies? It's crap but I'd pick something with a low work load, no exams and fun

Economics is fun. Bit of maths. Very useful as well.

And relatively easy for someone who can do maths and FM

It's quite sensible actually - lots of kids really struggle with FM, and/or decide that doing so much maths isn't for them - if they haven't got a forth subject to do they're effectively screwed. I'd assume he'd be able to drop one for year 13?

My son would swap any of his for an A level with low work load, no exams and fun

At ours you're only allowed to do further maths as a 4th subject and will get removed from it if your other three grades start slipping.

DC did maths, chemistry, biology & FM.

As others said, drop out from further maths is high so you really do need something else too.

Economics is a great subjects that mathematicians enjoy because it is very logical. Probably easier to get to grips with than computing but I'd look through computing or DT options too. Biology is great if he really likes it but there quite a lot of learn for the exams.

Chemistry would seem the obvious one - there’s a lot more “working it out” than “memorising” and it pairs very well with a physics and maths. Biology is very heavy learning I’d have thought.
Or computing would go well too? Or a totally different strand like a humanity but I suspect he’d know if he was interested in that.

Dds friends who did it all said biology was their hardest subject so I wouldn’t suggest that as an extra.
Dd3 is about to do maths, further maths, physics and computer science.
I agree economics or business studies would go well or if he’s sure he’ll be fine with further maths and he has art gcse that’s a great A level for escaping the stress of the others.

How about Religious Studies? Has a lot of logic in it and DS enjoyed it. He also did Maths and Geography and found Religious Studies helped him think about things in different ways.

Thanks for all the replies so far.

Hadn't thought of it from the perspective of dropping one but that makes sense.

Unfortunately school only do AS level computing

Will look at the spec for Computing and Economics later

Will also get him to check out Business Studies. Not a huge amount of choice at his 6th form.

DS has just finished his A levels (maths, FM, Physics and DT) - his school would only let FM be the fourth A level, but he wanted to do engineering (at Cambridge) and C said that if your school offered FM, they expected you to take it. However, their offer was A star in FM, As in Physics and maths and a B in DT, so they weren't really fussed about the DT result.

The drop out rate in the group was high - I think 15 started and only 7 took the A level, so I can see why schools make you take another one. I think if you are doing maths/STEM subjects and wanted to do engineering or maths at uni, then it makes sense to take it, but if not, then as others have suggested, Economics could be a good alternative. One of DS's friends did politics alongside his maths/FM/physics....

Wow, that is a very high drop out rate.
DS doesn’t fancy Oxbridge but a couple of top unis ask for FM for Maths.

Completely understand the reasoning for this now. Am just mad that this is information has only just been given to us now. He has let school know his choices on a few occasions including a taster day. There are a few others in his position today!

Exactly.

That is really bad of your school not to have advised sooner @flippinecknotagain - our (state) school were very clear, very early on about FM (but they are a science and maths heavy school - and a record 15 of them got Oxbridge places this year) so I think they are well versed in the requirements for uni, and particularly STEM courses.

School is a top grammar school in the NW. They are however notoriously bad at communication.

I’m so glad my DS is laid back. Can you imagine finding this out on your first day at 6th form in assembly. I will most likely put a complaint in.

Latest plan is to do Economics A level as well as the other 3.

I can’t see him giving up FM. It’s one of his passions. He only lost 7 marks in his Maths gcse so obviously very good at it. However, With the dropout rate what it is it does seem the more sensible plan!

thanks so much for all the helpful advice. All feeling a lot less stressed now

Good choice. He will find the maths dead easy and often the course incorporates current events so not a ton of reading either. There’s also not a lot of writing compared to the essay based courses and it’s objective enough to appeal to a hard science type of person.

@flippinecknotagain Ds did 4 A levels with maths and fm. The drop out was almost half from his class for fm and that was to concentrate on bringing their A level maths grade up.

However they only needed a grade 7 at maths GCSE to do fm. This can have an impact on the base knowledge you come in with. I am sure noblegiraffe (very well respected maths teacher on here) will say that an 8 is better and far less of a struggle from GCSE to A level. Ds got a very comfortable 9 and found it relatively easy. It sounds like your son is very able at maths so he should also find it okay.

And at Ds's sixth form you can only take fm as a 4th A level probably because of the drop out rate.

School wanted an 8 to do FM.

Anyway, DS gone to bed fairly happy. That’s despite not having a timetable for tomorrow! He will go and find HOY first thing.
Will update tomorrow when he’s back. Thanks all

Just wanted to update. DS has been doing all 4 subjects for a month now and enjoying them all. he has got a really good economics teacher who is discussing everything that is going on economy wise atm so very interesting and relevant for a someone who has never studied it before.

He’s finding the Further Maths easier than normal maths. They’ve only had one person drop out so far and that was a friend of his who was in same situation as him.

Time will tell whether he drops FM or Economics to AS level. I think he has to decide in Jan. He can cope with the amount of Homework so far and doing most of it in his frees but I’m sure it’ll ramp up soon.
I was happy to hear that half his class for both Maths classes and physics are half girls!

Excellent! Glad to hear it’s going well. Watching with interest as this will be us in a couple of years.