Year 12 - Wants to drop 2 A levels & study only one A Level at college

[Deyjxh]

I need help and advice to a situation with my child - Who is 17.
Currently taking A levels. Currently predicted AAB (Math, Computer studies and Physics). In an excellent college, but it is not working for her.
Struggling to think of another 6th Form or college locally that would be better.

My child wants to change to self study at home for two A Levels and attend college for only 1 of them.
Finding the travel too much, hates the noise of college/school. Has SEN but no EHCP. My child is very good at own study and is highly motivated to do this.

The college have said that the only choice available is drop all three A levels or continue with all three. This is due to ‘how the college is funded’. They seem to not be flexible with helping anything work.

What do I do? how are the college funded? Where can I find out this information.

Having had a child with an EHCP, I know how flexible school can be, if they want to be.

But it is on you to explain to her that this is nuclear and not helpful to go straight to an option this extreme. That’s the life skills element. DoE etc are all great, but the next bit is about helping her put what she’s learnt there into resilience in real life - which is not deciding that she’s just not going into college anymore, that she knows better than her teachers and that everyone should work harder to make what she wants possible.

There will be plenty of options that she can take up to make college manageable, it’s about exploring them.

Other than noise cancelling headphones have a think about:

• movement/rest breaks where she can go elsewhere if the college environment is too much (so she can pop out as needed)
• are her subjects delivered more than once? If so, are there timetabling changes that would work? E.g earlier or later lessons so when she gets to college it’s quieter, if there are form classes can she drop those, can things be moved so she has back to back lessons on some days and less time spent in communal areas if they’re tough?
• If they struggle with how something is taught, can they identify what’s hard and then work with that teacher to address it, in a quite specific way?
• are they fully aware of college campus, do they know about all the quite spaces, outdoor spaces, wellbeing spaces and so on / would any of those spaces help
• are there any learning mentors or similar, even peer mentors who could help her navigate things? Peer mentors in similar subjects could be good
• with the travel, does college have a transport bursary that might help with taxis sometimes?
• It’s probably a bit late to get an EHCP, does college offer a learning support plan or something similar? Check their website, both public and the intranet side of things your DC will have access to, and see if there’s any info/templates/requests there. If so, fill them out before your meetings with head of year or whoever.

She won't be allowed to skip tutor periods/PHSE. Schools and colleges are required to deliver a certain amount of it.

Much depends on your daughter's personality, OP. Is she a rather rigid thinker? I think the noise/sensory aspects are one thing (another option would be to switch to a smaller sixth form or college, possibly repeating year 12?)

But regarding not liking the teaching style/being in a group, would she accept this is the price one must pay for the free state education?

Tbh if she has subject specialists for Physics and Computer Science, that's fortunate!

If she's planning on university, she'll likely be in large groups there too, unless she's planning to go somewhere collegiate. So developing coping strategies would be good.

Thank you for taking the time to put your thoughts so clearly.
I don’t think my second child would reach the threshold for an EHCP, having been through the process before.
On Monday my child is meeting head of physics to discuss options and support. I will look through SEN policy and help them write up some of the points they want / need help with.

I really appreciate everyone’s input to helping me through this situation.

I think she probably would (I was told that repeatedly about my AuDHD 12 year old and she has one) but time is against you so definitely good to talk practically at this stage.

Good luck with the Physics teacher! Sounds like DC is a good student so that will ease things hopefully.

Lots of students have poor attendance due to MH difficulties. Would school be supportive with this- if she were to continue with the subjects but not attend 100% of the time.

To be honest I see school’s point of view.

Physics is a tricky one to even try to take out of class because of the practical element.

Be careful about how you phrase it - it sounds like you are trying to negotiate (very heavily) reduced attendance in lessons in 2 of her subjects, not dropping them at all. And you know that MH reasons are a valid reason for lower attendance. Unfortunately the fact she does so much else outside college rather weighs against her - isn't college her "main job" in a sense, and if she is not coping then within reason she should be looking to reduce demands on her throughout the week, not just stopping lessons. I totally understand it is not that simple and the outside stuff can be what makes college possible, but there may need to be a bit of give and take there.

Go through her timetable and look for easy wins. Eg if she has a light day can she skip that day entirely? If she has a particularly tricky day could she take a break from activities the evening before or after so she has more resources, or have a late finish/early start? Could you drop her or collect her once or twice a week to cut down on mental load of travel for her?

Another compromise might be dropping to 2 A levels and sourcing the 3rd separately, or doing it afterwards. Anecdotally I think colleges do allow this when it keeps kids in college. DD's friend who did this dropped a subject he was finding hard in Y12, and is now in Y13 doing Applied Science Y1 and Y2 simultaneously alongside Y2 of his other two. Absolutely acing it. The adjustment to college is hard but they grow up a lot. You might get further with college if she can be open to other ideas, rather than fixing on her proposed solution - especially given she hasn't tried it yet! If they set a lot of pre-work she will have a lot of the material anyway and you could try to negotiate her missing some lessons as long as she does the pre-work and does ok in assessments.

Make sure her MH is as adequately supported as you can. Hard with the high bar for CAMHS I know.

We have also been looking at school sixth forms rather than colleges, just because a smaller environment should be less overwhelming. She will probably be highly resistant to the idea of restarting Y12 elsewhere, or with different A level choices, but it is a more sensible option and less catastrophic than it will seem to her. Everyone gets 3 years funded for a reason - they are 16-19 colleges not 16-18, loads of YP will take a year off before uni anyway etc.