Year 12 - 2025/2026: Here we go again!

[QueenMabby]

A new thread for the new school and college year. A friendly thread for parents of those going into year 12 in September 2025.

Well hopefully it gets better with time, as teachers start to use it more often. Or DD may have to remind her teachers to put the slides etc onto moddle, so the site the school pay for can actually be useful.

Does she sit the exam next May in year 12? That’s the way they do it here. Then FM in year 13.

Same at DD’s school. Her school doesn’t do the A-Level in Y12, they do both in Y13. It is twice as many hours in school (and out), so I guess a bit less crazy than it sounds 😁

@CocoPlum @Eccle80whats the other thread about reviews. Dd wants to find an extra mark in science to get a 9/9. So far we have had the mark breakdown, EO said she was asking for the scripts but with a huge caveat that the science teachers may not look at them. We are still to see them. The science teacher is yet to comment. Surely it’s in their interest to get more 9s?
Anyway new 6th form going well. Seems happy. Although has a 4pm finish tomorrow on the day we are off to see Coldplay. Typical. She has a 2 week timetable and next Thursday she finishes at lunchtime.

DS will do maths at end of Y12 and FM at end of Y13. Maths/FM doesn’t seem to have any more time on the timetable than his other A levels though - just think they work at a faster pace. I suppose it’s why his school only recommends the maths/FM combo it to those who have come away with a 9 at GCSE and passed the extended L3 algebra qualification.

First time with a 2-week timetable for us. I'm sure it's not difficult but right now it feels like another thing to get my head around.

I've never heard of the extended L3 algebra qualification...did they sit that with GCSEs???

So it is timetabled as a single A-level? Wowzers! It is double time at DDs school because it is timetabled as 2 a-levels (maths and FM), even though it is all maths until Easter.

Chemistry paper 2 gone up 1 mark here( needed 2 marks for the next grade) Paoer 1 has gone in!

2 week timetables are hard to get your head around. My 3 all had them at senior school. Orange week & green week. Booking orthodontic appts and trying to calculate what colour it’d be and what lesson had to be missed. It didn’t help that they always reverted back to green week (or was it orange? I could never ever remember!) at the start of each half term! DD3 seems to have a weekly timetable at her new 6th form. 🥳 They work really well in fairness as they can have 4 lessons of one subject one week and 5 the next, which is great for maths & English.

DD is the same: they were told today they’d finish the Maths syllabus by May half-term, then start on FM. They take both exams at the end of Year 13. I’m not sure how many lessons a week she has, as she hasn’t shown me her timetable yet.

Meanwhile, at the prize-giving, DD got an award for her GCSE results: a John Lewis voucher. Just what every teenager wants 😸

@Soundofshunawhat board, is that combined or separate. Not even at that stage yet….good luck in the next paper.

@ChannelLightVesselthos is what my DS had. So he had 2 subjects worth of maths a week. Some days he had triple maths (different teachers). He enjoyed it as it was only the FM people so was a bright driven set where it was cool to be clever.

On the maths that sounds similar to what DS said to me - he has both maths and further maths timetabled, but actually they cover the maths syllabus first then move onto further maths. Both exams in year 13 though, we did come across one sixth form college that did maths in year 12, but also said they didn’t recommend that if you would be applying for university courses that want A level grades sat at the same time

It’s in the Secondary area, about English specifically, but interesting from a general review point of view too.

Edexcel separate. Took 1day!

This was my worry - about the A levels not being sat at the same time and unis wanting grades from 3 all in the same sitting. But the school regularly seems to get Oxbridge/RG places from their maths/FM group so it can’t be too big a deal. I’ll have to double check if he really doesn’t have more maths on his timetable than other subjects - he seemed to think he didn’t and the teachers keep saying about ‘it’ll move at pace’ but it does seem a bit crazy to not have any more time. I know they have a parallel ‘just maths’ group in the same timetable block so if they’re finding it too fast they can drop into that group and do just do maths at the end of Y13.

Seems my own son doesn't know what is going on. Have checked his timetable and he DOES indeed have more maths/FM than other subjects, but not a lot more. He has 14 hours across 2 weeks for maths/FM and has 10 hours across 2 weeks for each of his other A levels.

We had a wobble on the chosen subjects again last night, despite not even having a lesson yesterday (spent the morning settling in with the form tutor and the afternoon doing sport). He keeps saying Physics, or maybe Chemistry, might be too hard and he'll drop it for something 'easier' and more 'chill'. He seems to think swapping to the subject in which me/DH have degrees/PhDs would be an easy/chill option... hmmmm... perhaps he's hoping for some help from us, which of course we would give if needed (although I can see that getting fraught). But this is a boy who swore he never wanted to write an essay again so I'm not sure it would be a good idea for him (or us)!

I don’t think any of them are easy options. My son loves history but found history a level hard going owing to the amount of content, just seemed vast. By the time he sat his exams he certainly regretted it. He started 4 a levels, standard in his school, but dropped further maths in upper 6th despite always having a flair for the subject. They pretty much covered all of a level maths in lower 6th and went on to further maths in upper 6th and had extra periods of maths throughout so fewer study periods. Sat both maths and further maths in upper 6th. It was a very heavy workload. My dd was advised against further maths as a 4th a level for medicine.

Having spoken to DS again this morning, he said they do year 12 maths by Christmas, then the rest of the year do AS Further maths, and sit that next summer, which gives an option to drop further maths and still have something to show for it. His friend who is about to start medicine did this.

He has 4 hours 40 a week of lessons per subject, so 9 hours 20 a week of maths.

@mojobrojo hopefully once he has got started on lessons the wobbles will calm down. It’s natural I think to have some doubts, especially when so much is said about how hard science A levels are.

DD is also having wobbles around Maths. She finds standard A level Maths too easy but is super scared of FM. So instead of FM she has chosen EPQ, but is now second guessing her choice because pretty much everyone in her Econ and Physics class are doing FM. I do not think you can win either way. She is doing a modern language as a fourth A level which she loves and gets so much attention for. No way are we dropping that, regardless of what unis demand. I simply do not care anymore about their “demands” and ticking boxes. DD is an all rounder and we intend to encourage that for as long as possible even if the uni system here works against us. We think in the long run her being mathematically and social science and language competent is a good thing.

What subject is he saying he'd like to change to? Has he looked the specifications and topics? As he may have actually thought about it. What does he want to do for uni (if he wants to go) and for a career? Even just ideas, if he's not sure.

As Eccle said it is normal to be unsure. Especially if they move schools because your with new people, they know the teachers (most of the time) and so can get away with more. Like a teacher may know that even if a students isn't doing too well now, they believe in them, but for a new student you almost have to prove your academic capability more. I remember it took me almost near March to feel like I shouldn't drop A-level history and that I was really bad and stupid compared to the rest of the class, especially as we had a case of so many boys interrupting girls and just answering as if they had written a book on the topic and had PhDs. I felt that they were ahead of me (due to different GCSE topics even though A-level wasn't the same but their GCSE topics helped give more context to it). In reality I had the highest essays and the boys constantly saying they were better, didn't but I didn't know that in lesson and had chosen history later and impulsively. Actually just encourage him to confident, that he's good at what he likes and he works hard. He may need that or he may actually be looking into a different route, there's nothing wrong with that, unless he's doing it only because he thinks those essay subjects are easier, as they aren't and he'll lose interest if he doesn't like them.

@Eccle80 Surely it would be better for them to also sit A-level maths, since they finish it in Y12. As in those who after doing AS FM, don't want to do the A-level FM, do they also sit A-level maths and the AS FM. Or just one of them?

@Araminta1003 Universities are crying out for MFL students, the requirements are often much lower even if it's only dual honours with History or Politics etc. So it's a good thing for her, and of course the most important thing is she likes and enjoys it. My sister did English Lit and French and got into medicine fine, like you said it showed her strengths in other areas, and gave her something different to talk about, she also did Biology and Chemistry as those are necessary.

In our school the medics also drop FM in Year 12 and do it to AS level and then do A level Maths in Year 13, typically with Bio and Chem. But in the local private school a lot of the medics do Chem and Bio and a completely unrelated third subjects like English or Drama or Latin! It really varies what the school encourages and I think the kids influence each other, a lot, especially in these first few weeks. In DD’s school the boys just talk about Imperial and Warwick (non medics) and Oxbridge is completely out of fashion. It is all so weird!