Doing one A level early?

[MarshallZEK]

I’ve posted on here rather than FE in the hopes of some people with knowledge of university admissions seeing it.

Dd is in year 10. She had to move school at the beginning of Y9, and at her old school she had been learning German, but new school doesn’t offer it.

So we said we would pay for a private tutor for GCSE. She got on so well, she is now due to sit the gcse this summer, and she really, really wants to carry on and do A Level, and then German and history at university.

Unfortunately the only 6th form locally that offers German A level is really not good.

So we are thinking about carrying on with the tutor during year 11 and 12, and completing the German A level at the end of year 12, and in the meantime choose 3 further A level subjects to study at school in the normal way.

I know that some universities don’t like A levels completed in a “piecemeal” fashion, though hopefully still doing three in one go would counter that somewhat? But what would admissions tutors think about the A level for the main subject you were studying being done early? Obviously she’d need some sort of plan to keep up her skills in Y13.

The alternative option would be to do it in a more leisurely fashion over three years, so take all the exams in Y13.

Dd would likely be aiming high for university, places like St Andrews, Oxbridge, UCL etc

Thank you, we’ve sent an email to a couple of admissions depts, politely requesting it be passed on to an admissions tutor - thank you for that suggestion.
Presumably they will be quite busy at the moment dealing with ucas applications, but hopefully we will get a response at some point.

Plod on one step at a time, without planing 2 or 3 years ahead. She can start the A level German in September, but would do well to then have a break from it in the summer term of Y11. If she’s properly ready in Y12 then go ahead. If not, treat it as an opportunity to have longer to get a top grade and take it at the end of Y13. My gut says the latter approach will work out for the best and give her a chance of an A*.

Why suggest the break, @Genevieva ?

@clary above is an MFL academic who was concerned about having a break in Y13 and I respect her expertise on this. It is analogous to the concerns of STEM academics at some top universities around gap years. (All can be mitigated, but not by taking a real break).

Why is the break you suggest not going to lose momentum in a similar way? To say nothing of the fact that DD loves her German.

Lots of students take a break from extra curriculars in the run-up to GCSE to focus on their exams.

A break in May and June of Y11 will allow her to focus on her GCSE exams, which come thick and fast. She will likely have weeks in which she has one or two exams every day. She needs to do well in those to have a chance at a top university. It will make no difference to her long term prospects in German. Furthermore, A level is very different from GCSE. You can get a 9 at GCSE and struggle to reach A* at A level. Time is important for language development, so starting the A level in Y11 and then taking three years over it, with a 2 month break in the summer of Y11 would likely result in the best outcome. She could always take lessons in the summer holidays and/or go to Germany to use her language skills.

True, @noblegiraffe

A way of postponing the decision. Seems rather roundabout but preserves flexibility

Thanks, @Genevieva

To me this DD sounds in a different league but I appreciate there is little evidence as yet

A short break during the actual GCSE exams sounds like a good idea, and something we would probably do anyway.

Currently Dd has 2 hours German tutor time per fortnight with homework in between, and no sessions in school holidays but a fair amount of homework to complete, and I imagine that will continue.

Thank you for the different league comment, we are very proud of how bright and hardworking she is 🙂. (Dd herself gets exasperated by that sort of talk, and we don’t want to put pressure or high expectations on her, it’s hard to balance the line between “we have every confidence in you” and “we expect you to do well”.)

You are welcome, OP

I agree it seldom helps for YP to hear this. (Or to be taken down, of course. Just calmly helping them to thrive, which is what you seem to be doing, seems to me to be what breeds confidence - speaking in generalities.)

@MarshallZEK I meant to post before to say wowowow your DD is taking three MFL GCSEs? That's fantastic, massive well done to her.

Assuming they are all the same board it’s also a big advantage as the structure of the papers is identical for different MFLs, and the exam technique ("use xx number of verbs when describing the picture in the speaking exam" etc) will be the same, so I think the possible workload is reduced.

Taking three MFLs even just to GCSE will give her such a head start. I don’t suppose she would consider doing French instead of one of her other A levels? #wistful

(so so few DC get the chance to take two MFLs to A level now.)

It’s nice to hear that about doing 3, Clary, because DD’s grandparents in particular were worried it was a bit unbalanced.

I don’t know actually, if they are the same exam board, will have a look.

I don’t think French is entirely off the table for A level - let’s face it, Dd could completely change her mind and decide she wants to do biology instead!

But we have talked about it a bit (in particular about choosing French/Spanish instead of German) and her reasoning was

1. She wants to do German at university, not French or Spanish, even though she does enjoy them at school.
2. She probably wants to do history alongside it at uni, plus she really likes history
3. She wants to keep English Lit just in case she changes her mind about history.
4. If she was going to do 2 languages at uni, she’d rather do German and beginners Russian(!) - I really hope she doesn’t choose this.
5. She really enjoys maths and doesn’t want to give it up yet.

I don't think it’s unbalanced – assuming German is an extra, she is doing the usual compulsories, two MFL, history I assume and DT/drama/food tech/music/geography. All good.

I enjoy her A level reasoning too :)

@MarshallZEK - a vote for studying Russian here: i studied Russian ab initio at uni alongside French (already studied to A level) about 100 years ago. At Cambridge, in fact. A lot of my fellow MFL students took it ab initio alongside German. (This was late 1980s so no problem to go to Russia for 3rd year abroad, but i know of various MFL students taking it now and having their 3rd year abroad in Armenia, Georgia or Kazakhstan - all terrific places). Most of the MFL students in our year did take a new language alongside one in which they had A level.

I know options for using Russian might look a bit limited right now - or at least going to Russia - but it is such a beautiful language and potentially opens up other Slavonic languages also.

I became a lawyer off the back of having studied Russian so it has been useful throughout my career. My older DD took 3 language GCSEs (one was Latin) and my younger took 2. Both took a language at A level.

DDs have both started a language ab initio at uni (Arabic in their cases) alongside a humanities subject.

Your DD is obviously very gifted and, if thinking in terms of an MFL degree (ie German + another language), I would really encourage taking a language ab initio. It’s such a great opportunity for that. Also, many language courses will offer relevant history modules also - i took a few Russian & Soviet history modules as part of my Russian studies.

Of course you’re right, Dery, and it was more my visceral reaction to my still-only-fourteen year old effectively saying they’d rather go to a war zone than Barcelona or Paris 😂
And Kazakhstan and Georgia also lack the cosy familiarity of Spain and France!

I do think it would be an absolutely fascinating language to study - great literature, great culture great history - in fact I studied history at university and took Russian and Soviet and Cold War modules whenever they were available, including my dissertation, so I can certainly see the attraction.

And of course, an adventurous spirit might just as likely end up in Ecuador or Haiti as Kazakhstan anyway.