Angry with DS for quitting 6thForm but want to be supportive .

[gingeroots]

Can anyone advise me here - I'm terribly upset ,disappointed ,fearful for DS future ,but feel I need to get past all this and be more positive .
DS in 3rd year of sixth form .
Last year he panicked/couldn't cope and school came up with plan for him to take one A level last summer ( plus some resits ) and then carry on and do 2 more this year .
He didn't exactly pull it out of the bag with the one A level and got a D in Biology .Resits were up by 2 grades.
This year he's been studying for Physics ,Bio and Chemistry .
He started well ,commendations from school ,but got bad unit results and mocks after Christmas .
School says massive improvement in understanding ,good in class - but it's not translating into exam grades .
Pep talk from head of science to the few who aren't doing well ," disastrous grades ,work every minute etc,etc . " .
Cue collapse of DS .
With his AS grades and one A level he has sufficient points for his insurance choice ,and they've agreed he can switch to make them a firm .
DS cannot be persuaded that it's worth taking A2 modules in summer or that even one more A level at a low grade is better than dropping out now .
He cries ,says he can't take being " the bottom rung " all the time .

( DS reports conversations with subject teachers in agreement with his choice " no point having a nervous breakdown taking the A2's if you're going to end up at insurance choice anyway " )

I suppose my stumbling block is his lack of effort . I've always felt he could try harder. For me anxiety spurs me on to work harder ,with him difficulty and failure make him give up .
How can I help him change that response ?
How can I hide my frustration and frankly anger with him and get behind his plan B ?
And we won't even get started on what a failure I feel ...

I'm going to be harsh here.
If he can't take the pressure at A Level and would rather give up then I don't think that a degree is such a bright idea. Is he going to take on thousands of pounds of tuition fee and accommodation debt, only to give up again in the first few months?
I think leaving the degree for a few years until he has matured a bit might be the way forward.

I think the boy needs a break. 3 years in the 6th form and still struggling shouts - this is not for me.

Look into gap year placements maybe in Africa on a reservation or similar

When he comes back he will have a better idea of what direction he wants to head in. He will be that much older and more mature and if he is going to go back into studying I think a vocational course such as animal management might be more suitable, ideally somewhere that runs courses which are split between college and a work placement.

It sounds like he needs careers advice.
He won't be able to get an apprenticeship for just a few months and they are very very rare in animal care anyway. It would take minimum of a year to get a qualification equivalent to GCSEs - level 2. There seem to be currently 13 vacancies across the whole country.
www.apprenticeships.org.uk/Types-of-Apprenticeships/Agriculture-Horticulture-and-Animal-Care/Animal-Care.aspx
(Follow link on the right to take you to vacancies.)
It is possible but getting an apprenticeship is really hard work and can take a long time. Pay is low, below normal min wage.

If he wants to do the foundation year it sounds like voluntary work is a good idea, the local careers service might be able to tell you which local places are happy to take on young people for work experience. Plus it might be helpful for DS to talk to another adult to take some pressure off you. There should be a careers adviser attached to his school. If not try here:
www2.cxdirect.com/home.htm
I find it wierd the school haven't offered him any support about what to do next.

Thank you everyone - mmmm a gap year . Would need to be organised , Africa sounds a little out of our range .

He does have an offer ( based on the A level and AS grades he already has ) of a place on a Foundation Degree in Animal Management and I'm hoping that this might be the right level and mix of practical work for him .
But I don't really know and it feels a bit of a shot in the dark somehow - guess that's true of all HE courses !
Thanks vj for link and tip about careers service .

As for the school ,I don't know what to think .
Part of me feels let down - before he started sixth form I spoke to school about careers advice ( "oh they're not very good " ) and emailed connexions with no response .I asked school at that juncture whether they felt DS might cope better with B tech at college but they felt A level were the way to go .
To me DS needs encouragement and support to finish his A levels ( surely giving up is not a good life lesson to learn ) and he was set to struggle on .I feel an illjudged pep/motivational talk has pushed him over the edge .
But ....maybe they think he's had enough time and if he's still not achieving that he needs out .
Maybe they think low grades are bad for school .... I don't know .
I think the damage is done ,DS is not going back now and I'm not sure I have any confidence in the schools "help " .
Don't feel they've been much help during last few years .
( School made an Academy a 3 years ago and think sixth form has suffered due to everything being thrown at GCSE years. The subject teachers seem exhausted and the school now has a layer of new young staff in a plethora of senior positions who seem to know less than the more established staff that now report to them . Won't drone on with examples here .)
But maybe I'm looking for excuses ,maybe DS just not putting sufficient work in to cope with these hard science subjects .

Does he know much about the course he is going to be doing ( you say you don't, but does he?) Setting up for three years study on a
Course you don't know much about is worrying and he should look into it in more detail.

That is what happened with me and my BTEC - I did it because I didn't want to do A levels and it seemed to play to my strenghs. It was a complete success but I see many people drop out first year, so it doesn't work for all. Best for him to spend time investigating if it right for him.

It seems a pity he won't just face the next month or two and 'do his best' -'if you get worse results do you lose the original higher ones?

Kez - well he knows what units are to be studied ,and he was interviewed for the course ,which is a 2 year course btw.
I'm pretty sure you keep the higher results .
Glad things worked out for you !

I've just realised. He has the offer for a place this Sep/Oct to do a degree at £3,000pa. And we are suggesting that he has a gap year and does his degree in the future at £9000pa ...
Perhaps he should just go for it.

Are you absolutely sure about the offer? People are tripping over themselves trying to get in under the old fee structure. I'm sure that the CI doesn't need to do anyone any favours this year and make soft offers.

At least if you make them CF you can get on with sorting out accomodation.

I dropped out of sixth form. I wasn't doing brilliantly and the regimentation and pointless rules of school were bugging the hell out of me - a course I really wanted to do was stopped half-way through, I had to spend endless hours in school even if I didn't have lessons etc etc etc.

I then spent a few months working for a local shop then got on a YTS (if you remember them) course that turned out to be a part-time college course in IT with a qualification at the end, split with working in the IT department of a large corporate.

It worked out very, very well for me. I revelled in the greater freedom and responsibility of college compared to school. Once the course was finished, the company I was placed with offered me a full-time job and that then evolved into a very good career in IT.

In hindsight, dropping out of sixth form was a big risk and it must've worried my mother immensely. But it forced me to stand on my own two feet and find something that worked for me.

snorbs - thanks for positive story .
senua - I've spoken to both the course tutor and the person who deals with HE ( the college does FE as well as HE ) and they assure me it's ok .
His firm have contacted UCAS and the Foundation Degree college have told me that they will also contact UCAS .
UCAS are not yet showing the change so I guess DS will need to chase .

gingeroots Have you taken a look at agricultural colleges?

www.harper-adams.ac.uk/

rac.ac.uk/

www.aber.ac.uk/en/ibers/

I did a National Diploma in Agriculture. I left school after GCSEs and spent a year getting practical experience before going to college. Those that had achieved certain grades at A level did a Higher National Diploma. Both were 3 year sandwich courses at the time. I don't know how it works now. Hth.

that was me. my mother was utterly gutted. i was the one out of 4 of us who didn't do A levels or go to universiy. I just hated it, mostly because i didn't know what i wanted to do. so I worked a bit, did a bit of voluntary work, worked a bit more, had a year off then went back and did a BTEC diploma over 2 years, then worked some more.

since then I've gone back and done 2 degrees and have a career i really want to do. i've done so much better that i would have had i gone down the conventional A levels and university at 18 route., because i wanted to do it.