ds wants to drop higher biology already, help please!

[ssd]

he really doesnt know what he wants to do on leaving school, he's 16

he was doing maths, english, modern studies, business management and biology at higher, but now wants to drop biology and do PE studies at higher instead

dont know what to advise him, he says he really dislikes biology and I know he likes PE, but feel he should have a science....

what to do!!!!

hes bright but not very motivated...

If he isn't planning on doing science after school then why does it matter if he has a science?

PE will have a load of biology in it, if it's a course that has theory as well as practical.

I just thought he might need a science higher, but I dont know what for...

yes the PE has a lot of theory in it

No he doesn't need a science higher unless he wants to go on to do science...and if he changes his mind he can do science highers next year anyway.

what sort of careers need a science higher? thanks BTW!

Um sciencey ones, lol, anything medical or actual straight sciences... Pretty much anything else it's maths and English that matter as long as you have the right number of highers at the right grades for uni or college.

Higher PE isn't as easy as it sounds. One of DS's friends took it as an "easy" higher, but it turned out not to be.

Much better to be doing a Higher that he enjoys rather than one that he doesn't like? A science might open a wider range of uni courses, but PE can sometimes be considered as a science subject by unis.

My sister does not have a science at Higher level - she did languages and humanities (along with english and maths) but she has a BA and PhD in the subjects she did like. And now has a very good job completely unconnected to her BA and PhD subjects . This is going back a few years mind...

It really does only rule out the actual science subjects, humanities want English, social sciences (so sport science and things) prefer a science higher, but, it's not mandatory...so good enough grades and maths should be fine and obviously PE can't hurt, psychology it's maths or physics (so obviously maths is fine), Computing science is maths.

It really is just medicine and actual straight sciences that it rules out...or you know things like microbiology or virusology, but if he's not liking biology anyway...they wouldn't be an obvious choice.

You might need to check but I think Glasgow Uni needs two science subjects at Higher if he wants to do Maths. Engineering normally needs Maths and Physics from memory so I think he's ruled himself out of that already..

The exciting thing about Higher PE is that I think they get to choose their specialist sports or group of sports and it's normally a fairly sporty group of kids that are involved at this stage, so it is increasingly attractive. He may also have dropped down to only one or two sessions of PE a week now if he previously was doing six for Nat 5 so that's a factor if he's into rugby, football etc.

Edinburgh doesn't, I don't know about others - so it's not ruled out, just less choices of uni.

thanks, think he will do the PE, forcing him to do biology doesnt seem a good idea, although I'd like him to do it

sigh....its not easy this, is it..