Sixth Form Boarding with social science subjects

[perrycourt]

My DD is at end of year 9 and has just done GCSE choices - she is currently at a mixed boarding school. From talking to her and her teachers she seems to be interested in subjects such as Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology leading towards studying Social Anthropology. Unfortunately the school she is at only offers Psychology at A level and for the first time this year.
Does anyone know of any good Boarding schools with a history of new starters at sixth form who offers these sort of subjects?
I've just done some google searches but it'll take me ages to go through alphabetically each school and so far no joy!! I would like to be in a position to start looking at schools from September as I would guess she would have to apply this time next year.
DD is sporty and academic - she has academic and sports scholarships and is very confident so no problems in those areas!!
Many thanks

I'd suggest you look up lists of facilitating subjects at A level for those subjects before making a decision about moving schools to take those options. I'm an academic who has studied and taught all 3 of those subjects at university level, and those are not recommended A levels for social science degrees. Generally those courses prefer traditional academic subjects.

For a degree in one of those subjects I'd suggest maths, a science and an essay based subject.

Hurtwood house specialist 6th form so all are new, all of those subjects on offer

Yes, I would definitely be looking at University requirements for the sorts of University she would be aiming at as I think subjects such as History, Geography, RS, Biology, maths etc would be preferred with maybe just one social science or non-facilitating subject.

Probably worth finding this out before moving her school.

hi - thanks for the replies - she is thinking of the USA for University. The Universities I looked at here had no set requirements for Anthropology but will look into it further -

USA application is a whole other thread perrycourt, but do make sure that whatever choice you make has experience in helping do that- there's far more involvement of staff in writing references etc and different timetables and you really need to know what to do when especially if she is boarding and you are not at hand.

With regard to facilitating subjects yes the Anth degree may not have requirements per se but the university will have a list of which subjects they consider to be "proper" academic subjects and may not hold some subjects in high regard when considering applications. They may therefore dismiss an applicant with non facilitating subjects (even if predicted top grades) at the first cut

This might be helpful

successatschool.org/advicedetails/204/What-is-a-Facilitating-Subject

By all means do some research OP, but please bear in mind that sixth forms can change the subjects they offer so they may no longer offer a particular subject in 3 year's time. Also teenagers likes and dislikes change a lot between Y9 and the end of Y11 so your research may not still be valid.
Even if a subject is offered, A level options may also be placed in blocks similar to the system used for GCSEs and this could mean that it isn't possible to take just Social Sciences but pupils need to wider variety of subjects to keep their options open.
Would recommend History as an A level option for this degree subject.

Peter Symonds College is a state sixth form college with boarding, and which offers all of those subjects. As subjects they're usually more likely to be found in colleges than in schools, because of the level of specialism, fewer students involved and absence in KS3/4.

These subjects are fine for Manchester's Social Anthropology undergrad course. They are on their approved list of subjects. Whether the combination would be the strongest application is a other matter. Be very careful about USA because boarding fees will look small in comparison to costs there. Not sure what you gain by going there anyway. Lots talk about it, but few go in the end. Regarding boarding schools I think you might have to look at big ones such as Millfield or ones which are not that academic to get all of these subjects.

Millfield does Philosophy and Psychology but not Sociology.

So do Marlborough and Bedales. I would forget Sociology and choose another subject to make life a bit easier!

Milly beat me to it! I was going to say Millfield too. They don't do sociology, but they do subjects such as maths and the sciences (which Mad recommends). They do history, politics, and English lit, which I think would be good subjects to study if one wants to go on to study social anthropology. Millfield is also known to be really sporty, and from what I gather quite a few join in sixth form.