Up until about a year ago my Year 10 dd was fairly sure she wanted to do maths & science A levels.
She is now certain that her grades will not be good enough in those subjects and she is looking at humanities and arts subjects instead.
Age 11 she was offered a place at a selective private school but turned it down as she wanted a different kind of education at that point. She is however strongly considering the private school for 6th form. She is bright, an ed psych gave her full scale IQ as 138.
Her prediction re all over the place. Spiky CATS results and the fact she didn't do KS2 SATS mean that her computer generated predictions are very low in subjects where they take spatial CATS results into consideration but her teachers are predicting higher.
In Year 8 her maths teacher left and there was a gap before a new one was appointed, the supply teacher was not very good and she said the work was far too easy. Then the debacle of the new GCSE's. Her year group have just not been prepared for this. Too little time to teach the syllabus. (science teachers wanted to start in Year 9 but had no textbooks, new maths textbooks contained loads of errors. Its just led to a total lack of confidence in these subjects.
Her computer generated prediction in maths is Grade 6, her teacher says Level 6-8
In Science her computer generated prediction is Grade 5, her Biology & Chemistry teachers say Grade 6, Physics Grade 6/7
Her English prediction is Grade 7/8
Her RS prediction is Grade 8 but aim for higher (her teacher consulted with a uni theology lecturer)
She is horrified at Grade 5 science predictions. The private 6th form havn't yet decided what number Grade they will require as they still do ICSE A* - C. We think they will ask for Grade 7's. Her teachersd openly admit they have no idea what these Grades will look like. The RS teacher said she didn't want to predict a 9 because no one knows what a 9 will be.
Its all a total farce and dd feels like a guniea pig. She has to put 6th form application in, in just a few months.