How late is too late to swap A levels?

[Oldowl]

DD is taking Maths, FM, Geography and Politics at a super selective Grammar at the start of Y12. She achieved 9 A* and 3 As at GCSE and at the moment wants to apply to Oxford to study Geography.

She is finding FM really tough and is stressing every night about it. She is desperate to give it up, but knows her school will insist she chooses another A level as all pupils take 4 (or 5) A levels. The problem comes that she does not have another A level choice that she wants to do. I have suggested economics, but it's a NO. Is it too late to start another A level if her peers are a month into the course? She asked her Head of 6th form if she could just do 3 plus EPQ about a fortnight ago and was told, 'No, all students do at least 4 in the lower 6th.'

The other problem with giving up FM is that she will have to change maths classes and will lose some brilliant maths teachers who get amazing results. She is in a real dilemma and is upset every night as the pace of the lessons and the workload is killing her love of school.

"If you do 4 and struggle with one, you can drop it. If you do 3 and struggle with one, that’s it for the next two years"

I agree. Loads of students chose psychology A level and most of them hate it and find it boring. DD is one of the lucky ones who took 4 subjects and could drop it after AS exams. The others have to stick with it.

I agree - I’m hoping DS will be able choose 4 and then drop one if it doesn’t go to plan. Especially as two of the subjects he’s mentioned are further maths and psychology!

Psychology is massively time heavy. DD found it easy, but very, very boring. You have to remember loads of names of people who did various studies/cases and be able to quote them. The amount of homework DD had for psychology was almost as much as for the other three subjects she took.

She achieved an A at AS level, but was so glad to ditch it.

Strongly agree with noblegiraffe about doing four in Y12 with the option of dropping to three in Y13, and I couldn't care tuppence for my DC if there's no qualification at all. ASs are no longer valuable currency. I'm extremely keen for DD (Y11) to start four and I'm easy as to whether she continues with four or drops to three. I'm not in the least bothered about her not having a formal qualification in the fourth subject if she drops to three - how can a year's teaching and learning be bad? Also agree about the root cause being funding cuts, not any argument for or against the merit of four in Y12. The sums don't add up any more and many parents take the view that it's about a bit of paper at the end of Y12, not the additional breadth in itself.

Update:
DD has now been assigned to a single A level maths class with two of her original teachers from her double maths class (this was a big surprise). She is very happy. She also has been assigned the Head of 6th form as her EPQ supervisor.

She is very happy. She loved maths today and feels very on top of it considering she has covered the unit a couple of weeks back and has done double the amount of maths as the other girls.

I had a lovely email from her Head of Maths today, saying it was great to see DD smiling again and continuing to throw herself into school life rather than being stressed about the workload and difficulty of FM.

Excellent - so good the school came round to being flexible rather than sticking to an arbitrary rule.