Help, late in the year and DC wants to change an A-level subject

[honeydue3]

In a sticky situation as DC wants to swap a subject and I know it’s late in the year.

His head of year said it is late and there is too much to catchup on.
I wondered if anyone has been in the same situation, did you or someone you know manage to change late and be successful?

so stressed!!

Which subject?

Depends on subject and whether previously taken to gcse level. Ie English Lit he may have missed texts and a genre.History a whole section of curriculum,

Why does DC want to switch? Are they struggling at the existing subject? Does the new subject better align with their career ambitions?

I did it. The subject I switched to I got my highest grade on. If you're not interested in a subject another 5 terms of it is going to be a long slog.

At our school the latest time to change is October half term.

We wouldn't allow it at our school. Early October would be the last opportunity to swap a subject.

@HollyBollyBooBoo

interesting, how late in the year did you change? As late as January?

It's not 5 terms though is it, it's 4. There's no content teaching in the final term. 20% of the content has already been covered.

Can they stick for now then drop and take up the replacement in September, taking a further year to finish 6th form?

@TheUndoing

It is a subject he wanted to do previously but he did not achieve the GCSE maths grade to allow him to peruse it. After re taking maths he now has the grade but unfortunate that it is now too late!
it also suits his career aspirations.

I’d say no anyway but especially not if he struggled to get the maths related to this new subject.

Economics? I know of one dc who took up a new subject mid way in year12 , had to attend both year 12 and 13 classes to catch up until he took the exam. Not ideal and grade would have suffered as a result (Covid year assessed grades).

@Thelondonone

I get what you mean, not trying to make an excuse but Covid didn’t help.

I do wonder how many teachers here noticed student struggling with their A levels because their exams were assessment based and not exam based.

Slightly different but dc had to move halfway through year 10 (unavoidable). One subject he had to start from scratch, English lit he missed 2 texts, geography did one topic twice and one not at all. He had to work extremely hard, we watched hours of you tube videos, tested him on all sorts, he listened to podcasts to catch up but he did. I'd say you'd need to be really determined.

Whist I agree that Covid has undoubtedly caused some students to do less well than they might have otherwise done, I don't understand your comment about assessments? The current Year 12 (I assume your DC's year) all sat exams.

one of DD's friends changed an A Level subject in December. She had to fight to be allowed to do it (school not happy and initially wouldn't allow). From what DD says, she's having to work very hard to bridge the gap - she's basically self teaching a whole term's work, but at least she managed to get some of this done over the Christmas break. Changing in January will be even more onerous.

@Thelondonone

I meant to say the previous two years - 2020 and 2021 during Covid, students who had predicted grades at GCSE then went onto A-levels.

Some were given grades they probably would not have achieved if it was exam based, hence the inflation in results.
I wonder how many teachers noticed students struggling with A levels more than other years.

I think the universities are reporting issues. I know Bristol has had to stream its language courses for example for current second years who didn’t do A Level exams. I also know of issues with Btec qualifications which mean kids simply don’t have the right skills to keep up with those who did A Levels (although this is a general issue not just grade inflation related)

Lots of kids got lucky in the sense that they received generous grades. In the long run it helps nobody though if they’re continuing in education.

One of DD's friends has just changed subject at Christmas. However that is in a school with very small A-level classes, so it will be easier to support her catching up. It's also a subject where the topics are fairly independent of each other, so she doesn't need last term's work to understand this term's - which means she can catch up more gradually. It's likely to be much more difficult with chemistry or physics.

Their best bet is to talk to the teachers of the subject concerned, who will have a much better idea of how difficult it would be than the head of year. If they taught him at GCSE, that will help, as they'll have an idea of his ability level. If you are willing to pay for a tutor to do last term's work with him, that should be factored in. However be prepared for the answer to be no, because there may just be too much this term that depends on last term's work.

DD swapped an A level at October half term and had an enormous amount of work to catch up on. I would think it almost impossible to do a whole term.
Particularly if the reason for the delay was not achieving a high enough maths grade in the first place, indicating that he may struggle with the maths content.
If it is a science, he would need to catch up all the practical work as well, as they need to have done all that to pass the A level.

Thank you everyone!
looks like it’s just too late.
DC will have to just do really well with the subjects currently studying. Aim for really good grades then onto the next step!

It’s hard on them. DS hates one of his subjects (economics) and wishes he’d done politics.

Is what you are asking here:

Did teachers notice pupils struggling more - thus proving that minimum GCSE requirements to do certain A levels are correct; or have they actually managed fine - thus proving that minimum GCSE requirements are overly tough (and so your DS would have managed fine with his preferred subject).

DD dropped one after a year and took a whole brand new one in September which she got a B in, in just a year.

However the subject she dropped was a pure science, the one she replaced it with was an applied science with tonnes of course work. She was very fortunate that it worked with her timetable, she had to drop a 4th A level to be able to get all the lessons in. She spent part of those lessons with Y12 and part with Y13 doing double.

It meant she was accepted on her chosen course at first choice Uni which was the main reason for the change, she was also dedicated enough to do double the course work. She absolutely couldn’t have done it with a subject that she had struggled at in GCSE or another pure science. It was a needs must situation.

Schools/sixth forms all set different minimum GCSE requirements.

There is also "struggling" (won't get at least an A) and "struggling" (will likely get a U as doesn't have the required skills/background knowledge to succeed).

I'm an A level science teacher . If it's a science subject really don't do it. I imagine an economics or computer science teacher will say the same (guessing it's one of those due to maths requirement). He was likely already weaker in maths as didn't get required grade at first and will have missed a huge volume of content. It's not just making that up alongside, they will still be continuing at pace and building on the first term's knowledge. The workload just to keep up without missing any lessons is more than a enough, only the extremely academic and also committed to nothing but school for the next year and a bit would cope with this change. I doubt the school will allow it as it's not good for your son (and not good for their results.)

@TeenDivided

I think the minimum grade is correct to move onto A-level but due to the assessment there are many students with grades that are one or two grades higher than what they would have been if they sat exams rather than be assessed by teachers.

its obviously not a good thing and that is why the minimum requirements are there to filter for A levels.
i suppose they at least had the opportunity to try and if it didn’t work out they could swap?

Many student including my DC who was in the worse effected year suffered with a lot of distributive teaching but still sat exams. Maybe a bit more leniency should have happened regarding Sixth Form depending on child and how well they did in other subjects but some schools are more strict than others.

My DC achieved a 6 (Previous grade was 5 just 2 marks of a 6 so just missed out) which is a high B and was not easy to achieve considering DC was also studying A levels, it shows DC can work hard.

Also what is the point of a re take if they can’t be used in this situation - just frustrating I guess.