How to choose A-levels (both subjects and school vs 6form )

[LittleOwl]

Hi
My DC is 15, GCSE in 2024, his school goes up to A-levels, from what I can tell respectable results. We have been living in the UK just shy of 2 decades and I find the whole A level choices point utterly bewildering.
is there any general guidance on what subjects for which Uni courses? Or is it really that you need to check all unis separately?
(DC has no idea what he wants to do in later life, looks like he is enjoying Maths, Physics, Chemistry)
What are the reasons to join 6 form college if you are happy at a school that goes all the way through? And we would have to start the process in autumn to look around?

thank you for pointers as I am starting to get worried

My DD is just about to sit her GCSE's. She is very much focused on university for for her it's a levels not vocational.

The colleges locally don't really do a levels just btecs etc so that rules them out.

Her school is a partially selection comp and has good a level results. There is one subject they don't offer that she might have liked but it's not a deal breaker. She is generally taking the subjects she likes most - they are humanities subjects. She's pretty strong in everything but science so most things open to her to consider.

So for her it then came to school - stay at current school or choose a different one. All the other comps have lower a level results from her school so no point moving to them. She is predicted scores to get into one of the grammars for 6th form but as a high achiever in her school she feels she gets a lot of additional support that she may not get if she was lost in a sea of others. Plus the girls grammar is very very stem focused - huge numbers going into medicine - that's just not her area of interest. They had very small numbers doing a level english in comparison.

Apparently her school has said for first couple of weeks they can sit in on other a level classes to get an idea if they like the subject (if it's a new one) before they commit which I think is great. They are also open to them starting with 4 and then dropping one.

I do remembering seeing a board at one school with a list of what a levels would be useful for what careers - her only career idea is journalism at the moment so she's really just going with what she likes / loves which is English and couple of others. She's planning on an English degree.

My area only has colleges, no school 6th forms.

My analysis is from visiting places and seeing how children of friends have got on with A levels is this:

School 6th form:
Teachers you know and who know you
No settling in time to new environment
Possibly better pastoral support in a school setting
A peer group you already know more of
Possibly more structured than a college - more school like

College:
Your teachers have to get to know you from scratch, and you them
New environment might take time to settle
Chance to spread your wings, new freedoms, new friends, more independence
A better half way house towards university

If a young person is still immature, not ready for more independence, or maybe needs strong pastoral support, maybe existing school is better. Whereas if they are maturing and ready for a challenge and to step up maybe a college would be better.

NB Neither of my DC did A levels!

Also note this is assuming teaching quality isn't much different.

Maths, Physics, Chemistry are a great solid set of subjects that would support a STEM degree.

If your dc doesn't know what he wants to do in later life go for what you are best at/enjoy. The subjects you say he seems to enjoy are good choices if that's what he is going to enjoy. He might be able to narrow his options down by general interest as well. Which would be most attractive as a career path - working with people, in business/office, something scientific or research, creative etc. If his school has careers guidance they might be worh talking to.

Look at the reputation and results of the college or 6th form. Also what exam board syllabus do they do. My dd chose psychology as one of her A levels and the syllabus used at her school 6th form was very different to the college she chose. We got the course books second had to look through so she could see what was most interesting to her. Also the variety of subjects and facilities was better at the college she chose, including the enrichment programme.

You don't always need the gcse to do the A level eg my oldest chose business studies for A level but hadn't done it at GCSE. So he may find additional opportunities at a college that his school can't run. I know of someone who chose an A level offered by her school only to find they weren't running it due to lack of interest. It's not an issue for STEM subjects but anything more niche could be affected as there is a smaller pool of students. School had less than 200 students in a year where college had 1000 students per year group.

Unless he has a particular career ot degree course in mind, he should just choose the subjects he enjoys most. He shouldn't leave the school he's in if he's happy there, unless he has a particular reason to - e.g. that the college offers subjects he wants to do that his school doesn't.

Choosing A Levels really shouldn't be tol complicated - choose what you like most and/or are best at and don't worry if you don't have any further plans yet!

Maths and sciences at A-level are hard, if he wants to carry on with them, then he should be aiming for at least a 7 in maths and 6s in the sciences, but ideally higher.

If he's not on track for this, I'd suggest looking at something like btec applied science at a college - it's still a great route to uni and suitable for many degrees. He is much better off getting distinctions from a btec than D/E grades at A-level.

If he wants to do a science degree then at least 2 sciences (they will include maths) are needed. Maths will open lots of doors to degrees like engineering etc as well.

In terms of school Vs college, if he's happy in school I probably wouldn't bother. However, for sciences, they may have better facilities, and for something like physics, in a school sixth form you need to be confident there are enough physics teachers especially - what happens if one is sick etc?

In a college, there will likely be more specialist physics teachers so that the class can be protected a bit more (this does depend on the size of the college, though).

He also may just be ready for a change at 16 and it can be a good transition between school and uni, and there may be more extra curricular on offer for sixth formers.

If you're at all unsure, you can apply to both and make a decision later on.

Thank you for assurances and support.
Reads like he will benefit from staying on at the school
i will probably check opens days from the local college and one other school
he should be fine with subject choices / stem subjects (I hope), but I am worried about limiting his options to Stem only … although to be fair , that might suit him best
so - go with the flow, encourage him to do what he enjoys in subjects….
and do the homework on alternative schools / college
thank you for the guidance

Both my DC stayed into their school sixth forms. However, I think it is worthwhile to look around at least 1 other sixth form just for purposes of comparison. There's also no harm in applying to multiple places, and keeping your options open until after GCSE results.

My daughter has already done a uni visit via school and they did say that having a writing based subject alongside stem ones can benefit you alter at uni where more essays etc are required.

Moving from GCSEs to sixth form/ college is really an opportunity for the student themselves to make decisions about 'what and where', rather than patents making all the running - so yes, inform yourself (especially re dates for open evenings and deadlines for application, which can be as early as before the end of the autumn term), but encourage your DS to do his own research re what the options are. He may discover more than one school sixth form which interests him, or subjects that he hadn't previously considered / are not on offer at his current school etc. Deciding to stay with what he knows, assuming he meets the criteria, is the route that probably most take, where it is an option, but it should be a 'positive' decision.

In terms of subjects, Informed Choices from the Russell group of universities is really helpful in showing you what the implications are for different groups of A-Level subjects. https://www.informedchoices.ac.uk/subjects

On choosing between A-Levels and BTECs or equivalent. If your DC is likely to get mostly 6s or above for GCSE, enjoys at least some traditional school subjects and copes well with exams, then A-Levels are probably a better fit than BTECs as they will open slightly more doors. If your DC is significantly better at exams than coursework, then A-Levels are by far the better choice. If they're likely to get mostly 4s and 5s or have a very marked preference for coursework, then BTECs are a good option. Some subjects have both BTEC and A-Level options (eg PE, Business, Tech/Engineering, Art) some have only A-Level (English, Maths, History) some have only BTEC (agriculture, health) so that will also drive choice.

The choice between school sixth form, college or moving schools depends very much on exactly what is available in your local area. Assuming you don't have a boarding school budget, there will only be so many options within a commutable distance so it's worth having at least a cursory glance at them all online to create a longlist/shortlist to explore next year. If you have prestige options near you (eg grammar schools or independent schools) they may have higher entrance requirements so check carefully. If what your DC wants to study is available at their school, the results are ok and he wants to stay there, I think it's ok if that's a shortlist of 1.

Thank you for the link - exactly what I was looking for
ok - have done the online research on a grammar school, another school with 6 form and will go to the open days
does order of application mean anything? (They open before the open days)
🙈🙈🙈
need to stop myself from getting too ambitious

No. They are all independent. Any acceptance will be based on actual grades though. The grammar near us has an 8 6's minimum entry requirement.

However we have found out entry is in descending score order so I am not sure if that score would be enough to actually get you in - I suspect not based on the amount of people at the external applicants open evening.

Where we are it's only recently that there has been a 6th form college focusing on A levels, not vocational, so my DDs stayed in their school. Fortunately, although the 6th form is part of the school, it is in a completely separate building with a separate leadership team. It gives all the freedoms and responsibilities of a college and it doesn't demand uniform of any kind. It's a really good best of both worlds.

Even if the school has their own 6th form, they most likely will have grade requirements.

DD needs a 6 in history for example to do history for A-level. They also have to have a certain overall grade, calculated of the best 8 GCSEs.
Some of her KS4 teacher also teach A-Levels but they also have only KS5 teachers, so it's not guaranteed that she will get the same teachers as now.

She also has the option to move to a different school's 6th form, different entry requirements though and it also then depends on admission policy.

Our local college does do A-levels but they are not well reviewed, most are more in addition to Btec.

You need to go to as many open evenings as possible next autumn. DD has originally set her heart on subjects which each had a coursework portion and one teacher said, that it would be a huge amount of work. She now settled for 2 with coursework and one without. The teacher will give presentations of the subjects but we also found out that the topics can vary between schools, there is no fixed curriculum anymore.

A friend whose child is 3 years above DD suggested looking up entry requirements at UCAS to see what colleges are asking for. If your DS likes STEM it may be worth looking up if there are required combinations. No point in doing history and english when he needs maths and physics or the other way round.

DD changed her whole idea what to do between Y9 and now, so only when we had to put her applications through she had to make a decision. You still have a whole year.

Sounds like a complete Nightmare that there is no standard curriculum for a subject.

There are still options at GCSE level, e.g. which set texts for English Lit.

Giving options, gives options. So maybe 2 local 6th forms have different time periods for History, so a student can choose 6th form based on this too.

There will be a curriculum/syllabus for each subject which is really quite standardised, based on the exam board that a school/college has chosen - the content of the exam will determine the syllabus.

Where we are in North London most local schools don't have sixth forms and kids have to travel west or north in borough or beyond it - DS1 has applied to 5 places and got offers from most of them, and I think he didn't really like one much when he went to see it. I was quite surprised because he went quite quickly from having to no idea to choosing a set of subjects to apply for - he's applied for Maths, Physics and Philosophy - he chose Religious Studies and Sociology as options at GCSE alongside Maths, Science and standard options. I'd mentioned that some of my university friends did a Maths and Philosophy degree course but I was surprised and quite impressed by how, in the end, he independently researched and chose subjects and got in applications for the deadlines.

@LittleOwl
Its possible to do maths and Physics plus another subject for engineering. Chemistry keeps open chemical engineering but no other engineering courses. If he’s good at maths, Further maths is always useful. If he wants Chemistry, he has to keep Chemistry. Complimentary subjects to put with maths and physics might be Geography. Good basis for specialising in environmental engineering. Art would keep Architecture at a top class university in the picture. MFLs are useful for everyone.

this is really helpful, thanks
Further Math, Math is probably a strong preference- always assuming the GCSE comes through as predicted (he us currently top maths set)
The only humanity he has at GCSE is History, he gave up RS and Geography. Maybe Spanish or German?
that would leave him with 4 subjects though 😣
will now look up what MFL means. 🙂

thank you I found this link helpful too

MFL means modern foreign language, eg Spanish or German..

Don't push him into a humanity or MFL if his interest & skill is in science.

Listen to what he is interested in, make sure it is sensible from an ability point of view, warn him what sort of doors it will open or close.

I'm a believer that if you do what you are good at and interested in then the right doors will stay open, especially of those choices are mainstream and not too niche.

Our school only recommends 4 subjects if you are predicted 8-9s all over and are someone who is not afraid of working a lot.

When we spoke to the teachers about work load they said that teaching would be 1/2 time they are in school, so around 15 hours and then they expect 15-20 hours self-study, either in school in dedicated study rooms where they also can do it in groups or at home. They expect the students to read up the topic before it comes up in class, so teaching is more about deepening the knowledge than gaining the knowledge.
At least this is for humanities, English and language.

MFL is also a lot more about learning the culture, history and the country itself than just vocabulary and grammar like they do for GCSE. We are Germans and DD does a community language German GCSE and we looked into getting her to do the A-level as well. While the course sounds great, it would mean reading two novels, a movie review and political and social changes over the last 40 years. This is not something she would be able to do on top of her other subjects.

@TeenDivided
thank you for reminding me of the need to allow my DS to be who is ….
this thread has given me perspective, a plan and The budding confidence to (hopefully) have a sensible discussion when the time comes based on natural preferences
every single post provided food for thought
the other point to bear in mind is mental stability - my son was not pleased at all having to consider other schools/ college- Asche us happy where he is. Leaver destination at the grammar are better - but not materially…
so will allow this to run course and apply as „contingency „