A Level choices

[MooseAboutTheHoose]

I’m a long term follower and have rejoined MN within the last year but this is my first post with my new account. Sorry, it might be a long read!

My DD is 15 and in year 11, due to sit GCSEs next summer. Her school want initial A Level choices from her by 20th November (with final choices being set in February). We are somewhat at loggerheads over this, because I think she could be about to (potentially) make a big mistake! And yes, ultimately, I know it’s her choice, and she would have to live with the mistake.

Some background: Currently DD is taking Art, Drama, Spanish and PRE (philosophy, religion and ethics) as her options at GCSE. She is tracking at a 6-7/8 for most subjects. However currently working at a 5 in Maths, but has just had a change of teacher and is not happy with the teaching style of new teacher, having previously been tracking at a 6/7. (But that’s a different story!) She just got a 9 in her first piece of Drama coursework and her ultimate goal is to go to drama school after sixth form/gap year.

A Level choices that she is completely set on are Theatre Studies and Photography. However, they had a sixth form taster day at the end of year 10 and most of her friends did Psychology, so naturally she went with them. She is now adamant that this will be her 3rd choice A Level. She is absolutely not paying any attention to teachers who say that it is very science based. She thinks it will give her a ‘psychological edge’ when acting. (Despite advice saying that that’s unlikely!) She needs a level 6 in maths to do it, and that isn’t impossible for her but she does hate maths with a passion and swears under her breath every time the government mention carrying on with maths post GCSE! Her drama teacher and form tutor and the deputy head all feel that English Lit would be a better choice for her (Currently on track for a high 7 or 8 at GCSE.) BUT, and here’s the sticking point, she won’t consider it because she cannot stand her English teacher and they would potentially be one of 3 teachers to teach her at A Level and she can’t see past that. This teacher has really destroyed her love of a subject that she’s actually quite good at…and she’s still doing well at despite the personality clash with them.

So what can I do? (Her other potential choice is PRE but she wasn’t keen on how academic the philosophy portion seemed to be when she spoke to sixth formers who are taking the course.)
Should I flag the English issue with the school and see if I could get reassurances that she would be placed in the group for English that has the other teacher? I have encouraged DD to discuss options further with teachers and to express her concerns.

If she did Psychology and hated it (as we all very much suspect that she would) she may not be able to switch as it would depend on timetabling. But should I just give in and let her do the course despite all of the advice and my own personal opinion?

We have looked at alternative options for sixth form/college but of course there is no guarantee that she would get on with any teachers she had if she moved, and is it a ‘better the devil you know’ kind of situation? She is at a good school, the sixth form have very small class sizes and she is generally very happy there.

I’m at a bit of a loss because it’s very out of character for her to be quite this stubborn about something! Any advice would be really helpful, because we are going round in circles! (Thank you if you have read all of that!)

@thing47 it is starting to feel that she would be settling for Psychology out of a lack of ‘options’. She isn’t ‘sciencey’ (but is bright enough to do ok) and she hates maths! She is very creative, is a brilliant writer, loves art!

So,I'm fairly sure that A level is essentially RS. They keep rebranding! There is also
a philosophy A level, not widely offered and quite deep. RS is really no harder than eg sociology, history, Lit etc. I'd say easier but don't want to offend any lurking RS teachers!

Psychology won’t have a massive amount of maths, however I would get her an A-Level Psychology revision guide or something so she can have a read of it properly (at half-term?) to help her decide if it’s for her or not.

@Piggywaspushed always has very sound advice on threads such as these. But honestly it does sound like your DD should be doing English, given both her talents and her other interests. DH is a writer and DS' best friend is a moderately successful actor (been in TV series and films everyone would have heard of, but in tiny roles) so I do have some personal experience of these areas.

Dd changed her mind quite a bit. She was going to do Biol, chem and geog. Then changed the chem to politics. Then tried to register with those subjects and couldn't due to timetabling. So changed the biol to sociology. Then a few weeks in decided to swap the sociology for economics. Seems happy with all subjects now!

What are the drama school requirements and how competitive is it? What’s her back up plan?

ambitions / desires can change rapidly from 15-19 so I’d be focusing on talking to her about keeping options open and choosing your best subjects for A level. It’s a game, and high grades mean doors open.

Choosing something you aren’t good at is a risk as the jump from gcse is BIG. being both naturally good at and interested in the subject is important.

I would tend to agree with you that eng lit keeps more doors open (and she’s good at it!) so I might speak to the school and ask for her to be timetabled with a different teacher if she chooses it, tbf to your DD he sounds like a PITA.

@Piggywaspushed I think you’re right, looking at the course details provided by school for PRE. (It is a cathedral school, so clearly going to be heavier on the ‘R’!!) DD was horrified by the sixth formers who talked to her about some pretty deep philosophy concepts at the open evening so I will definitely be recommending she actually talks to her teacher and hears it from him.
Will try and see if I can get some more Psychology info for her. Her for, tutor also recommended having a look online at past exam papers.

My DD has just started y12 & is only doing one of the a levels she thought she wanted at the start of Y11. At her school there was definitely A LOT of wiggle room post results. She started English lit & changed to Psychology.

I think your ideal would-be to encourage her to start 4 with the aim of dropping 1 by Christmas. My DD got a 6 in maths & says that the maths is fine in psychology, very statistics based.
Ultimately she needs to do what she enjoys, however letting the potential teacher influence her is mad, teachers can leave, stop teaching alevel or even just be very different in alevel classes.

Finally I fully understand that you really care but although you can give advice (if asked for) you have to accept that this is her decision to make. (I know this is easier said than done but it is really important to try to accept)

DD has acted professionally since the age of 5, commercials and voice overs mostly, but some TV and short film also. It is definitely the career she sees for herself. Her drama teacher is especially keen for her not to ditch A Level for vocational training just yet. It’s all just very tricky!

I have told her not to let the teacher (or her friends) influence her decision. It’s difficult at 15 when your friends become the centre of your world, in a way. Both DH and I have told her how very very differently teachers treat you in sixth form. It’s just difficult for kids to see that at this point I think, when the teachers are SO focused on the final push for GCSEs!

@MooseAboutTheHoose definitely a shame there is no sociology. Having taught both I would suggest Sociology is definitely easier in some respects but still very rigorous. 'A' levels are very content heavy and both Sociology and Psychology require students to remember lots of theory and research. If she is doing combined science and predicted 6's this should be more than adequate to do psychology.

DH is a retired university senior lecturer in Psychology. It is a science and is 50% research methods and statistics.

My very un-mathsy dd managed a 6 in maths and had no trouble with psychology A Level. It was her favourite A Level subject (she also did Spanish and history). She found it really interesting and considered doing it as a degree, but the degree courses really are pretty mathsy and scientific, so she has ended up doing Linguistics and Spanish.

@MadKittenWoman yes that is at university and that does depend on the university course to be fair. At A level it really isn't that heavy on the statistics....

As I understand it there’s no grade requirements for drama school, it’s different to university degree course. Someone recently said to us they don’t even care what subjects you studied!
A couple of people we know and her drama and English teachers have said that English Lit A Level would give her a good grounding in analysing text which she would have to do a bit at drama school.

Her ‘back up’ is to go more into photography and possibly look at some other areas creatively with the film/tv industry.

DD has been adamant about this teacher since they were her form tutor in year 9 and we dismissed it then and I feel a smidgen guilty that we didn’t ‘believe’ her and chalked it up to her been a moody teenager…it’s since been proven (pretty much) that she was right all along. But we have consistently told her to just knuckle down and deal with it because you can’t like everyone!

English - could you afford to have her do an online Alevel as well as or instead of the disorganised teacher. Or get her a tutor to make up for this teachers failings?

I don’t think that would convince her to do it. Teacher has put her off so much that she’s reluctant to consider it as a subject at all…probably not solely the teacher tbf, she hasn’t enjoyed her GCSE syllabus set texts that much, but can see that the A Level ones are better. She’s currently away with school so I’m just letting her mull it over until after half term.

Honestly I think English lit will be more useful for drama school than even theatre studies. I think she would be mad to choose Psychology over it. She needs to get over the teacher thing. She will have teachers she hates in drama school, managers she hates at work etc. This is a good time for her to learn that she just needs to 'manage' her teachers and get what she needs whilst keeping a professional relationship. I know that's easier said than done at 15 but still.

I’m inclined to agree with you, DH still towing the ‘it’s her mistake to make’ line. Teachers tend to be very different when you get to sixth form. Will encourage her to talk to her friends in sixth form and put the ‘feelers out’ so to speak. Genuinely feel that Psychology is not a good fit for her and my worry is that she is picking it to be with friends.

Your DH is correct but equally she is only 15 and I think a better compromise would be, choose English lit and if it's awful move to psychology or something else. Literary analysis will be far more useful than any 'behaviour' analysis psychology will teach her. I did A Level psychology albeit under the old syllabus (this one isn't that different) and it's really not a lot of analysis. It's mostly learning about theories and history of psychology. The behaviour analysis she wants to do on characters in drama is very much an innate skill as it's mostly empathy. It's why some kids are good at drama and some just aren't. It's difficult to teach that. The English analysis she will definitely need in drama school as she will be expected to analyse plays to a high level.

@Foxesandsquirrels you’ve expressed my exact feelings about it. I obviously don’t want to force her to do something if she is that dead set against it, but ultimately I do really want her to be a little less ‘teenagery’ and actually listen to what people have been saying!
Even her Drama teacher (who she is a big fan of!) has told her how important English Lit would be for her. And it’s not like I’m asking her to consider a subject that she’s rubbish at, she’s consistently getting 7s/8s in her work…even with a teacher she can’t stand!
Will persevere, but in a non pressuring/non judgey way! 🙈

I think you just need to just have a very realistic chat with her that she will have to work with people she dislikes throughout her life. She will also mature a lot this year and will likely see sense by summer. They change a lot in y11

I don’t know about A levels but studied Psychology modules at BSc& Masters level but i think is it really interesting. How people focus attention, split attention, behave in situations, how the mind works etc. I get where she is coming from with this. I got a C at GCSE maths but passed my MSc stats module with a Distinction. You never know you may have a budding Drama therapist in the making.

DS’s school start all sixth formers with 4 A levels. They can continue and take all four but most drop one after a term. It allows them to see which ones they enjoy.
Psychology is not a soft option and was by far the hardest that DS studied. I would have preferred him to do Biology, and with hindsight he admits that it would have been easier. Unfortunately he wasn’t that impressed with his Biology teacher and they started with the most complex module. DS was a high flyer in Biology ( came top most years in end of year exams), but was adamant about dropping Biology.
There is a massive amount of straight forward memorising of studies required to use in references to gain A*/A in psychology, on top of getting your head round concepts. It is very statistically based scientific subject and not the abstract/ behavioural type subject that 15/16yrs assume. DS has a scientific brain so found it straightforward. It also helped him personally with some of the stuff he was going through at the time. But that was not why he took it.

Like most discussions with mid teenagers you need to choose your time and also spend time doing the research for them. Encourage them to talk to someone who has recently studied psychology at A level.

That’s really helpful, thank you @Angrymum22
DD is a bright kid, she does ‘well’ in all subjects and works really hard. I would say that she is not really the scientific type, she has a very creative mind. Excels in art and design and is a really talented actress (but very modest about her abilities).
The desire to do Psychology has come as a huge surprise, which is why I suspect it has been driven by what her friends want to do.

I know exactly what you mean by ‘choosing your time’ to talk to them. Too excitable and they don’t listen/take things seriously and too tired you don’t get any sense from them at all…it’s a fine line! 😂