6th form options for dd - boarding with scholarship/bursary or day or other?

[TRexHamster]

Dd is currently in Y9 and already discussing A' Level options, largely because we are considering taking her out of private post VAT. We've agreed to see out GCSE's but would be short of funds for her to stay (boarder) for the last 2 years as most of the fees are coming from inheritance - we had planned for a max of 7% rise per year so now the inheritance won't cover boarding at 6th form.

She is currently taking 10 GCSE's, looking at 7-9 for all and interested (currently) in Psychology, Politics and Comp Sci or English. I am trying to decide whether we should ask for a bursary or try for a scholarship where she is or somewhere more local to home (she would prefer all girls but might be OK with co-ed if not chaotic) so we can negate boarding fees. Her current school is on a par academically with a local public school that is co-ed which would be do-able without the boarding fees.

I worry that if she goes for a bursary and scholarship where she is and fails it will hurt more than if we just move her. For context she is near top of set 2 of 6 but the girls in set 1 are getting 97-100% on end of term tests where she is getting 90-97% - and there are about 20 girls in set 1, so I would not be surprised if she is overlooked for an award of £.

I am worrying about moving her when she has a great circle of friends and knows her teachers. I moved for 6th form and wouldn't have chosen some subjects if I had known the teachers I would be having in the new school. I also felt everyone else already had friends and the social side took a lot of energy to build relationships from scratch. I think this would be much harder going to a state school from a private as we have a lot of reverse snobbery in this area (grammar area) where people see private schools as for Tim Nice But Dim types, which puts me off. The only grammar that does Comp Sci A' Level is the boys grammar school (some girls in 6th form), so going from all girls to a largely boys seems daunting.

Am I overthinking this? I feel like I have to plan it sooner rather than later so it isn't just rushed. Have I overlooked any other options? We are South East.

Computer science at uni requires maths (and further maths is preferable at many programs). I never call a subject wasted unless the student has no interest in it, but if she has three other subjects she wants to pursue and doesn't want to do maths then I would encourage her to consider whether CS makes sense as an A level, particularly if the schools she likes best otherwise don't offer it. Programming and associated topics are useful add-ons in other careers but I would look at co-curricular options for them in that situation.

Yes, she likes maths but probably not as an A' Level. The main reason to do comp sci would be for the scholarship to stay where she is, but they may well want her to take maths alongside it, which would put her off. Again though I wonder if it would depend if anyone else was going to take the spot who would take maths, although they'd probably just save the scholarship £. She scores higher than a few in set 1 for comp sci but I don't think it is her passion right now. Again, all could change!

I think taking comp science without maths would be sort of pointless tbh. I wouldn't do an option just for a scholarship. Have a look at a level comp science past papers, it's very niche.

The scholarship just means she can stay where she is to be honest, which would be her first choice. Her CS teacher keeps telling her she has a natural ability and is already talking about her taking A Level as they've done some things that are covered in the course and she is managing them. As I say though, whether her heart is in it or if she just finds it easy I don't know - very hard to plan for! She did ask about if it would go well with Politics because of the Cambridge Analytica aspect to Brexit (!) but I don't think that is a generally acknowledged combo 😅

Actually comp science+ another science or maybe economics plus politics would be a great combo. Being good at humanities and stem is impressive. She will need to look at uni course she wants and work backwards from that.