A Level timetable clash - help please!

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My DD picked up her exam results yesterday and has the grades to do the subjects she wanted, but sixth form have said there’s a timetable clash so she can’t do all 4 of her choices. She had asked to do Chemistry, Physics, Maths and Further Maths, but Chemistry and Further Maths clash so it’s either or. She loves Chemistry so that’s not optional, but we’re worried it may go against her if she’s only doing 3 A Levels when a lot of her peers are choosing 4 and also if she applies for Engineering degrees or sciences, whether uni’s will look unfavourably on her not doing FM (despite the school blocking this, not her).

We’ve called the local college to see if she could do FM at night school but they won’t allow her to do one A Level there - it’s all or nothing.

Can anyone with any experience in Engineering/Science degrees give any advice on what you would recommend? She is pretty academic and will be looking to study at a good uni, so we’d hate it to against her for only doing 3 subjects. Science and Maths are what she loves but would you recommend picking a random 4th subject? She has the grades to choose anything she studied at GCSE, but we’d need to be quick before all places are filled (if not already).

Any help would be hugely appreciated!

I had a similar issue 30 years ago. I ended up going to a second 6th form for Maths.

I’m a maths teacher.

my advice is not based on the a levels I did many years ago.

it is based on students in the last decade or so.

it is very possible to self study FM. You don’t have to do exam entries until about Xmas year 13 and AS further maths is also an option. So a decision can be made about entries quite late.

there are people that have published schedules for studying FM topics.

i’d strongly suggest getting a subscription to integral which is the asmp platform and has lots of questions and answers plus videos.

you may also find these useful:

Tom Bennison produces some further content including revision and warm up papers
https://blog.drbennisonmaths.com/?s=Further+maths+

Most of core 1 further does not rely on a level maths except for the volumes of revolution stuff so she’d be good to get started on complex numbers, the matrix stuff and vectors.

Ooooh @Octavia64 I used to teach with Dr Bennison! He is a wonderful teacher and a top bloke all round. Also an amazing mathematician who (not that commonly in my experience for very good mathsy teachers) was as good with weaker groups as the top set.

It's a very sensible combination of A-levels - it used to be extremely popular (most people I knew studying maths did it), but nowadays it's becoming more common to add one non-science into the mix. In terms of keeping options open for university, it covers you for most science/engineering/maths. In fact, if you look at the first year options in Cambridge's natural sciences degree, further maths and chemistry covers you for all of them. For things like engineering, even if a university doesn't require further maths, at a top-end uni it may be that almost everyone has done it, and so it's a tougher start for those who haven't.

Have you talked to the maths department (as opposed to the sixth form leadership, who if not mathematicians/scientists will just think four is unnecessary)? The maths department may be furious about this timetabling, and it's possible that they will support her even if she isn't attending further maths lessons. It's even possible that they might look at putting some further maths lessons into "twilight time" or any spare blocks on the timetable, in order that she can attend. (DD's very small sixth form juggled the further maths timetable in September to get round some clashes - they had an unusual further maths group; between the four of them they were doing all three sciences, music, computer science and French.)

Failing that, studying further maths outside school seems the best option - chemistry has the practical element so that's not easy to do externally.

The AMSP offer support for students who can't do further maths in school - mainly aimed at those whose school can't offer it at all, but worth exploring.
https://amsp.org.uk/students/studying-a-level-further-mathematics/
https://amsp.org.uk/teachers/a-level-further-mathematics/student-tuition/

Your daughter sounds like she is very able and motivated to self study for Further Maths, it is really unfortunate that the school cannot accommodate this. I would badger them a bit and make sure they are aware that she is self studying and ask them if she can sit the exam there and also sit the year 12 exam, in which case they could then give her a UCAS prediction. We have students doing this at our school.

Would also recommend looking at the Smallpeice Trust who run residential engineering courses at universities so they are a great introduction to engineering/the university experience and great to talk about in your personal statement/interviews etc