Doing what you love v doing what you’re good at

[copella]

I agree with Lobbylou. We had a similar experience with my son absolutely loving history from primary to Gcse but once he started the A level he quickly realised that although he liked the subject it wasn't what he wanted to do. Luckily his school do 4 A levels so he could complete the AS and the drop it.

If your daughter is struggling at GCSE then A levels are much harder and intense. Of course she should follow her heart and see if it is possible but try and keep her mind as open as possible to other things she may be good at and want to do.

[Blue_Marigold]

Thanks for all the replies. She’s ok maths but she doesn’t like it (She got 5 in the Year 10 mocks but it was a Year 11 paper so she hasn’t covered the syllabus)

I did find the foundation courses at uni and it’s always an option. But is she really going to be ok doing a Biology based course if she’s not that good at Biology? What if we managed to find a course that accepted her with Geography and Psychology and she started the course but found it too hard based on the fact the course content is still mostly Biology?

We are doing everything we can to help her improve her grades but she’s struggling. There is a lot of other subjects where she doesn’t struggle at all. She gets decent grades with a bit of revision and no additional help.

The trouble seems to be there are lot of words which sound similar but aren’t the same thing. Like cytoplasm and plasma. So she knows what they do but gets mixed up between the words.

[Deb70]

Hi, I did a degree in biological sciences and now do it as a job. I had to have biology and chemistry, and I do think they were correct in requiring those because the subject knowledge is pretty much used all the time in my job. If your DD finds science difficult, would she then enjoy using it every day at work? Has she had any opportunities to visit some places of work and see what it would be like day to day? If she likes biology but finds it hard, it could be that there's a mismatch between her and her teacher - sometimes there are people we just find it difficult to learn from. In that case, what about some private tuition? I went to an (expensive) private school but I remember one of the girls found biology extremely difficult, but needed a high grade to be a dietician. Fortunately for her, her parents were able to pay for additional tuition and her grades shot up. She went from getting in the 20%'s to coming out with a grade A at 'A' level.

[silverysea]

I would recommend she try very hard to get some meaningful work experience in the areas of interest. That was very telling for my dd and she switched track completely away from what her first work experience showed her, and conversely really enjoyed the next thing she tried, to the extent of doing A levels she wouldn’t have chosen in order to get on the new course (she got to like the least favourite subject and it was the fave by the end).