I need help with my final A Level option

Hello, my name is Adrienne. Although I am in year 10, I have been thinking about what to choose for my A Levels since I have chosen my GCSE options.

For my GCSEs I had chosen to study GCSE Art & Design, GCSE French and GCSE Spanish; because I live in Wales it is now compulsory to study Welsh Baccalaureate and we are doing the new maths qualification - GCSE Numeracy.

For my A Levels I plan on studying Spanish, Biology, Chemistry and French,I also have an interest in Art - but it is a big commitment.

Ever since I started doing French in Year 7 I always knew I was going to take it for GCSE and eventually A Level; but I am not enjoying it as much as I used to. Which is a shame really - it is mostly because in our lessons we don't get to interact with each other unlike in my Spanish lessons. We mostly work from textbooks, the learning is very practical. It is not the language itself it is just the way that it is taught, I have a more enthusiastic approach to Spanish.

Whereas in my Spanish lessons there is more to see (our teacher uses power points etc), she asks us "How would we say this?" and actually involves into our lessons; we are a class of about 30 people. But in my French the learning attitude is that the teacher gives us something (for example a reading task) and we do it; there is no involvement or discussion. This may be why I am doing better in my Spanish than I am in my French; although Spanish is an easier language. I had an A* (20/20) on my last controlled assessment in Spanish (even though I didn't do Spanish before GCSE I learnt it at home), on my French C/A I had an A, (18/20). I had to work very hard in order to achieve that.

I wish I had my old French teacher from Year 9 to teach me at GCSE.


For Spanish I am working at an A grade based upon my normal classroom assessments (for reading, writing, listening.)

For my French I am unaware of what my grade is, we haven't done anything other than preparing for our controlled assessments for a while.

For Science I am working at an A grade based upon end of topic tests and for my mock exam I had an A (I am not showing off, I am simply giving you an idea of what my situation is.)

For Art I am also working at an A grade, I have always been quite talented at it because I left KS3 with a Level 7B. I like Art but I don't know whether I would enjoy doing it for long periods of time in my own time because we mostly have to draw based upon another artist's style; I would prefer it if we could be given more freedom of self expression. But then again I like drawing, I always have.

For Chemistry I have always enjoyed it, I find the content interesting but I don't know how well I will cope at A Level because although I have a good grasp of Maths it is not my strongest area of study. (For Maths my target grade is an A but I know I am going to have to work for it, I am also not very confident towards Maths.) I am mentioning Maths because Science and Maths are correlated.

My GCSE exam boards

French, Spanish and Art & Design - WJEC.
Biology and Chemistry - Edexcel.


I am doing my Core Science GCSE exams this year in a months time as well ahh!