Hey, so I think you should sit them this year and kinda view it as a no pressure thing. Because you can withdraw up to 14 days before results day, so if you do badly, you’ll know after the exams are done. You can also withdraw after the first exam if you have a bad feeling about it. But you also might surprise yourself so I think it’s worth a shot, and it’ll be good exam practice nonetheless. It’s completely inconsequential if you sit and withdraw so u won’t risk a bad grade on ur record. I did this in y13 and my applications the following year were fine bc I technically wasn’t even retaking i was just sitting them for the first time in the eyes of the universities, however my offers weren’t deferred and I had to reapply. Plus if you resit gives you time to get better predictions over the summer therefore better offers, so you feel more motivated for the resit.
To be honest, your parents can’t physically stop you from withdrawing bc the anything you do with your exams aren’t dependent on your parents consent. It’s hard to go against your parents but if you need to, then you should. Resits are only expensive if you enrol in a retake college or something but if you speak to ur current sixth form about it, you probs won’t have to pay for it and if you do, it’ll be a small amount in comparison to the large reward that it’ll garner. Plus there are student loans and bursaries that accommodation this. It’s not like a uni student loan but a higher education loan through the government so you get given Less but it will cover everything. You could also just self teach for the year and just sit the exams as a private candidate if you feel like that’s a better option. But definitely speak to your sixth form about whether they can have u retake the year with them