Year 11 Summer

Hi everyone. I'm looking for suggestions for any good programs/courses/etc. to do in the summer of year 11. I'm also trying to look at and decide on a degree course so if anyone has any helpful tips of resources for that then it'd be much appreciated. Thanks!

What sort of courses? There's a myriad of them. Some are worth the money, many are not. Some are for professional certifications, others are a waste of time.

If you want to do a specific course, I would look at courses that are NVQ Level 2 or less. If you do a Level 3 course (e.g. Personal training, AAT Level 3, etc.), you can end up paying for your A Levels/IB/etc. and lose funding for any other qualifications you want to do at Level 3 due to the ELQ policy. Some courses and qualifications don't specify a level e.g. a number of certificates in computing (but I would check just in case), which can be really helpful.

With degree choice, I would look at the sort of careers that would suit your personality. Whilst MBTi is very much lacking in credibility, it still a relatively good starting point. In particular, you would want to look at whether the sort of job is more suited to introverts or extroverts (not saying one can't do a job suited for the other, just unlikely and very difficult).

When it comes to picking the right sort of qualifications, I would use job profiles and career databases like National Careers Service or Careers Pilot to research what is required for the role. Chances are, the specific job you want to do (unless it's in the health sector) can achieved via a myriad of certifications and qualifications other than degrees e.g. professional qualifications, degree apprenticeships, college courses. You want to double check whether you would need a specific degree for what you want to do, especially if you intend to work in the health sector (which can be really picky about what degree you would need to do in order to go into specific roles).

If you don't have any idea in particular, then I would need to know the general area(s) of interest. There's no point in me recommending something in astrophysics if your sole interest is in French for example. There's usually online academic courses on platforms like Great Courses Plus and edX, which can give you quite a dive into a topic at university level.
Then there are platforms like Udemy that would provide you with an array of courses from a myriad of authors.

Thanks for your reply - it’s really helpful! Sorry for not being more clear. I’m looking for generic courses and programs mainly, stuff like NCS or the iDEA award. But if anyone knows of anything good specifically surrounding maths, physics and computer science then I’d be happy to hear it. Thanks!