balancing 4 a levels
helloo. yesterday i enrolled into my sixth form with 4 subjects: art, spanish, maths and further maths. i have been thinking about it for a longgg time and decided to go with it despite doubts from people around me. i js wanted to ask people how they balanced doing 4 a levels and any advice. i also plan on getting a weekend job, but i feel that i can handle all school work during the week after school because i feel that i am disciplined enough through gcse studying (i got a 999999998), and while i acknowledge gcse and a levels have different workloads, i can put in the same effort and more as i did for gcses. but please share any advice or experiences, thank youu 🤗
Reply 1
Original post
by sunflowergluehelloo. yesterday i enrolled into my sixth form with 4 subjects: art, spanish, maths and further maths. i have been thinking about it for a longgg time and decided to go with it despite doubts from people around me. i js wanted to ask people how they balanced doing 4 a levels and any advice. i also plan on getting a weekend job, but i feel that i can handle all school work during the week after school because i feel that i am disciplined enough through gcse studying (i got a 999999998), and while i acknowledge gcse and a levels have different workloads, i can put in the same effort and more as i did for gcses. but please share any advice or experiences, thank youu 🤗
Main advice is if it becomes too much, you can drop 1 at any time.
Reply 2
Original post
by sunflowergluehelloo. yesterday i enrolled into my sixth form with 4 subjects: art, spanish, maths and further maths. i have been thinking about it for a longgg time and decided to go with it despite doubts from people around me. i js wanted to ask people how they balanced doing 4 a levels and any advice. i also plan on getting a weekend job, but i feel that i can handle all school work during the week after school because i feel that i am disciplined enough through gcse studying (i got a 999999998), and while i acknowledge gcse and a levels have different workloads, i can put in the same effort and more as i did for gcses. but please share any advice or experiences, thank youu 🤗
4 A levels including Math/FMaths is common as the two maths overlap a bit. Watch workload for Art though ...
What is your thoughts about a degree choice?
Reply 3
10
Original post
by Muttley794 A levels including Math/FMaths is common as the two maths overlap a bit. Watch workload for Art though ...
What is your thoughts about a degree choice?
What is your thoughts about a degree choice?
architecture, and by the way, i'm the person you were once bashing over taking gcse further maths, but as we can see everything turned out amazing with my grades, it was not 'useless', and i'm quite prepared for a level maths! hope you respect other people's choices more now x
Reply 4
Original post
by sunflowergluearchitecture, and by the way, i'm the person you were once bashing over taking gcse further maths, but as we can see everything turned out amazing with my grades, it was not 'useless', and i'm quite prepared for a level maths! hope you respect other people's choices more now x
No I still think it's a wasts of time - I teach Maths and people do brilliantly at A level without it. You might have got all 9s without it!
Reply 5
10
Original post
by Muttley79No I still think it's a wasts of time - I teach Maths and people do brilliantly at A level without it. You might have got all 9s without it!
well, seeing that my 8 was in business studies, for which half of the curriculum was not taught by a subject specialist, i can assure that taking further maths did not, in fact affect my grades and to be frank, it's none of your concern what did or didn't affect my grades. i'm sure i'll also do brilliantly at a level, and i do not feel that my time has been wasted, did anyone get hurt? no. i'm still so confused as to why further maths gcse hurts you so much, you aren't the one taking it by the way!
Reply 6
Original post
by sunflowergluewell, seeing that my 8 was in business studies, for which half of the curriculum was not taught by a subject specialist, i can assure that taking further maths did not, in fact affect my grades and to be frank, it's none of your concern what did or didn't affect my grades. i'm sure i'll also do brilliantly at a level, and i do not feel that my time has been wasted, did anyone get hurt? no. i'm still so confused as to why further maths gcse hurts you so much, you aren't the one taking it by the way!
You could have used the spec to teach yourself and presumably you and your parents complained to the school?
So did the resources I suggested for FMaths or for preparing for A level over the summer help you?
In my extensive experience of teaching Maths there are far better ways of preparing for A level than level 2 FM [it's not a GCSE] - UKMT challneges, looking 'over the wall' to where GCSE topics go, NRICH problems, etc. etc.
Reply 7
10
surprise surprise what do you thinkkk i did to get the grade 8? use the spec to teach myself! i'm not going to explain myself and my grades to a grown adult especially when they are already top in the country? and you are not the only person with 'extensive experience of teaching maths', if my own teacher recommended the qualification to me, i took the oppourtunity because that's what I wanted to do, and i couldn't care less if a 'muttley79' on the internet had smth to say about it 😂 i'm flattered by the concern, but i feel well prepared, thanks.
Original post
by sunflowergluehelloo. yesterday i enrolled into my sixth form with 4 subjects: art, spanish, maths and further maths. i have been thinking about it for a longgg time and decided to go with it despite doubts from people around me. i js wanted to ask people how they balanced doing 4 a levels and any advice. i also plan on getting a weekend job, but i feel that i can handle all school work during the week after school because i feel that i am disciplined enough through gcse studying (i got a 999999998), and while i acknowledge gcse and a levels have different workloads, i can put in the same effort and more as i did for gcses. but please share any advice or experiences, thank youu 🤗
Further maths isn't a required subject for any architecture course so consider just sticking with art, Spanish and maths to get the best grades you can. You will need to spend a lot of time preparing a portfolio. Also take a look at the super curricular suggestions on Cambridge's website for architecture which are useful for all unis:
https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/apply/before/improve-application
Reply 9
12
firstly, congrats on your gcses, you did so great!!! i just finished year 12 taking maths, fm, physics and chem, so i can advise a bit on maths/fm and taking 4 subjects in general.
i agree completely that three good grades are better than stretching yourself too thin, but if you would like to take further maths, i think it would be a good idea to start out with it and see how you cope - you always can drop it. doing further maths definitely cut down on the amount of work i had to do for normal maths by quite a lot, so that could be a consideration for you. maybe you could think about doing AS further maths and dropping it if it's too much? i'm not sure how beneficial this would be for architecture, but if you really wanted to take fm then this gives you a qualification at the end of the year. i found it quite tricky at first to balance 4 subjects and volunteering/supercurriculars, but it's absolutely possible if you manage your time well. i tried to stick to always having all my notes/anki for the week done on/by the weekend, so that work didn't pile up and i could just focus on doing past papers when exams came around. i certainly didn't use every single free i had, but it's good practice to try to utilise that time wisely, to cut down on the amount of work you have to do at home
for maths and further maths, it's always good to complete some questions from the mixed exercise at the end of each chapter: there'll be some cases in which you understand it easily and can just choose a few of the harder questions, and probably other times where you might want to go on PMT to do some more practice questions. as long as you try to make sure you can do questions for each chapter as you go along, you should be fine - don't let it build up! there were some chapters for further maths which i really did find quite difficult, but if you have helpful teachers - or even your classmates - don't be scared to ask if you don't understand something. a good thing about further maths is that (for edexcel), the structure of the papers tends to be fairly consistent. so, while there will always be one or two questions that throw a lot of people off, if you learn the fundamental skills, most of the exam papers should be accessible
i hope this helped, and best of luck for year 12
i agree completely that three good grades are better than stretching yourself too thin, but if you would like to take further maths, i think it would be a good idea to start out with it and see how you cope - you always can drop it. doing further maths definitely cut down on the amount of work i had to do for normal maths by quite a lot, so that could be a consideration for you. maybe you could think about doing AS further maths and dropping it if it's too much? i'm not sure how beneficial this would be for architecture, but if you really wanted to take fm then this gives you a qualification at the end of the year. i found it quite tricky at first to balance 4 subjects and volunteering/supercurriculars, but it's absolutely possible if you manage your time well. i tried to stick to always having all my notes/anki for the week done on/by the weekend, so that work didn't pile up and i could just focus on doing past papers when exams came around. i certainly didn't use every single free i had, but it's good practice to try to utilise that time wisely, to cut down on the amount of work you have to do at home
for maths and further maths, it's always good to complete some questions from the mixed exercise at the end of each chapter: there'll be some cases in which you understand it easily and can just choose a few of the harder questions, and probably other times where you might want to go on PMT to do some more practice questions. as long as you try to make sure you can do questions for each chapter as you go along, you should be fine - don't let it build up! there were some chapters for further maths which i really did find quite difficult, but if you have helpful teachers - or even your classmates - don't be scared to ask if you don't understand something. a good thing about further maths is that (for edexcel), the structure of the papers tends to be fairly consistent. so, while there will always be one or two questions that throw a lot of people off, if you learn the fundamental skills, most of the exam papers should be accessible
i hope this helped, and best of luck for year 12
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