Choosing the right course It’s important that you get off to a good start in the Sixth Form by spending time in Year 11 looking at what is involved in taking your chosen course and ensuring that your abilities and interests are suitably matched. Essentially there are 3 guidelines to making subject choices at this level.
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Danum Academy | Sixth Form
CAREER DEMANDS. You need to check if a career/higher education course you have in mind demands a particular Advanced Level subject e.g. Chemistry is a compulsory subject for a medical-related degree. Sometimes a request for candidates to have a subject is advisory e.g. some university Economics departments state that it would be beneficial to have Maths or Statistics to AS Level. You can check on such recommendations by contacting us, your school’s careers advice team, or a university department directly. If you intend to study for a specialised course in Higher Education, it may be necessary to choose subjects which form a natural grouping, e.g. Mathematics and Physics for Engineering. If, however, you feel that your strengths are in what appear to be unrelated subjects, then increasingly institutions of Higher Education are happy to accept inter-disciplinary combinations. POTENTIAL SUCCESS IN A SUBJECT. As the step up between GCSE and Advanced Level courses is considerable, it is wise to choose a subject in which you have performed strongly in GCSE. This may not be possible in the case of ‘new’ subjects e.g. Sociology or Politics but you should look at the skills and qualities the department asks for and see how you measure up to them. ENJOYMENT OF THE SUBJECT. In the Sixth Form you will focus on only a small number of subjects and spend much more time on them than was the case at GCSE Level. If you opt for a specialist course e.g. BTEC National Sports Science, you will focus predominantly on this single subject area. It is therefore very important that you are enthusiastic about your chosen subjects. You should also make sure that you know what the study of a particular subject in the Sixth Form involves. In some cases the syllabus content can be very different from what you studied at GCSE Level.