This activity is designed to give students some pointers about choosing what subjects to study – A levels, International Baccalaureate (IB), Highers, Welsh Baccalaureate, BTECs, or another course altogether.
You can also adapt this for GCSE options for younger groups.
To follow the activity, each student will need a copy of 
our worksheet (173.45 KB).
Use our teacher notes (357.16 KB) to guide the discussion, find additional resources, ways to adapt this for different year groups, and some follow-on activities for students.
Learning objectives
- To enable students to make informed choices about what to study at an advanced level.
- To ensure that students understand the benefits of keeping their subject choice broad if they do not yet know what they want to study at university.
- To advise students to find out about the requirements for certain degree courses.
Activity
- Ice-breaker activity: ask students to complete Section A on the worksheet, coming up with a list of things to think about as they decide what subjects to study after 16.
- Ask students to read this article about A levels referenced in Section B, completing the follow-on questions. Feed back on the key information as a whole class activity.
- Those who finish quickly can move on to Section C, where they can try out our A level Explorer tool to help them see what degrees they could do with the subject combinations they are considering studying at advanced level.
- Students can share the favourite degree idea they matched, as well as the most unusual one that cropped up, feeding back on what they learned from the exercise.