Now the entire Year 11 stretches ahead of them like a 400-metre hurdles race with regular coursework deadlines extending to the horizon.

Fifteen-year-olds now need wall-planners, electronic personal organisers and, if possible, full-time personal assistants (otherwise known as parents) to navigate the final GCSE year.

As if that were not burden enough, these poor Year 11s are summoned to the school hall and told they must decide a few simple questions, such as who am I, what are my skills and what do I plan to do with the rest of my life?

I refer, of course, to A-level choices or post-16 options. Watching my daughter and her friends grapple with this made me realise just how much we now expect from youngsters just when they need to be left alone to get on with their work.

It doesn’t help that all this pressure comes at the same time as sprouting hormones and the need to earn enough Saturday-job money to keep them in the latest mobile phone accessories.

Grumblers of my generation might argue it was the same for us. But we had a simple choice: start work at 16 or stay on for A-levels. You were either in the academic stream or you weren’t.

Dividing everyone into sheep and goats was not a particularly good thing. But now that we are asking young people to make much more complex choices, perhaps it is time to re-think whether we are asking them too early.

The range of options today is dazzling. The Choices booklet sent to my daughter by the Government’s Connexions agency lists 60 A-level subjects offered by local schools.

If she chose to attend a local college instead, there are 72 A-levels and a bewildering 200-plus vocational courses on offer.

Which 15-year-old head would not be turned by the prospect of archaeology, communication studies, critical thinking, music technology, world development, theatre studies, media studies, sports studies, business studies, computing, or product design?

Now I’m not one of those fusty old codgers who deride every subject with “studies” after its name. They can enthuse youngsters jaded by the standard school curriculum.

But these subjects should carry a health warning: choosing one or more of these courses could seriously narrow your university choices.

Purely academic A-levels keep your options open. For example, what are your university and career choices if you choose business studies, computing and product design and then, later on, realise that business is not for you?

Even if you do decide to take a business studies degree, wouldn’t you be better off taking economics, English and French, giving yourself a broader background for future employment?

A teacher friend says many 15-year-olds assume they need A-level psychology or law to do these subjects at university. The other problem is market forces: schools which stick to academic courses lose out to students lured by the new courses offered at colleges.

Schools and colleges are now subject to market forces which encourage them to lead students to sometimes inappropriate courses, rather than telling them honestly what is best for them.

An experienced graduate recruiter told me that when assessing applicants, he not only looks for broad skills at A-level but at degree level too. He recruits into the business world but prefers graduates with degrees in history, English, philosophy or languages. Business training, he says, can come later.

By offering so much choice at such a young age, are we really helping our 15-year-olds to make the right decisions?

I know schools have to plan ahead and it takes time to find the extra maths or language teachers needed. Budget constraints also play a part. If money were not so tight, schools could delay A-level choices without having to worry so much about exactly matching their staffing to students.

But is it fair to expect final choices to be made months before students have even taken their GCSEs, let alone received their results?

As Kevin-the-teenager would say: “It’s just not fair.”

Mike Baker is education correspondent at the BBC