This can be especially important at this phase in your daughter's education. It is likely that choices made now will affect subsequent ones when it comes to studying at university.

At this stage you and your daughter should first look at all of the available options to her within her school. It should be fairly straightforward; if in doubt, contact the curriculum co-ordinator, who will have all the relevant information and be able to advise you directly should you have any questions.

Each option will offer opportunities while also presenting compromises. It would be a good idea to focus on the benefits of each selection rather than dwelling on any perceived drawbacks. By doing this you may be able to work through a much smoother pathway for your daughter than she expected.

You might discover that your daughter's choices are being based on misguided evidence and this is what is causing her anxiety. Students are often tempted to choose classes and subjects based on their friends' choices or because a particular teacher might be allocated to a given group.

You need to make it very clear to your daughter that choices based on this sort of information will almost always be detrimental to her education.

On the other hand, going through this very process might show you both that the concern your daughter has is well placed and the options available to her do seem wrong for her.

This gives you other options, but do remember that the compromises these might create could actually be more unpleasant for your daughter to bear than those that you've identified if she stays at her current school.

Firstly, she could change schools within Hong Kong. There are many good schools and it is likely she will know some students from a range of them as a result of the time you have lived here. Be aware though that there are limited places and entry into many international schools can be difficult, especially at this age group.

An example here is if your daughter wanted to continue with UK-based A-levels. If this is the case there is only one school, the German Swiss International, where she can do this.

A more difficult choice might be to send her to a boarding school overseas. It's important that if this is viable (this can be expensive and emotionally difficult) that she is fully aware of the implications of being away from home and the environment in which she is comfortable.

I have known this to happen with students of this age but the outcomes have been mixed. For some it has been an excellent experience as they grow to adulthood, developing independence and maturity. For others it has been disastrous and resulted in students returning to Hong Kong, missing a large part of the academic year.

A final option, and one I suspect your daughter wants, is to go back to the school and ask them if it is possible to change the option framework to accommodate her wishes. If you really think that your daughter's reasons are valid, then it would be worth sharing these ideas with her school, although it is likely that they will already be aware of them.

If you do feel you want to take this sort of direct action, make it clear to your daughter that you cannot guarantee any change and she should not put all her hopes in your intervention.

She and you should also be aware that schools do try to ensure that students are able to make broad and balanced option choices within a quite flexible framework of subjects.

However, it must be a framework because schools have certain parameters and it's absolutely vital that your daughter knows this.

Ultimately there have to be guidelines which are just not flexible. Seeing this will help her to see that any system of choices is equitable to everyone and that she is not being singled out or treated unfairly. For example, it's not viable to have very small class sizes due to prohibitively high costs. In the same way, if too many students opt for a subject than there are teachers available in school, there will be a cut-off and some students will have to make other choices.

Finally, the whole process may be a perfect opportunity for your daughter to learn a very adult lesson: accepting compromise is often the key to success.