Hi, my DS has been reading a lot on TSR about unis offering deferred places to A-level students who don’t make the grades via teacher assessment but then manage to bump them up in the Oct/Nov exams.
I think it’s only right that the current Year 13s should have the chance to prove themselves as this is a safety net against variations in teacher competence / subjectivity.
However, surely this policy is going to be highly problematic for various reasons - in particular -
- It will clearly disadvantage the following year’s cohort if a significant proportion have to defer. What are unis proposing to do about this? What is the plan?
- There are unlikely to be the usual “gap year” opportunities for those who do defer due to likely travel restrictions and social distancing measures in the workplace. Hardly the time for companies to be taking on student placements / volunteers / extra staff I would t have thought? So essentially a wasted year for this year’s cohort which is likely to be even less appealing following the current lockdown situation.
I think this is poorly thought through and I don’t know why they couldn’t have just got the A-level exams ready for early Sept (surely they are written anyway) and made preparations to get them marked quickly so that students could still have made their places this year in Oct. Even if they had to start a few weeks late, surely it’s better than a whole year out and the repercussions on the 2021 cohort?
What do people think?