Bright child, good school, Year 11, got to choose A Levels. Tell me - 3 or 4?

But before 1989 when the AS was brought in, the school leaving age was 16 and a lot less kids took A Levels and a lot less went to University.

and now there are a huge number more university places so more offers to be had.

^As Titchy says, private schools are very good at bigging their kids up
and many state schools are much more cautious^

This may or may not be true, I am not sure whether the supposition is actually borne out by fact. From mumsnet it would seem that a lot of state schools seem to predict their students all A* at GCSE so also seem quite optimistic about grades.
I think if private schools 'bigup' they would be doing it in the AS system by their references anyway and predicted A2 grades so if it is happening consistently the universities would be aware. As I said for overpredicted grades, well the students may get offers but they won't get places if they don't achieve those grades or pass the pretests for the top courses.

Glitches in the implementation of a system for syllabus and specs I can see as a problem (my DCs will have to put up with it over the next two years) but why a devotion by some posters here for a system of continual exams for our DCs which take away time from actually teaching subject matter and exploration.

I'm not an apologist for the government Kitla but I do quite like the general thinking behind the changes with the major (very major) caveat that the changes across GCSEs and A Levels are going to cause real problems for the less able, who matter every bit as much as the more able. They need proper but different provision.

On the 'one huge cock up' front I reckon there are plenty of people in education who welcome the end of the interruption to teaching each January and June and quite like the challenge of the new specs. I think you're just generalizing because you aren't in that camp. From a parental perspective I think it's far more productive not to moan incessantly about how this cohort are as flies to wanton boys and to just get on positively with what's on offer. Otherwise all the negativity and woe is you is going to filter through to the kids. I'm quite happy with what's there for my two guinea pigs anyway actually, but I'd be very, very worried if they were less able. That's where the real deficiency in all this lies.

I really can't see how Molio cannot say the whole thing is a mess. It's one huge cock up and anyone involved in education knows that!

One of the problems is that the govt rushed through these changes without time for trial runs... This has meant that we have no idea what an A (or any grade for that matter!) is. The exam board won't know what an A is... They haven't released grade descriptors, they can't they won't know what makes an A until the first set of students go through. So we're all teaching blind. When I give my students an A or C, I am making it up. I have no idea whether that really is an A or so on. For those teachers whose teaching is similar to the old specs, it's okay - but when there are complete changes, it really does screw things up. I was at a philosophy teachers conference the other day, and the number of teachers who said their students had failed because those changes had been rushed through, and they had misinterpreted the mark schemes (again lack of guidance, although these changes were different). The effects really can be catastrophic for students.

And don't even talk about consultation that was a bloody joke. I was at the DFE for the govt consultation for RS. We told the govt you can't exclude humanism etc from the new specs... Would they listen!?! No... Now the courts have decided that we were right, and these changes are in fact unlawful. So who knows what is going to happen!

For my other subject (RS), the spec has not yet been approved, there are no resources, we have no idea what we will be teaching in Sept, and yet before then I'll have to teach myself a whole new religion so I can start teaching it to the students. If the specs get approved in Jan, they're hoping the books will be published by May or June. That will give me the whole of two months to teach myself a new religion, and then to write all my resources, lesson plans and everything the students need to get an A.... Except I can't prepare them for an A, because I won't know what that is, because the board won't tell me!

I'm just very thankful my daughter is not doing her exams at the moment!

But to get back to the OP - I took a bunch of students on a higher ed conference the other day and they had admissions people from Kings and Oxford there. Both said 3 A levels + EPQ would be fine and all they need. There wouldn't be an advantage to doing 4, with the exception of maths / further maths.

But before 1989 when the AS was brought in, the school leaving age was 16 and a lot less kids took A Levels and a lot less went to University.

As Titchy says, private schools are very good at bigging their kids up
and many state schools are much more cautious

so top Unis will have to put shed loads of work into contextualised offers
or the Widening Participation efforts of the last 25 years will just end up in the bin.

Historically pre AS is a long time ago and I think most teachers don't want to hold DCs back who are clearly doing well. Good AS grades are not necessarily encouraging students to apply who are put off by their background. Schools which hold pupils back manage that with the AS level system by poor advice and teaching.
In fact I think the AS system favours those pupils from schools with the best exam taught technique whilst pretests may be more able to test ability

University admissions will likely give a margin of predicted grades from schools that are poor enough to under predict despite the evidence of internal Y12 exams. For overpredicted grades, well the students may get offers but they won't get places if they don't achieve those grades or pass the pretests for the top courses.

disquisitiones you're referring to a specific single meeting with Mr Gove. The opposition from Cambridge hasn't been resticted to that one single meeting. Cambrdge has voiced very strong opposition to the loss of AS, and very publicly, not just behind closed doors. You'll know very well that Cambridge sent a letter round to HTs lobbying them to continue with AS before the election. But since the election went the wrong way, it's become pretty clear that what Cambridge wanted to happen isn't going to, as you yourself said in a post upthread.

A big problem is that state schools and colleges tend to under predict, and private over predict, so without AS grades to support the prediction, many state school kids are likely to think they're not quite good enough to aim for high ranking institutions. MN kids aside of course

incase
My concern is that low achieving schools have historically underestimated their bright kids and held them back

just remember some of shegots anecdotes about the shite careers advice she hears as part of her WP work

If we go back to predicted grades and those same staff start to underestimate their kids again, the Top200 Unis will struggle to keep getting the kids from WC backgrounds in the door.

Also kids who change school for A levels will have teachers who do not know them very well when making the predictions ....

Talkin I still don't get why you think predicted grades with final A2 grades to clinch the offers are worse than AS levels for contextual. All the same contextual flags will be there.
IMO what will be a problem for the present year 12s and year 11s is that for the first 2 years of new exams is that there will be unfamiliarity with the exam question style and therefore more thinking on their feet required by the students. That will work against the schools that are very exam technique orientated and really drill their students but the effect will only be temporary.

And it's well known that there was particular opposition about the structure of the programme from Cambridge.

The main criticisms in the meeting with Gove were subject specific and not about the overall structure of the programme (loss of AS).

Hocus
TBH so few schools use the Pre U - and pretty much all of them are highly selective / private
that the issue of unknown quantity students is not an issue.
Not many Pre U kids will be getting contextual offers after all

For University entry last year DS did 3 Pre-Us (so no AS ) . Only 3 didn't seem to be a problem on any application, and nor did the lack of AS. However he wasn't applying to Cambridge. (Actually he started a 4th but dropped it within a very few weeks.) He was humanities so no Maths / FM consideration. I think most of his peers who were humanities only did 3. Universities might be geared up to AS and UMS but for DS & peers they could obviously cope with those without . Small sample I admit.

Also disquisitiones, can I just say that I don't ever make any claims for myself (unlike quite a few other posters on here, some of whose claims of expertise are derived vicariously from their DHs). I think I once said the source of a particular view was very solid but that's as far as I've gone. You can assume I'm well connected if you like or you can assume I'm not - I'm easy both ways :)

disquisitiones there was consultation - that was the point I was disputing when nonnomnom's wording suggested that there hasn't been consultation. Obviously there was much opposition within that consultation. And it's well known that there was particular opposition about the structure of the programme from Cambridge. But it's absolutely correct that ministers don't write the syllabuses in a vacuum and it's absolutely correct that they don't have the expertise and it's also absolutely correct that the thrust of the syllabuses are heavily influenced by policy and that the whole policy favours the most able. There's certainly a problem for the less able across the whole new curriculum but that has little or nothing to do with the existence or not of ASs.

Dd's college seem to be co-teaching AS and first year A just fine. Of course we'll have to wait and see if they really are just fine!

In terms of content, the DfE doesn't just conjure up new syllabuses on their own, ministers aren't equipped to do that. The fact that some views (those of Cambridge, for starters) were discounted in the structure of the new programme doesn't mean that there was no consultation.

For somebody who claims to be so well connected these are quite surprising comments.

The syllabi were drafted with little consultation with universities and schools. In at least one subject (mine) the committee that drafted the new curriculum was extremely unrepresentative, and the outcome reflected their biases. Strong complaints were made to the DfE by many RG universities about this subject but they have (at least so far) been ignored. (Except that the implementation of changes to this subject has been put back.) The proposed changes to this subject are so severe in terms of increasing difficulty that it is hard to believe they can be implemented: we would suddenly lose a significant fraction of those taking the subject, when the number taking it needs to increase to compete with other countries.

Finally, an anecdote: before he left the DfE Gove had a meeting with Cambridge academics which was 100% critical of the speed of the changes and the lack of consultation. He came out of the meeting and briefed the press about how Cambridge was completely behind him and in favour of "toughening up school curricula".

I don't think the changes will have big impacts in terms of university admissions - remember that fees are not increasing with costs, so universities need to increase student numbers to break even, but demographics tells us that there will be shrinking numbers of 18 year olds over the next few years. Hence universities will be extra keen to take all students who are qualified. MN has a complete obsession with the top 1% of university courses, who can afford to be picky, and ignores the remaining 99% which take all students meeting the required baseline standards. For the 99% there are plenty of places for kids from all types of schools, and plenty of leeway to allow for the odd dropped grade.

wincy the new AS are not strictly co teachable but in the subjects Ive looked at, there is significant overlap.

I'm surprised so many schools are still recommending 4 a levels for students entering y12.

If all goes to plan, ds1 will be going to a highly selective sixth form that routinely has 50+ students gaining Oxbridge offers. He is a potential stem Oxbridge applicant and has been strongly advised 3 a levels only plus epq unless he wants to take further maths as a 4th choice.

My DD is in Y12. Her college requires them to do 4 AS levels and then drop to 3 A levels in Y13. There is a lot of confusion though, as many of her fellow students have already dropped down to 3 (with the school's permission).
I was unhappy about them having to do AS levels as they will be judged against people with just straight A levels who will have benefited from more teaching time.
However, we were told explicitly that the new AS/A levels would be co-teachable. Is there any evidence that they are not?

Very like Pre-Us incaseithelp.

At DSs school they all start off with 4 and most drop one at the end of y12.

DS decided hated one subject a few weeks in to term so dropped it. School initially weren't happy but I put my foot down. Something was muttered about him not being in sufficient lessons for school to get maximum funding if he only did 3 subjects, which makes me think schools suggesting only three offer more lessons per subject.

nonnomnom it has been interesting observing schools deciding what to do in this transitional phase. Teachers have been so used to the formulaic exam-driven recent AS system but now they are able to exert their professional judgement and find their own school's path to steer through this transition stage for the students rather than have it spoonfed to them.

BTW admissions at different universities still disagree about how they view the IB and the balance of its positives and negative academic qualities. The IB has been the equivalent of a very long pilot so I think you are being optimistic if you think that a pilot stage would iron all this out for the new qualifications.
As far as I understand it the new A levels will not be modular and perhaps have more stretching material and questions but otherwise basically the same . Basically more like preUs which the universities do have some experience of dealing with.

And of course there was a reason for hurrying things up. It was called an election.

nonnomnom nothing will ever change if there's an absurdly long lead-in period. 'Unforgivably and unnecessarily rushed' is a wild exaggeration. There has been consultation. In terms of content, the DfE doesn't just conjure up new syllabuses on their own, ministers aren't equipped to do that. The fact that some views (those of Cambridge, for starters) were discounted in the structure of the new programme doesn't mean that there was no consultation.The new syllabuses are being taught to my DC and the teachers appear to know what they're doing.

I really don't see the problem in terms of admissions. Universities will deal with the lack of ASs just fine, I'm sure. DC have managed to secure places with Pre-U for a while, the IB for longer and when you throw into the mix all the qualifications of foreign students then it becomes pretty narrow to rail against the lack of AS and the mixed offer which the universities will get. They'll deal with it fine because they have to.

I can't comment on the views of your friends and acquaintances but I don't accept that I'm an 'outlier' (whatever that means - does it mean I'm not moaning?). The fact that I have older DC and a broad knowledge of the system may give me perspective but with two children at school (and both in the 'guinea pig' years), I can't quite understand how I'm not one of the 'affected'.