ABOUT TO FAIL A’LEVELS!- What next?

There are also lots of good a level maths crammers-he could re-do maths in 2019 at a crammer or with a tutor. Some uni students tutor at a decent rate.

Talk to the school. They will give an accurate assessment of how he is doing, what he needs to do to improve.in
My DS sounds a little like yours, no work done in yr 12, then had a bit of a blip in yr 13 with mental health issues. I think the difference was that he did pull it all back. A D in chemistry at the end of yr 12 meant he did work over the summer to gain an A at the beginning of yr 13 for his predicted grade, dire mocks, but pull it (mainly) back and got a good set of a levels but not representative of his abilities.
He's taking a gap year to get a job so he can find the first year at uni. He needs to take some responsibility and also grow up quite a bit!!

My advice would be simple:

Write off applying for university now.

Do everything possible to get decent A Levels in May 2019.

Apply in September 2019 when UCAS opens, with the grades in his hand so issues of prediction and past history are irrelevant.

Get an unconditional offer in October 2019.

Spend the year getting ready to study seriously at university.

You can afford school fees so you can afford to fund a gap year. Applying now will see his application rejected by a lot of the places he/you aspire to, and accepting an offer somewhere lower in tariff and hoping for adjustment in August next year is an uncertain game (yes, there will be lots of places available, but accommodation is a pain for most people going through clearing and adjustment).

Just stop worrying about applications, get the best A Levels he can, apply for an unconditional place next year.

And the move from the upper sixth of an independent school to the rather more demotic surroundings of somewhere offering BTECs might be rather a shock to the system, and bring with it its own problems.

If he achieved a B and C for end of Year 12 exams with hardly any revision why would you pull him out of school unless you're struggling to pay the fees? Why start a BTEC course when he's more than half way through A levels? Ask the Maths department to give him a kick up the backside.

With my son he did no work outside lessons for his maths GCSE- no revision- got an A. When he got to A level I think he had the same view- maths is just something that you do and that wasn't the case

MY DD got a U in her AS for the subject she wanted to study at uni. With hindsight we should have got a re mark!

Her school understandably said she had to drop it. She moved schools, started AS again- a different board in that subject and 2 new subjects. Got a A at the end of the 2nd year.

Just graduated with a 2: 1 in that subject and is now doing a PGCE.

How about talk to your DS? Ask what he think he will do in a year time? 5 years? 10 years?

Help him understand he needs to do effort to get where he wants to be.

I know ppl who practically failed AS levels because of distractions e.g. GF, new school, parties... But they do well at A levels

BTEC is piss easy. It’s coursework based and they basically give you the answers because they only get money for you if you pass.

They are not piss easy when I teach them and no I don't give anyone any answers.

When I completed my own BTEC we were not given answers either.

OP

In order to complete BTEC he needs to be completing work all the time. If he is lazy and doesn't complete course work he won't complete BTEC.

Personally I would not be paying for a school for a lazy child, complete waste of money IMHO.

I'd say don't do A Levels, if he gets 3 grade 'E' A levels he will not get funding for a BTEC.

Maybe he needs to get a job and think about what he does with his life.

Just a hunch but has he picked A Levels with the least written work rather than A Levels that will help him progress ie sciences?

I think it’s time to stop asking HIM what school says and ask them yourself. If the school have not initiated contact with you themselves, I would be very concerned about their commitment to your son. I have 2 daughters at independent school (oldest just started upper 6th) and their schools would have been in regular touch with us if they had been consistently under-performing in that way.
The question of whether he is under-performing is key though. With those GCSE results, Bs & Cs at A level really ought to be achievable but there is no educational establishment anywhere that can get those grades for him, if he won’t work. I suspect his school knows perfectly well that he could get Bs if he worked. You need to have a meeting with them to understand their position and your ds needs to understand that, if he won’t work, you will not be able to justify funding further education for him next year. It’s just throwing good money after bad and expecting you to keep doing it is treating you like an idiot. It’s disrespectful and it’s wasting everybody’s time. If he wants a job in a supermarket or waiting tables, he can go and get one now.
You presumably pay for a phone, a console, a Netflix subscription......(insert thing he does actually give a toss about here). It’s time to introduce some performance related pay. School will have seen this plenty of times before and should have some advice. But you are either going to have to engage a lot more and stay on his case with weekly check-ins with teachers or you might as well save your money.

BTECs are not easy. They will try to help you pass if you are struggling (which is not the same as can't be bothered), but PPP for an Extended Diploma is only the same as EEE at A level.

To get the Merits, or Distinction you need to put in the work and be capable of higher thinking and writing skills for analysis and evaluation.

There are no Level 3 courses you can do without working!

If he doesn't like coursework then a BTEC is not for him. They basically lock you in a room and make you do it!

I have one who I think won't realise Uni is not for him until he's actually fully failed A-levels.
Please come back in 11 months & tell us how he did, what happened?

There are maths units within BTEC which if they get a distinction in can then open up a foundation year place? Or we got the impression that some unis were prepared to test his maths and make an offer based on that? And not all RG require maths a level for CS.

I don't want to out him as the course that he is going to do is quite small- but it worked for him and he is happy with the outcome.

It may well be that a college will let him redo A level maths with a BTEC and in a class where he is likely to be higher performing that may help?

Another issue to bear in mind is passing exams.

Assume, for the sake of argument, that BTEC is comparable to A Level but is just assessed differnently (which is in my view roughly true). The main reason people start a level and end up doing BTEC is that they cannot succeed in a level exams, but can in the continuous assessment structure of BTEC. If they use that BTEC to get entry to a traditional university then in may of the first year they are going to need to take and pass exams which probably make up between fifty and eighty percent of the assssment. You might argue that we should assess differently, and I might agree with you. But the facts on the ground are that the sort of universities for which the most common admission qualification is three a levels will have exams that students need to pass, and students who can’t take and pass high-stakes exams in a period of a few weeks will fail the first year. This is not a moral judgement, just a fact.

Ha ha Mumsnet dropped the s. he got a D D* D

There are a number of different computer science type courses through- some were very clear that they required very high level of maths.

What does he want to do after graduating?

KeneftYakimoski that is very interesting.

In the end my DS did not accept the most academic uni offers as he was worried about his maths- although he could have continued at A level- he chose to drop as he didnt feel good enough but he did have Thai Scholars in his class which I think undermined him a bit!

If he wants to do a degree in a STEM subject, he needs to find the motivation to start working on his Maths now, and bring his grade up.

Please ignore BigBlueBubble - I have never read such an inaccurate post in all my uears on MN.

BTEC is not piss easy, not all cpursework and schools/colleges do not get paid as suggested.

Op - I'll post in more detail later if you need further advice re BTECs

Whitefriars - that’s interesting. Did you dc complete both yrs of A’levels before then enrolling on the BTEC? I don’t think ds’s can leave now anyway as we haven’t given notice.

He can leave, you will just have to pay! He did do both years, did 4 a levels in 1st year but dropped maths in upper 6th. Passed 2 with C and D and failed the 3rd.

Went to local college to do a BTEC in computing. It was an old style BTEC- just finished this summer. As he was under 19 the 1st year was funded. For the 2nd year- which was technically a new qualification- a top up he wasn't funded as he already had 2 full A levels. We argued that wasn't made clear and had they entered him on a 2 year course to begin with it would have been funded- so we and about 5 other didn't have to pay in the end.

He thinks he got a DD D but he hasn't actually been to pick it up! Ut may have dropped to a D*DD when they moderated - but whatever that is great. He got unconditional offers based on the 1st 2 a levels and the 1st year of BTEC.