My son has failed 3 AS levels..advice please

[WhatsItAllAboutAlfie]

Hi, we are all in complete shock in our house. Just got back from holiday and opened the envelope and he has got a B in Maths (well done boy) and has U's in his other three subjects . He has worked really hard and did a lot of revision. We went to a parents evening in June and all his teachers said that he found things hard ( he is dyslexic) but all four said how motivated he is and how much he has improved in the last few months, and he got C's in his mocks in April.
We also got written reports at the end of June and everyone has written things like " a pleasure to teach" " has improved in leaps and bounds"," diligent and interested in the subject" etc etc.

Now we knew he would struggle to do ther written work....maths is great...no writing but we feel something has gone horribly wrong here. He did all these three on computer with extra time and he keeps saying Mum do you think they've lost half my work? We are off to see someone at the college tomorrow and will ask for photocopies of all the papers ( can you believe it £16 a paper). Does anyone know how long they take to come through?
Has anyone else been in a position like this?
We don't know whether he should repeat the year ( if they'll let him) dropping one and carrying on with maths, or whether to change to something like btec business where the workload is quite heavy but it's all coursework. I just don't know how to advise him..any ideas out there.

She needs to be very strategic with her UCAS application, and take advice very carefully.

A good sixth form tutor will steer her in the right direction, help her obtain a realistic conditional offer which she goes on to achieve.

The AS results in themselves aren't necessarily a problem, as her predicted grades, presumably based on her true potential, will carry much weight.

thanks, trouble is her school is really brilliant at one thing (its specialism) and really crap at these type of subjects. One teacher has gone from her subject this year (cuts) and the one left is really new (and may be brilliant teacher but not so experienced in A2 I suspect). All very worrying.

"The AS results in themselves aren't necessarily a problem, as her predicted grades, presumably based on her true potential, will carry much weight."

Are you sure? Admission tutors I've spoken are increasingly sceptical of predicted grades, and regard AS levels as much more objective. The inaccuracy of predicted grades, and the effect that has on the proportion of offers they make being actually taken up, is a big topic for discussion.

"trouble is her school is really brilliant at one thing (its specialism) and really crap at these type of subjects."

That's not good. Thirty years ago I moved to do my A Levels elsewhere for precisely that reason.

YMMV, Tokyo.

My son passed his AS levels but needed 3xD grades to carry on the next year - he got a D and 2 E's. Does anyone know if he can just resist the two that he got E's in January, or does he have to do the whole year again?. We have not been able to speak with anyone at the school for advice, and when he picked his results up from school, he had about two minutes with the head of 6th form and that was that. He was disappointed with his results, and he says that several of his friends didn't do as well as predicted. He also said that the ICT exam that everyone came out of saying how easy they thought it was, which he got an E in, all his friends did poorly in that one too. He got a Distinction in ICT in his GCSE's, so a big disappointment.

Helen , you might be better starting a new thread as this one is old. AS Resits are in May/June. Tbh I'd question with those grades if he might be better doing a college based level 3 course. What subjects?