poor as results

[whendoesitgeteasier]

Hi
I have just joined mumsnet in the hope of gaining some advise from all the experience out there. My son has just got very disappointing as results, failed psychology and got D and E in his other 2 subjects. He is now quite adamant that he is packing in education despite being very bright he got 11 very good GCSEs last year. I have tried the usual discussions and suggestions including redoing the as year at a different college. Any advise would be great, myself and OH have aged considerably these past few days. He only got results on Sunday as we were away when they came out.

TBH, Ds and Es aren't bad resuts. They are stil passes. What you have to remember is that there are 5 pass grades at GCE. A D at GCE is more like a low B at GCSE, which doesn't sound nearly as bad.

Which subjects is he doing? What does his sixth form tutor say? What were his predicted grades?

I think you need to ask him first whether he has any plans on what to do if he doesn't continue at college. Also, it is helpful to know what the results were for other students - if most of the others also got D and E and F, then there could be a problem at the college.
Did he work hard? How did he seem to manage with the work in term time?
If he doesn't want to retake the AS exams does he want to do another type of course or would he rather find himself a job.
It's unfortunate that you weren't around nearly two weeks ago when the results came out as you may now be too late to apply for copies of the exam script/possible remarks etc.

There is still time for photocopies for sure, and the rush on remarks is for when university places depend on them.

But you have raised an important point about being around on results day. At the school I teach at, we insist that families are around on results day, as do my son's school.

At DS2's college the last day for applying for photocopies was 26th August ... but that may be for their administrative convenience!

That's the date for photocopies of scripts with a view to actually changing the result.

If the photocopies are to be used for assessment for learning, the deadline is early Octoboer.

Ask your son's exam officer to help him see how high / mid or low his grades were. They will have the grade boundaries. If he is only a few marks off the next grade up then it is worth resitting and / or not losing hope. How do these results compare with his target grades? How did he do in his coursework?

My DD did badly in her A/S exams, after discussions with the college we decided a fresh start at the local technology college would be a good idea. This seemed like a disaster at the time, but she has now been there a year studying for a vocational qualification in Health and Social Care. She is now planning to do another 6 months there, go for six months work experience at a hospital and then hopefully start university next year to do a vocational course. This is all just to say to you that you shouldn't be too despondent, the A/S and A2 route to university isn't the only one or necessarily the best for every child.

Thank you all for the replies. I'll try to answer the questions asked here in one go as only just getting used to posting on forums. We have tried telling him that the
D is an ok result however thats for Gen Studies and is not accepted at a lot of unis the E was in sociology. TBH and I'm not making excuses here the college he attends has not been that helpful all year,and we have found out some of the advise given has been completely wrong, we had major problems with the iMedia course which is still not sorted despite several meetings with tutors and head of sixth form which gave him an incredible amount of stress in the month before the exams. He has a meeting with his current college but not until Thurs, and I'm not sure how useful that will be, which is going to be too late for the other college application. He did put a lot of work in attending revision lessons etc, but with hindsight not enough when at home. He coped well during term time with the work load.

We only went away after a lot of discussion as a family and with the college
as it was our silver wedding anniversary and he was expecting much better results predicted grades were C's and B's. Lesson learnt there - never again!

I have been in touch with the other local college and they say he can still apply as their interview date is 7th Sept. Only problem now is how do I get him to see that its a bad idea to just throw it all in and coast through life, as he has no idea what he will do instead and is also refusing to look at other options!.

Gosh sorry this is really long, hope thats ok.

What does he want to do for a career?

With those results, it may be an idea for him to have a fresh start in a new sixth form, repeating Year 12.

He really wanted to do Psychology and go on to uni to do a degree in psychology, then go into social work. Have just been researching Evenstars advise and trying to find different ways forward for him. Have looked at BTEC Nationals at the new college and there seems to be a good course there that may interest him. I really think he has taken a battering over this and is now completely confused. He is out with his friend for a while, hopefully he will then be more receptive to suggestions when he gets back in a little while.

He went to see the college last year, liked it and was offered a place he only chose the one he is at as it was nearer with the same courses.

Thanks that is a really good idea, will try that along with all the new info I have managed to get together for him. The problem is I think he really wanted to go down the A level route to uni and cannot see any other way. I am hoping the BTEC route will appeal as it is equivalent to the 3 As he would have done. Fingers crossed.

The other thing from my own experience is that my daughter was very angry with herself, but a lot of that became directed towards me, and that was most unhelpful in finding a way forward. A trusted friend who teaches Sixth Form took her to the new college, and got her an appointment with the careers advisor and helped her through the whole process of applying. Do you have someone who could help your DS in that way? Someone who isn't involved and who they don't perceive as being disappointed with them, and that may well be his perception even if you are not, can be a great help to them in making these decisions. It will take time for his self esteem to recover, and a fresh start was very valuable for my daughter in that respect. I do hope it works out for him.

it seems that alot of as level students have not done as well as expected this year.I have been told that only 16 students got an A in biology AS level with AQA and as a result there is going to be a remark.

Just to be a bit controversial, why not suggest he takes a year out and gets a job?

It would give him a chance to think about his options without the pressure of a deadline, to see how he gets on with work, and to see how his friends get on with A levels etc. He'd do a bit of growing up and might re-start his A-levels or whatever he chooses to do with more maturity and motivation.

Lots of people take a year out before uni, his would be a bit earlier.

If he is still considering psychology and social work then he is going to need things on his UCAS form with a 'social agenda' (my cousin is working for the CAB to improve her chances of getting a place to do social work).

If he decides not to go back to education at the end of the year then that is a shame, but not the end of the world. The older I get, the more people I meet who dropped out age 16/17 and then went back to education later when they really wanted to.

but next year they are bringing higher grades to the table and students may need A* as their qualification.2012 entry is going to be much harder.

I would say maybe he should get out and get a job. Maybe something in social care. Then if after working in that kind of area he could apply later to University as a mature student. Having a bit of life experience would be very beneficial if he wants to do Social Work. He could even do modules with the OU while working.

Don't write it off. Mature students who show real commitment are regarded very well by Universities, especially if they have also shown they can study independently.

"they are bringing higher grades to the table and students may need A* as their qualification.2012 entry is going to be much harder."

The top X% of the result will still get the places, though, whether they call them A* or D. That's the flip side of grade inflation: results and offers float up and down in lockstep. In the 1980s you could get into pretty well any course with a B and two Cs, and the standard offer from a polytechnic would be a D and an E.

But in those days, one or two students at a few elite schools would get all As - a friend who went in the 1960s to a school that today has 75% of its students getting 3As at A Level, and is herself a distinguished academic, says that when she did her A Levels, not a single student in the school got all As. Likewise GCSE: at the high-performing comp I attended, one girl out of the 330 pupils got all As at O Level. Both of us did popular courses at a Russell Group university in the early 1980s: we don't have an A in a serious subject between us.

It doesn't matter whether the massive change in the grading landscape is pure inflation or represents better outcomes (although a glance at this requires you to believe that either Westminster school was half as good as it now is twenty years ago, or that GCSEs are half as difficult), the universities still have roughly the same number of places to fill from roughly the same number of applicants. If every A became a B tomorrow, every offer of AAB would become an offer of BBC.

The A are saying that students have to attain 92% pass in that subject whereas an A is lower and A have just crept in this year for some uni entries and are a definite for the future for medicine,pharmacy and veterinary.