97 % pass rate for A-Levels ; how did that happen?

[m1m1rie]

I took my A-levels in 1989 and passed all three, and was in the minority amongst my peers. Most people failed at least one and only the really, really clever ones could achieve A-grades. Now, with so many passing and record numbers achieving A-grades how do we differentiate between those who are genuinely talented and those who are not? A girl I know has just passed 3 A-levels. She spends her days chatting on her mobile, obsessing about herself and often didn't bother going into college if she didn't feel like it. She even turned up late for one of her exams. As far as being 'clever' is concerned, she couldn't hold a conversation with you unless it was about celebrities or herself, and yet she has managed to pass all three A-levels. I am dumbstruck. I find it demeans those who do put effort into learning as they will all just be lumped in together now and treated with disdain by those who think that all kids are thick and only have A-levels because the exams are easier to pass now. Whatever is going on with the current system, it's not doing anyone any favours, it only serves to make Government stats look good.

'I cannot stand all this class bollocks, it has no standing whatsoever on what you will acheive in life and what you are capable of.'

You can't really believe this can you MrsFio? How blissfully naive you are. Class affects everything in this country from your mortality to your height, what school you go to, how many GCSEs you get and whether you go to university.

After that whole fracas with that girl (what's her name?) who ended up going to the US to do her degree after she was rejected by Oxbridge even though she got some of the best grades in the country I'm sure Oxbridge has got to be a lot more state-school friendly in its admissions policy. But again I find it a bit depresssing that we're talking about Oxford and Cambridge when they really don't represent a univerity education for most of our students. And to go to Oxbridge and Durham and York etc you still have to have got nearly 5 As at AS Level which means that you're already much more likely to be middle-class with supportive parents and have gone to a good school blah blah. Don't forget that state grammar schools and faith schools get good results also and are also selective.

But surely if you're capable of getting a good degree then surely you should have also been capable of getting good A-Levels. Or perhaps the real thing is that degrees are too easy and not A levels?

If people know that they can get away with not working as hard as they are able to & still do what they want then it's not really going to encourage people to want to do well is it?

I'm sure many people just go to Uni so that they can put off getting a job for 3 years!

they should make everyone leave school at 16 and get a job, then if they are any good at it do a course alongside the job, there sorted.

hmmmmm, not many courses in Biochemistry outside of university

So I'd have been stuffed

MB, when I took the exam (1989) it was no longer possible to sit it post-A level so I don't think that can have been the reason for its being axed.
I understood that it was got rid of partly due to the coaching issue but more due to external factors: it was putting off the state schools from encouraging their students to apply as they thought they couldn't prepare their them (though in fact coaching wasn't necessary in all the papers - I had some for my Latin but not for the Classical general paper - I just read the books they'd suggested at an open day. DH did the Cambridge maths exam when there still was one and he certainly wasn't coached.) There may have been government pressure as well.

As you say, it was a stab at a more equal policy but it had completely the opposite effect so now in many subjects some colleges have reintroduced tests - they just get the students to sit them when they come up for interview. Students that have shown promise in those tests but are at crap schools can then be given lower offers, or else are encouraged to get in touch even if they don't make the offer and are often admitted anyway.

Interesting. I had forgotten that they banned 7th term examination, but you are quite right. The collage I went to interviewed everyone who applied and sat the exam. Quite egalitarian for what was, and is, seen as one of the more 'exclusive' collages. Whatever their views they took me, and I didn't fit the educated middle/upper class profile . In fact I seem to remember arguing politics at the interview

There's also a flaw in that as on the news today or yesterday I heard that employers aren't too keen to take on people who have come straight out of school (although that could simply be due to the fact that those who leave school at 16 tend to be the ones with lower grades).

I guess there's no real solution that will be good for everyone.

Wasn't the Oxford entrance exam to filter out those who didn't do that well in it?

When I went there for interview I had to do a short exam thing - that was only 4 yrs ago.

Blackandwhitecat, the Laura Spence affair was disgracefully misrepresented by the government.
She was predicted 4 As at A level, as were many, many people from independent schools who were also rejected. In fact the college took more state school people than private school people to read medicine that year. This was a college which worked very hard at access - not one of the pompous ones which just might be discriminating. (Her headmaster didn't know any of this and just assumed that, given that she was one of the best students they had seen for years, she was being discriminated against because she was from a state school, which was understandable but, as it turned out, totally wrong.)
The college's reasons for rejecting her, which emerged later, were that although they had no doubt she was bright they did not feel she was sufficiently committed to Medicine.
What happened next? She got a scholarship to an Ivy League uni, started to read Medicine, then changed after less than a year! So the Magdalen admissions tutors had in fact made exactly the right call in giving that place to someone else.
She had 'among the best grades in the country', but so do more people than there are places for at Oxbridge to read Medicine, unfortunately, so colleges have to make some difficult decisions.

Interesting Kathy, but my point remains the same. Yes, Oxbridge may be more state school friendly but proportionately they still have more students from public schools (and almost certainly from state grammar schools then faith schools and 'good schools'). But when we talk about Oxbridge students we're really only talking about a few thousand people who may well be the most gifted of our students and many of whom are also likely to be amongst our most privileged.

'But surely if you're capable of getting a good degree then surely you should have also been capable of getting good A-Levels. Or perhaps the real thing is that degrees are too easy and not A levels?'

I think it's easy to take the attitude that students doing A Levels should count themselves lucky, work as hard as they can and enjoy the work but life isn't quite like that. 16-18 year olds are not adults and it's a mistake to think they are or imagine that they will behave like adults. Their experience of life is really very limited, they often live in the moment and cannot think very long-term. They are just learning about sex, friendships, independent learning, organistion, becoming an adult etc. And they also learn from their parents and are highly influenced by their parents' attitude to education. I deal with these young people (and only them) every day and I see many students who do not fulfil their potential in their A Levels for all sorts of reasons. This does not mean they are not capable of doing well at degree level.

When students who have done well at A Level go to University they may find they can't cope with independent learning, or being small fish in big ponds or whatever. Equally when students who have not done well at A Level go to university tehy may relish the freedom of choice to do something they really enjoy and may benefit from being away from home etc etc. One set of exam results should not determine the rest of your life (and possibly determine whether you are a success or a failure).

'I'm sure many people just go to Uni so that they can put off getting a job for 3 years!'

Maybe so but what does it matter? Going to uni is not an easy ride (and you have to pay for it these days) and isn't this still better than going on the dole or getting a dead-end job which you hate? And I'm sure there are students who go in with this attitude but actually really change their minds and benefit academically, socially etc

About the getting a job and studying alongside it idea. Don't you realize that this is what most students actually do? The vast majority of students do paid work (and I knew people who were working the equivalent of full-time hours at Burger King at the same time as doing a full-time degree 10 years ago) to fund their university courses.

Blackandwhitecat I really admire you for painting a different picture of teenage kids than the one you most commonly see.
I feel I am getting glimpse into school life with you.

I was speaking to a friend today who has a dd in a 'Good' partially selective school. Her dd is in the extension class ( where most of the selected kids go to) and according to her virtually all her class come from middle class white backgrounds with two parents and careers like Surgeons and 'Big in the City'.

To give you an example of what the area the school is you might like to know that one of the closest primary schools is 85% ethnic minority with 38% free school meals. Something deffo not mirrored in the secondary school 5 mins away

It wasn't just independent schools where you could do the Oxbridge exam post A level - we had people in the '3rd year 6th' doing it in the November after A levels - this was a school that was a state grammar when I started but which became a comprehensive at incredibly short notice when labour won the local election - but was still doing the oxbridge thing the year after I left.

DS's friend has just got into Balliol and he certainly did some kind of test/exam - he was supposed to work out 2 to the power of 100 using logs - he couldn't remember how to use logs so he just started multiplying....
He was also asked at the interview to give an approximation of pi, and he gave it to 50 places - he's just got that kind of mind.
Anyway he was asked for 3 A's which he duly got - presumably the interview had told them what they needed to know. He wants to be an accountant.

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Interesting. Oxford is a bit twitchy about the biocemistry/medicine cross over, as I remember it and they like you to be very decided in what you want to study.

One of the things they asked me for my Biochemisrty interview was 'Are you sure you don't want to study medicine' to which I asnwered 'Yes, I don't like sick people much'

I wonder if she came across are 'undecided'?

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To be fair to Oxford their medics do get a broader experience than most, since they do a full three year pre clinical degree in physiology, wheras most medical courses do a 2 year preclinical course that doesn't get them a bacelors degree at the end (or at least this used to be the case in my day....so long ago now )

Thanks Dros. It's just so easy to fall into a 'Teen-agers don't know how lucky they are now in my day...' type mentality. And TBH writing on this thread has reminded me that most of my students don't have the kind of privileges that I had. If they yawn in my class then arguably it's me who should ask what I'm doing wrong rather than blame them for being rude'. Yes, of course, they have to do the work which can't always be enjoyable and pass the exams but it's understandable that they aren't always 100% interested and committed because there are so often so many other things more interesting when you're sixteen. And many of my students haven't been taught that education is a privilege or enjoyable. Their parents told them it was boring or a means to an end and they've been made to sit exam after exam and do subjects they didn't and wouldn't choose. And all this while they have grown up in a digitally advnaced, technicolour age.

As I've said the area where I work is v deprived and multi-cultural. A large proportion of the students who come to my 6th form receive EMA (£30 odd each week to come to college). This means we do get a lot of kids who would never usually have considered FE and are not necessarily doing it for a love of learning or even because tehy are able to look long-term and think about uni or good jobs or whatever. Nevertless the majority of these kids get good A Level grades (often brilliant in terms of value added) and we have a really good rate of progression to HE. This has been one really good GOvt initiative and has done much to change the dynamics of the local community (loads of poverty, racial tension etc etc) for the better.

do any of you clever chaps know anything about funding? there is another thread just started on student parents from a mum due to start a degree but having trouble with funding?