When do schools normally finish a level syllabus?

[Dontslamit]

Dd year13 and theoretically has 5 weeks of teaching time left before study leave ( but that includes bank holiday and 2 days of practical exams) and seems to have quite a lot of the syllabus left to cover, particularly in biology ( 2 topics). Teacher at parents evening didn’t seem worried and was ‘hopeful’ they would finish syllabus. I was rather hoping there would be some teacher led revision sessions- is this unrealistic? There is now a half hour drop in session once a week for queries but no revision lessons planned as far as I know. For what it’s worth, it’s an independent school - is this the same everywhere ?

We had pa rents evening b2 weeks ago, and they all said they should be finished by Easter holidays, so by the end of this week. Revision classes and last set of exams before study leave starts on 19 May. That includes biology, also at an independent.

Thanks - sounds like your school is a bit ahead of ours

I've taught A level maths for years.

Sometimes we finish around now, but occasionally I've had to teach new stuff almost up to the exam. My record has been finishing in the first week of February but that was with a tiny very on-it class. It depends on what pace is best for the class. This year I have just finished.

Some topics have been taken off the syllabus this year. Are you sure when the teacher says they're hoping to finish the syllabus they aren't meaning covering everything including topics which have been removed for students considering further study?

DS has finished 1 subject, and has 2 and 4 lessons left in the other 2 subjects.

It's very different to GCSE where they had finished a load of subjects by February half term and everything by now.

I had planned to finish teaching my class A level Biology by Easter (by flipping a couple of easy topics and squashing a bit) but I had covid last week so will need some time after Easter. We definitely need to do lots of revision though. (Very much NOT an independent school. We have done enough practical work to award a pass but haven't done all 12. It's been really hard this year.

Paperdove87
Thanks, but no that doesn’t include the topic which has been dropped this year. We are trying to cover the remaining topics at home from the textbook before they do them in school so in some way that is ‘revision’ but trying to revise previous work as well as covering so much new information is tricky!

Thank you for the replies

My daughter broke up for Easter last Friday. She has finished all of her 3 A level courses (biology, chemistry and physics) it has helped that some of the content has been cut this year. She attends an independent school. From now on it's just revision.

The year DD took her A levels (2018) we were plagued by the Beast from the East several times and she had several snow days off school. Also, Easter was early, and there was no way that the school could have completed the syllabus by Easter. DD even had some mocks after Easter.

The syllabus for all of her subjects was completed but it was tight.

I think we’d be in trouble without the content being cut.
They still have quite a lot of poetry left to do for English Lit too….😬

Yes, I would expect an independent school to finish the content by Easter. Has the teacher explained why this hasn’t happened? Have the school been hit badly by covid this year? What was the online learning like last year?

Sixth form not been hit badly this year by covid, no, and certainly no A level teachers been off . Online learning was good last year.
Biology teacher at parents evening didn’t seem aware of what the other teacher still had to cover or even if they were going on study leave ( they are may 13). I’m underwhelmed to be honest and I’m not sure my younger daughter ( year 9) will stay for sixth form

We don't have study leave in my state school. Finished both English Language and English Lit A level courses a few weeks ago, and the GCSE courses last week.

I would expect content complete by Easter to allow time for revision.
I had a dire a level maths teacher at my independent school. By the exams we had only covered 3/5 of the exam questions so no choice of question in the exam. I got a maths tutor and in about 4 or 6 1 hour sessions he taught me the remaining 2/5ths.
I would get a tutor now and make sure all of the syllabus is covered in good time.
What does your child say about the biology teacher? R they otherwise happy with the teaching?

Thank you for your responses; I thought I was just over reacting and most schools would be in a similar situation because of covid but it doesn’t appear to be the case. Whilst the school haven’t lost time due to covid it does feel like they’ve missed a lot of lessons (2 sets of mocks incase it was teacher assessment again losing 7 days and 5 days teaching, a week of strike action and a number of random days ie carol concerts, storm day, etc)

MrPickles73
I think you are 100% right and time to get a tutor to complete syllabus. They have 2 biology teachers and one appears significantly better than the other. My daughter says a significant number have a tutor already, I’ve been doing my best to help her but might be time to hand over the reins!

dontslamit I would bite the bullet and get a tutor to cover the stuff not already done and revisit anything she's not clear on. You've time to turn this around