Maths A level in one year

[r3dh3d]

So offspring did her A levels last year, and did better than expected. She's had a big rethink over the holidays and now we are doing the whole open day thing a year late and she has recently set her heart on a course with a AAA entry requirement. She has AAB.

Because of reasons* it's actually going to be safer for her to do an entire new A level from scratch than retake the B. She's talked to her previous school about it (who are pretty hot on this stuff) and they agree; what she needs to do is to do a Maths A level in one year.

What they are not much help with, however, is how the heck she does this.

I have been looking for Maths tutors locally with this level of experience (ie who can guide her through the course, rather than backing up school teaching or doing retakes) but not found anyone. I may put another post up about that! I have looked at online courses, but the reputable (mostly homeschool) ones only seem to do 2 years. And I have looked at the London colleges like MPW, who I will probably contact, but I doubt they will be able to slot her in as a late arrival to the 1 year course.

Has anyone done this before and got any tips or recommendations?

*She is very Dyslexic, but insisted on doing 3 humanities for A level, even though she was better at STEM subjects. The subject she got a B in was probably because she misread the question and tbh there's a high risk with this subject that she'd do the same if she retook it. No amount of work is going to guarantee her an A in this.

I’m a maths teacher. She will need to be very committed to this - for schools it would be 8-10 hours of teaching a week and then she would need to do a similar amount of work outside lessons. (So my school teachers A-level in 4 hours, with a lot of this being teacher led, so if she is doing it in 1 year it would be double). If you are going down the tutor route how many hours are you willing to pay for a week.
What GcSE grade did she get? It may be very hard to get back into maths given she’s not done any for 2 years so she will need to be committed to success.
Which board is she planning to do? As a start she should have all the textbooks to work through,
Maths A-level is very hard, and even students with a Grade 9 don’t all go on to get an A/A* at A—level.
Doing A-level in 1 year (and given that September has gone, 8 months) is a very big ask. She needs to be very talented, extremely hardworking, and you need to be able to pay for high quality tutoring.

Exams start in May, so she really has just over 7 months.

Thank you - yes, it's going to be a lot of work.

She got a 9 in her GCSE, and one of her good friends at school used to revise for A levels by teaching bits of it to her, so she has access to all their textbooks, past papers etc.

It's certainly doable, especially coming off a 9 at GCSE and being very committed. We teach A Level in one year through 6 contact hours a week, and probably the same amount again of independent study.

However, she's not done any real maths for over a year - she will probably be rustier than she realises (revising "alongside" her friend is not the same as actually studying). And the need for an A would worry me - a B would be a good result in these circumstances.

Also, time is already against you - our one year students are already a quarter of the way through the course.

The course with AAA requirement - decent chance that AAB is enough. Has she asked them? Looked at whether they were in clearing? Checked their previous offers on UCAS?

ALSO she needs to check very carefully that her preferred course is happy for her three grades to have been taken over two different years (most are happy with this, but anything medical can be arsey about it)

Even if she has the ability it’s going to be hard logistically.

She needs to study the units in order and complete the first year work before the second. Therefore joining classes in both year 12 and 13 in a sixth form won’t work as she wouldn’t understand the year 13 work without having already studied the 12.

Yes, called them today. AAA or bust.

It will be a lot easier to find another course for AAB, the cost and stakes are very high to be ready to take the exam in May and get an A. Have you shown her how much it will cost and how that money could be put aside for her university years?

A 9 in GCSE is a great start but in fact she has not (I presume) done any actual maths beyond working with a friend since she sat the GCSE – in 2022, presumably. So 27 months ago. That's quite a while.

And yy she will have to do it in about 7-8 months. That's a big ask. And then she has to achieve an A – also a big ask. Has she checked that the resit is acceptable? Is there no other course that might work that would accept (very good) AAB grades?

Maths is not my subject; MFL is, and I honestly do not think (speaking as a tutor) I would want to take on a student in this situation, more than two years after they last touched the subject, trying to get through the whole German or French course in 7 months+ and with the aim of an A. I suspect maths is even more of a challenge tbh.

If I did, I would want to be working with them for at least four hours 1-1 a week. If you go the tutor route, that's going to cost you upwards of £150 pw I reckon. That's about £4-5k by the time you get to exams.