What Advice Do You Have?

[sarahlayton06]

One of the A-level subjects that I do is Economics. I’m good at this an am predicted an A-Star.

My teacher has also been very supportive and helpful up until two months ago when she went on maternity leave. Since then, the teaching has been awful. This is as the school has failed to find a replacement for her and every lesson for the last few months, we have had random teachers coming in to supervise rather than actually teach us and we just get handed a bunch of assignments to do with no guidance and no teaching.

Now, I must admit that my main issue isn’t with the poor quality of teaching. This is as technically I could just ignore this and teach myself the content by watching YouTube playlists of A-level Economics or buying a revision book or spending extra hours teaching myself the content. But, my frustration is to do with why I should have to.

It‘s not fault that the teaching is awful so why should I have to burden myself with extra work on top of all the other subjects I do? I could manage it if I tried really hard; but why should I?

If this was my fault either because I didn’t understand the content or struggled with it rather than the issue being the poor teaching then I would be more than willing to spend hours extra teaching myself or doing private tutoring; but since, as mentioned, I was already doing really well before the teaching went downhill, it’s not my fault and I feel very demotivated.

I think about how students at other schools with better teaching who are just as good at me at Economics probably don’t have to put in extra hours teaching themselves content like I will have to, so why should I?

Just for the record, there is no extra resources provided by my school or help to ameliorate the situation; any resolution would have to be done by myself such is the poor quality of teaching.

I want to make it clear that I’m not lazy; I’m just very frustrated at the situation and feel demotivated as a result.

So, what do you think I should?

AI

If you’re going to Uni, self learning is a good skill as that’s what you’ll need to do.

Is it fair? No

Is it very poor of the school? Yes

Is saying "it's not fair, and really poor of the school" going to change the situation? No

Unfortunately, if you want a decent grade, it sounds like you are going to have to put the hours in. No uni or job is going to take into account the circumstances in which you took your A Levels. They are just going to look at the grade.

Have you spoken to the school?
Ask them what they propose to do about it.

It is poor but we're in similar positions with some subjects. There simply aren't the staff and we can't recruit when staff leave for whatever reason. We're an excellent school too.
It is unfair but equally you also - with a teacher! - could experience poor quality teaching and there's no way to accommodate for the worse teaching you receive compared with someone else

You can ask the school to make this easier and it's reasonable for them to tell you and your parents what they r tried to do. Eg job share with another school (do you have coursework?), give you additional time by releasing you from something else that's non statutory. Can they employ tutors to mark some work or mock exams so you have an accurate picture of where you are?

With the state of education at the moment, fewer people want to be teachers, so there is a massive problem and the schools don’t have the budget to solve it-it’s a dreadful situation. I don’t blame the schools though.

You have several option, which one you choose depends on what your objective is. Ultimately what you take from your education will be for your benefit or your detriment.

If all you want is to get through the year and leave, then coast. Do the bare minimum and scrape a passing result.

If you want to learn the content, achieve good results and go to uni on a specific course then put the work in.

Your doing A-Levels, the days of spoon feeding you the content have passed. If you want to do well it's on you to achieve that. I guarantee no one will be giving anywhere near the support you're getting now at university. The expectation is that in less than a year you should be fully capable of self directed learning, and if you're not you'll fail. No one will be there picking up the pieces for you.

Take the opportunity to get used to that now while you do still have some of that support in place. It may not be as good as it was but it's a good interim to get used to it.

Learning to self study and write cogently and clearly are effective skills to have.

You ask why you should have to find out what you need to study yourself. The answer is because you want to do well and therefore have to motivate yourself to do so. Of course it’s not helpful that your school has been unable to provide a replacement teacher, but that is, unfortunately, the reality of schools and teaching these days.

If you’re planning to go to university, self directed learning now, will stand you in good stead for the future.

Because if you don't study your grades will drop.
It's shit but you can either get on with it and make up the gap that the school can't meet or complain and lose grades.
Life isn't always fair and reasonable.

You need to see this as a great opportunity to show you have skills of resilience, determination and adaptability. These will be valuable when you apply for a job.

Back in the day, I had the same experience when doing A level Spanish. No Internet then and no marking schemes available. The Spanish teacher had left under a cloud. The French teacher helped us with the literature papers through translations of the set texts as she could not speak Spanish. A Paraguayan school cleaner helped with the oral prep. I wonder about the dialect! We all passed, some with high grades.

Life is not always fair or easy but wallowing in despair never helps.

@sarahlayton06 the school is probably trying to find a replacement but isn't getting any suitable applications - if so, that is not their fault.

In the meantime, ask them if they will subside subscriptions to UpLearn. I have heard of other schools doing that and it is reportedly very good for economics.

Econplusdal is also a good resource. My son's grade improved significantly between mock 1 and mock 2 after getting his Analysis & Evaluation book. (Not cheap, but cheaper than a tutor).

This happened to me when I was doing ALevels albeit this was a very long time ago ( pre internet) but in a way that made it even harder but here’s what I did - ordered the Cliff notes and revision guides from the library for all the set texts/ my exam board so I made sure I knew what the key points and things they were assessing were, tracked down someone from my school who did the same A-level the year before and got really high marks and she let me borrow all her notes and essays and make my own notes from them, set up a study group with 4/5 other students who were also targeting high grades to discuss the books. I did get an A which I needed for my Uni offer.

Ask your school about other options? Does it use the Access Project, for example? Or have tutors/mentors/etc available from local businesses? Some schools have links with local firms, for example, and at my son's school, there were lots of economics mentors available for A level pupils.

I wonder if it's worth checking tutoring websites to see if there are any local tutors offering economics A-level. Contact them, and find out if they'd be in the market for a bit of in-school teaching. They might not have been scanning the vacancies for regular school work, but they might be glad of some A-level-only work during the school day, and might be prepared to work out a deal with the school that suits both parties. If the school is fobbing you off with "can't find anyone", they might find it a bit harder if you can say "but I know that there's an economics tutor who has contacted you..."

(I was once recruited to apply for a teaching post by a year 10 student, who knew that her teacher was leaving and needed replacing mid-year, and also knew that I had taught that subject and that my child had just started school. I wouldn't have seen the advert if she hadn't told me about it.)

If you choose to really go for it two good online resources are Seneca https://senecalearning.com/en-GB/revision-notes/a-level/economics/edexcel/a
and Khan Academy which is not board specific.

I think you should thank your lucky stars really that the subject this has happened in is a) one you're really good at; b) one where there's loads of excellent free self-study material available (EconplusDal; Tutor2u; Economics Help are the ones I recommend to my students); and c) one in which it's straightforward enough to teach yourself. I don't imagine many would relish self teaching Chemistry or Maths or Physics for instance, but Economics is absolutely doable.

If you want stuff marked then UpLearn offer that (good idea to ask school to subsidise).

It will be excellent university prep, as others have said.

Hi, OP -

You’ve written elsewhere that your dream destination is Cambridge, and also of some bad breaks you have experienced. I agree that some aspects of your life have been tough.

This isn’t particularly one of them. This puts you in a similar situation to many, many A level pupils every year. You have some very good suggestions above. Even with the other things going on in your life, Cambridge would expect any prospective student to be able to self learn A Level Economics without undue difficulty.