What do you wish you'd known before your child started A-levels?

[ainawatson]

My child is starting A-levels soon, and I'm starting to realise how different it all seems from GCSEs.
For those who have been through it with their children, what do you wish you'd known beforehand?
Was the workload more of a shock than expected? Did they need to become much more independent? Were there particular subjects that turned out to be far harder than they expected?
Or is there something you wish you'd done differently as a parent at the start?
Would love to hear what surprised you most.

I did A levels between 1977 and 1979. I found the transition from O level to A level was far steeper than that from A level to degree. It took me a term to feel I had even started to get a grip. University, by contrast, was a breeze because of the disciplines I had learnt at A level of deep textual analysis and reading widely to understand the social and political context in which suitors were writing. (I read English. )

One thing that has changed between then and now is the intensification of 'teaching to the test' at GCSE because of school league tables, Progress 8 and other measures. Pupils' expectations for A level are set by their experience of GCSE, making the transition to independent learner more of a challenge. University teachers have been saying for a number of years that A levels are not preparing new undergraduates for degree-level study. I don't think this is dumbing down in terms of content or exam difficulty but a reflection of a data invasion into education and the impact that has had on teaching.

Don't you need to assess the quality of teaching and see how DS is coping before arranging a tutor?

I think you are right @IdaGlossop
Schools are just exam factories these days.
Doing French A level did give me an appreciation of French literature, and after I left school I read a lot more books by French authors (English translations, my French wasn't that good)

Schools do feel like exam factories now. My DD did GCSEs in 2018 and 2019. Try as I might, I couldn't persuade her to read a very short chapter from Peter Ackroyd's biography of Dickens to help her understand how Dicken's own experience of his father spending time in a debtor's prison had informed 'A Christmas Carol'. She said their teacher hadn't asked them to read it 🙄

With French, there were different issues. Having done A level French myelf, I could see that she wasn't being taught grammar in a systematic way at GCSE so I taught her some myself - conjugation of verbs, sequence of tenses, conditional clauses and the subjunctive. She then changed school, from a comprehensive to an independent school (the school careers adviser suggested she apply for a music scholarship and she was successful). French was one of her A level choices and she found herself in a class of two, the other student having a parent resident in France. Immediately, she saw that the teaching at the independent school at GCSE had been much broader and deeper and that she had been prepared in order to pass an exam. She had to work very hard to fill in the gaps and studied French at university.

My comprehensive school French teacher was absolutely rigorous in her teaching of grammar and I didn't have gaps to fill in when I began A level. Conversely, I arrived at the Gare du Nord in the early morning struggling to order my breakfast. Voltaire, Molière, Anhouil and Camus were no use at all.

With French, there were different issues. Having done A level French myself, I could see that she wasn't being taught grammar in a systematic way at GCSE so I taught her some myself - conjugation of verbs,

That struck a chord with me. The French teaching at DD's school was woeful. When DD was in year 9 I was helping her with some homework and when I spoke about conjugating verbs she asked what conjugating meant!

Needless to say DD didn't take French at GCSE.

I did Voltaire and Moliere as well (and Balzac and Racine). TBH I was disappointed to learn that one of the 3 hour papers was just French literature. This brought my marks down as I was better at the language (translation, comprehension, oral, dictation, writing essays in French) than I was at writing about books.

Snap! My DD had never heard the word 'conjugation' at school either. Despite this, she's turned into quite the linguist and is currently studying Koine Ģreek for work purposes and flirting with Danish for romantic reasons. She also did a year of Mandarin Chinese in sixth form. Language learning is in peril in the UK, with university departments closing and fewer languages on offer in schools.

@clary If I’m apparently AI, I’m doing a pretty convincing job. You seem to be replying to almost every one of my comments, so I must be keeping you entertained at least! I think you're actually AI.

Yes! I'll see. Knowing him, he'll definitely need it.

That jump from O level to A level back then was brutal, but it forced you to actually think for yourself, which made uni feel like a breeze.
The real issue today isn't that exams are "dumbing down," but that league tables and data obsession have turned GCSEs into a game of teaching to the test. Kids get spoon-fed so much that when they hit A levels, they aren't ready to be independent learners anymore.

That missing grammar bit is wild—how do you even teach a language without touching verb conjugation?

I'm not sure why you have given a précis of my post, OP.

Quite easily. It depends on the language. In English the simple present has a different form only in the third person singular, unlike Latin, German and Romance languages, for example, where there are at least six forms to learn for each tense. The word 'conjugation' never passed my lips when I was teaching English as a second language, not even with students studying for the advanced Cambridge exams. Instead, I used a hand gesture to elicit the 's' If a student missed it off in speaking exercises.

Just wanted to share my knowledge with you.

That makes sense. I think using a simple gesture to reinforce the “s” is probably much more useful for a learner than introducing grammatical terminology they don't really need. Sometimes the simplest approach is the most effective, especially when the goal is actually communicating rather than memorising rules. Have you found any other simple techniques that work well for helping students remember grammar while speaking?

That doesn't make sense. It is not your knowledge. It is mine. I think a sensible interpretation of your words is that you are demonstrating your knowledge of my knowledge ie you want me to know that you have understood what I have said. So thank-you.

I understand what you mean. I have also noticed that you are responding to pretty much every comment I make, even when they're on other people's posts hahaha.

You have made a similar observation about @clary