What are your tips for surviving BTEC?

[rogueelement]

Hi, I have a DD who has just started a BTEC in Media after a bit of a rollercoaster year with her GCSEs. After a fair bit of results drama, she's now enrolled on a Level 2 course in Media at sixth form college.

The good new is that she absolutely loves the practical side. The bad news is that her dyslexia and general lack of organisation mean that she's struggling as the workload starts to pick up.

I've been trying to find help/advice and there seems to be hardly anything - easy to find yet another argument about whether BTEC is any good, less easy finding out how to do well! She particularly struggles with abstract writing and evaluation. [ And she's a bit lazy tbh]

If you have a child doing BTEC what has worked well for them?

How much work does she have to do at home, Rogue? Sounds like writing lots of essays & plenty time researching to find information.
Sorry I can't offer my own experience, but am wondering if BTEC might be good for DS in future.

Hi. My DS is in the second year of doing a Level 3 Btec Extended Diploma. He also has dyslexia. He has found the best approach is to make sure he is very clear from the tutors on what is required to get a pass/merit/distinction, so that he can tick off content as he produces it. It usually then will get a preliminary evaluation from the tutor who will point out where more depth is needed in the answers etc, so he can go back and add more if needs be. Keeping on top of the coursework is key so that it doesn't become too much to handle. Good luck.

Thanks both for replying.

So far most of her work is being done in class with the tutor. She is absolutely loving the practical side of it, which is great. I don't think she has had any assessed work yet, although she does seem to do lots of bits and pieces. I don't think there will be essays as such, lljkk, but I think there is work to show that you have done the background research and can intelligently argue about the creative choices you made. Early days though! It seems fairly practical i.e. responding to a brief, creating the thing, writing it up and evaluating it against the brief.

She struggles with written work and I do worry that she'll try to do the minimum when with a bit of effort she could do much better! Also trying to keep my nose out of it at the moment, while hovering the background.

I teach BTEC and the key is just to do what you're told as soon as you're told to do it! Listen to the teacher and don't put anything off. My students have ample time in class to do everything and the best students get their heads down and do it, take advice on board and finish the unit with neat, well-presented folders that are top standard. The students who fare worse are not the weakest students at all, but those who procrastinate and mess about chatting and looking at random rubbish on the internet instead of working,

My DS really didn't have to do much work outside of college hours, which was great. Again, make 100% sure your DD knows what the P/M/D criteria are; know which units deliver a D as the top mark- some of DS's only had M as a top mark so put his energy into other units.

Know your deadlines. Make sure you have all the P mark ducks in a row as you can't get an M, let alone a D- without them.

DS made a mess of Y13 and AS levels, but he's in his third week at uni right now, having achieved D star, D star, D.

Good luck. DS is a tiny bit bored with the 1st term content of his course as he covered it all in BTEC!

DD is dyslexic and did 3 BTECs at college. With coursework, she found it helped to set out the sub-headings first before writing anything. She also find mind-mapping helpful to plan her ideas.