I just wanted to start a thread in anticipation of results day tomorrow.
My DD got her results in 2020 and safe to say the CAG’s were not the results she had hoped she would get. They did not permit her to study the subjects at her 6th Form that she really wanted to do. In fact they didn’t get her onto A-Levels full stop.
After a most unpleasant morning she contacted her school and they informed her that all the results qualified her for was admission on to their BTEC courses. She was gutted and honestly, so was I. I am forever grateful to the wise women on the Corona cohort thread who reassured me that BTECs weren’t a dead end qualification. I’m embarrassed now that I even thought that but I was brought up that A-Levels were the be all and end all of qualifications and without A-Levels you’d never get into uni. I was incredibly snobby about BTECS and thought they were for students who weren’t capable of achieving academically.
2 years down the line I wanted to come back and for anyone who might be in a similar position that we were in 2020 reassure them that BTECs have been bloody brilliant for my DD, the constant assessment through coursework and the ability to resist exams throughout the the course of study has really suited her way of learning and she’s achieved fantastic results, earning two distinctions which have given her the equivalent of two A’s at A Level in terms of UCAS points. Last week she got into her first choice uni. She did convince her school to allow her to take one A-Level which she achieved a D In which I think says everything about how BTEC’s can really bring out the best in a pupil.
So I just wanted to reassure anyone who might need to learn about BTEC’s for the first time tomorrow. I knew very little about them and what I thought I knew was a very prejudiced view. In hindsight they’ve been the best thing that could have happened and I wish there had been a similar thread for me on results day in 2020.