Online colleges for A Levels

[Pollygrip]

Has anyone had any experience of transferring from a traditional sixth form to an online college? I don’t want to go into the details but my DD is hating sixth form. She did very well at GCSEs and has always been a good independent learner.

Obviously the timing is not great at this stage (Year 12), but they seem to waste so much time at school, especially as there are no quiet places to learn during free periods that she feels she could catch up if the syllabuses don’t match.

I’m starting to view this as a remote possibility but don’t know if it is really a viable option, so I would be grateful if anyone has any experience that they could share.

My DS did one A level through Wendover (until recently Oxford Education Online). It was a course that his school withdrew at the last minute and he didn't want to have to go to another school or college entirely.

It wasn't cheap but his teacher was excellent and DS preferred learning in that style. It's actually beneficial now he's looking at internships and suchlike to be able to say he has experience of remote working - I mean I know they all do from lockdown! But I guess this is experience of hybrid working.

The other place we looked at was Harrow Online Sixth Form - as you can imagine, extremely not cheap, but a very interesting offering if you can afford it.

The timing definitely sounds tricky, but she's not wanting to change subjects, just school? So if she can find places offering the same exam board she should be fine from a subject matter point of view, I think?

There are other options for self-guided teaching, places like Learn Direct, but I think that would be hard going for a teenager. It could work in conjunction with some online tutoring, we used MyTutor for one of DS' school-taught subjects.

Does your DD have to be in school full-time? I wonder if a change of venue might be an easier transfer, if she could be at home when not in classes?

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but we are considering whether it may be possible for my dc to do an additional A-level online (plus 3 at school) - and if this is what your dc did? If so, how did it go? There are a couple of options - he has an offer to go to a good sixth form, but not doing one of the subjects that they want, so wondering whether it is at all possible to do it online outside of school? Thanks

My eldest child left sixth form and enrolled on an online course - it was a disaster, wasn't one that has been mentioned above. So we instead had a private tutor one to one online and that was great as we had direct contact, the tutors were able to develop a rapport with my child and it was personal without the red tape and procedures. I found the online place really officious.

wondering whether it is at all possible to do it online outside of school?

My ds was doing the A level as one of his three, and so did all his teaching hours during school time (albeit at home). As it was taught one-to-one, we had some flexibility with the tutor although it involved quite a lot of juggling on everyone's parts to make it work.

Whether you could do it outside of school hours would really depend on the teacher's availability. If it was a group-taught A level I would doubt it would be possible but you can only ask.

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience, @greenlettuce . I was very apprehensive about it as it's such a massive unknown, no Ofsted or anything. Glad you had better luck with a tutor.

Harrow online school has closed and the team there have started Highgrove online which we are looking at. @greenlettuce l wish l knew which one you had a bad experience with?

Have a look at the “Home Ed Uk Exams and alternatives” face book group. You will get lots of discussions about different providers. We are currently home educating our youngest through iGCSEs and it’s full of useful intel.

Apologies for resurrecting a zombie thread but @Pollygrip how did your DD get on? I am at the start of researching options for my own teenager to move to online study

I have studied with Learn Now and can only tell you my experience with them and one other provider. Learn Now were brilliant. They provided me with references and grades for university and the amount of work tutors marked for me was amazing. It really tested me and was definitely worth the money. I moved to Learn Now part way through my GCSEs and progressed onto A Levels with them too. I had enrolled with an another place prior to Learn Now which was and awful experience and I wish I had never wasted my money. If you are looking for somewhere I say read the reviews on Trustpilot but also see how often they are getting bad reviews! I wish I had done this in the very beginning.