Sadness of Open Days

[Gemauve]

So on the stand this morning at 0905, I was approached by a charming woman and her keen, enthusiastic daughter. It's the first university they're visiting, in fact the first university that either of them has ever been to, but they're really looking forward to ... and they reel off a list of good places. Daughter really wants to do our subject, and has clearly checked out the top places.

And what A Levels are you doing?

Ah.

Well, you can't come here, and for what it's worth, we're slightly more relaxed than the other places you've named and I know that you won't be able to go to any of them to do our subject or anything even vaguely related. I didn't say "and on past experience from when we were even more relaxed to the point that we might have admitted you, you would almost certainly fail, and the last cohort where we did that less than 5% of them made it to finals". Sorry.

"My school said these subjects would be ideal".

They're catastrophically wrong. Did you look at any prospectuses before choosing your subjects? No. And off they went, their hopes destroyed by 0915.

What the fuck are schools playing at? Why do they let children who don't have middle class parents get into this situation?

But it should be possible to study any a-level subject rigorously/to a high level.

There are, obviously, exceptions, but the obvious qualifications for teaching X at A Level is a first degree in X plus a PGCE. There are lots of exceptions, and people end up teaching maths off the back of their physics degree, or computer science off the back of the engineering degree, or politics and government off the back of their history degree, or whatever. Some minority subjects are taught at A Level by someone with quite tenuously related qualifications, although you can profitably enquire as to the outcomes.

But law? How many schools employ a teacher with a law degree, or post-grad law qualifications, or who has worked as a solicitor via some other route to a practicing certificate, or who has been a legal executive, or anything even remotely related? Ditto sociology, and to a lesser extent business studies. How many people teaching these subjects have post-18, or even post-16, training in the subjects?

The schools that offer these subjects can't have it both ways. If it's the case, as I suspect they would argue, that a skilled teacher can teach anything, then what's their excuse for not offering Further Maths? Why can't the history teacher teach it? Ah, so there's a subject where you do need some background in the subject. So how do they offer law? Well, the history teacher teaches it. But the history teacher can't teach Further Maths, can they, so why can they teach law?

So that's pretty much the definition of rigour: a subject where it is harder to teach it without having at least some qualifications.

And watch out for the first post 92 to offer medicine in a few years!

Why would we be waiting? Peninsular.

a subject where it is harder to teach it without having at least some qualifications.

A subject it is harder to teach without having at least some qualifications or experience, shall we say. In the case of law, "what contact has the person teaching A Level law had with law other than teaching A Level law?"

Gemauve I'd guess half the Law lecturers in the country have never actually practiced!

And I know several people teaching A level history without a history degree.

Peninsula - true, although Exeter was the lead institution when it was founded.

I think you are missing the point titchy. An a-level that only enables a student to study a subject at a lower level isn't really an equivalent a-level. It may be a perfectly acceptable qualification in its own right, just not really an a-level.

gemauve, I understand what you are saying, but surely the end result of a badly taught subject is poor results. An A in law should not be less valuable than an A in English or history if the exam is doing its job.

But subjects like Law and Business Studies A levels ARE perfectly ok for lots of degrees - THAT was the point. They don't only lead to lower qualifications.

They'll just be acceptable to a different type of university, which in MN terms will be inferior, and although I'm not for a moment suggesting that a 1st from London Met is of the same parity as a 1st from the LSE, that degree will probably be enough.

Reading with interest.
Clearly it is schools that need to up their game. They should be the experts, not DC or parents. But it is a moveable feast.
Last week on a university visit with DS (just done AS levels) they mentioned in passing that the course he wants to do does not require chemistry to apply for 2016, but will for 2017.
An 'outstanding' secondary school near us that was opening a 6th form in 2014, was recruiting a Business Studies teacher - that surprised me. And that school offers Critical Thinking. Suddenly not so 'outstanding' after all.

Why suddenly not outstanding? Or do only MN A* kids aiming for Oxbridge deserve outstanding? Those aiming for Business Studies at Poppleton should make do with 'Requires Improvement'?

As a person not directly involved with education (other than through my own child going through the experience), my expectations would be that any A-level syllabus and teaching ought to be structured in such a way as to form an adequate building block for a student who wishes to take that particular subject further to degree level.

Accounting, Law, and some others seem to failing that basic test. Is it just the teaching or is the syllabus not adequate?

Eton offers Music Tech, Drama and DT A Levels by the way

titchy you say that certain degrees will be good enough. But for who and to do what?

There are IMVHO a number of institutions and courses that are not good enough full stop. They exist to part students from their cash and little else.

The fact that they are full of students who can ill afford the time and money they are wasting, is a disgrace.

silver I can't speak for accounting but the law A level syllabus is poor. It barely touches on certain aspects of the law that are founding stones.

However, those stones are very large and can't really be properly examined within the time constraints of an A level IYSWIM. So you either end up with a little bit of everything but no depth. Or a proper examination of a tiny bit.

Law doesn't lend itself to study at A level TBH.

For most people Word. For most jobs that graduates tend to do. For those wanting to teach. For those who aren't really sure what job they want, but spend their post graduation years working in several different roles and environments till their experience informs them of the sort of career they want. Most of us!

Very few kids know what they want to do at 16, 18 and even when they graduate at 21.

Those that have a very clear idea are rare, and clearly need to get the best advice and make the right decisions early on, but mostly people get where they're supposed to get to one way or another.

Eton offers Music Tech, Drama and DT A Levels by the way

I should imagine that, with the facilities they have there, those A'Levels are probably the equivalent of an undergrad degree from most places.

It's also probable that those A' Levels are not being taken to support applications for completely the wrong university courses.

Why should schools even need to be constantly brushing up on which A-level leads to which degree course? Why not have a system that's simple and transparent and doesn't require a knowledge of a byzantine system of relationships between A-levels and degree entry?

They certainly won't be the equivalent of an undergraduate degree don't be ridiculous - they sit the same exam as us lesser mortals.

And yes I'm sure that Eton won't be advising Hugo who wants to be a doctor to do Drama and Music Tech, but I was trying to make the point that a pp put that offering Critical Thinking and Business type A Levels indicated a school no longer deserved its Outstanding status.

titchy I don't buy that people end up where they're supposed to.

What seems to happen is that people end up on particular courses, at particular universities and in particular jobs based very much on their social and economic background.

It keeps the status quo very firmly in place.

I disagree, there are far fewer manual jobs than there were. We are an upwardly mobile society. Going to university is no longer seen as the preserve of the middle classes. And those graduates have ambitions beyond what their parents would have been comfortable with.

30 years ago the child of unskilled parents would have gone on to become a care assistant. Now they'd be as likely to go to university to do Nursing, and in turn that nurse's children may regard medicine as a real possibility.

So the middle classes attempt to preserve some sort of status quo by stating with absolute conviction that non-facilitating A levels and non-RG universities are inferior, thus keeping everyone in their place.

A la Two Ronnies

Why should schools even need to be constantly brushing up on which A-level leads to which degree course? Why not have a system that's simple and transparent and doesn't require a knowledge of a byzantine system of relationships between A-levels and degree entry?

Many of the issues raised in this thread have not changed in ten or twenty years.

The relationships between A levels and degrees are made clear in the Russell Group's Informed Choices brochure which is widely advertised and distributed.

30 years ago the child of unskilled parents would have gone on to become a care assistant. Now they'd be as likely to go to university to do Nursing, and in turn that nurse's children may regard medicine as a real possibility.

The system is meant to enable them to be a doctor now.

I thought all the research indicated that social mobility in the UK is a lot worse than it was 30 years ago?

Here's one academic paper asserting that.

Gemauve Exeter is not a post 1992 university.

I'm a bit stumped by the idea that the university entry system is byzantine. It's all there in the prospectuses. Anybody who bothers to check can see that if you want to do Physics, Economics or Computer Science (to name but three) it is a very good idea to have Maths A level. Universities are usually very happy to give more detailed advice in response to particular circumstances, over the phone or by email or at Open Days. Anybody can access that.

The problem isn't that universities used to accept any old A level subject and then thought 'Oh no, the oiks are doing A levels now, let's ban the ones they do in comprehensives!' The problem is that university courses need certain types of knowledge and skills which traditional A level subjects provide. The newer A level subjects are not as good for this but nobody seems to have bothered to explain this to the A level students from less clued up families.

And then of course there are the resolutely anti-elitist teachers and heads who refuse to listen to any talk that all A level subjects are not equal - and the heads who want to bump up their results and push students towards the easier subjects - and the schools that can't get together a viable A level group for hard subjects like Further Maths and German so who don't offer those subjects and persuade the students to do Law and Accountancy instead.

Depressing.

Many of the issues raised in this thread have not changed in ten or twenty years.

And the rest. Many of them were true thirty and more years ago, it's just that there were fewer weak A Levels. You still needed maths for a whole bunch of subjects.

Every word of Gasp's last posting is right.