Facilitating subjects scrapped by Russell Group universities

[Mygoodlygodlingtons]

"Announcing its decision, the Russell Group, which is made up of 24 universities, said the list of preferred A-levels had been “misinterpreted” by students who mistakenly thought these were the only subjects that top universities would consider."

//://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/may/23/russell-group-scraps-preferred-a-levels-list-after-arts-subjects-hit

[dreamingofsun]

Errol - Economics isn't on the preferred list, so I'm assuming it wasn't one of their chosen subjects because of that. Either way if you love economics and you are good at it why should you loose out....its a pretty meaty subject

[Xenia]

My son did history, geography and economics (and is a Bristol U now). It was a good combination - 2 facilitatin subject and also economics which is regarded as a good A level albeit not a traditional facilitating one.

The problem has always been that some teenagers are not getting the correct information thinking economics and law for example are each as good as each other or that history and business studies are on a par. Whatever you call the various subjects pupils just need to be clear which A levels are better than others, ideally when they are choosing GCSE subjects so they do not at that stage rule out future A level choices

[BubblesBuddy]

You don’t ever lose out by doing economics. What they have said is that some subjects are better for specific courses. Politics for Politics, Economics for Economics. Two facilitating subjects are fine so what’s the problem? Even maths , economics and politics is fine! What economics isn’t good for is some science courses which are specific about what they want. It’s not saying art, economics, politics, history of art, psychology are not strong subjects, it’s just that they support certain degrees rather than keeping doors open. It greatly depends on combinations, degree sought and requirements set out by the university.

[dreamingofsun]

my understanding of the list (and that was based on limited info we had from bristol when we looked round) was that they had a preferred list of A levels. So according to that you would lose out because Economics wasnt on it, or pshychology, or a load of other fairly stretching A levels that just werent ancient ones that had been around since the year dot. Economics was one example, but i'm sure there are a load of others...for example geography is on it but not geology which is equally stretching

[dreamingofsun]

lola - that makes sense....not that it matters to me as my kids have all graduated or are about to. i guess it didnt help that bristol didnt actually send anyone from the subject area to my son's open day. nevertheless if you read about facilitating subjects, the suggestion is that you should choose these as a preference, which is a bit dumb if you are better at other equally stretching subjects

[Piggywaspushed]

I must say I am not all that clear what particularly disastrous GCSE choices students could make that would rule out taking a 'traditional' / highly regarded subject at A Level... The only students -again- would be prospective medical students or ones who are very keen on science , but they would choose Triple Science anyway if they were that keen.

[BubblesBuddy]

No. The advice has never ever been that you should choose 3 facilitating subjects! Absolutely not. It depends what you are studying. Physics, Maths and Geology is great did Civil Engineering. Also works for natural sciences. You really did not understand what Bristol were saying. It is never dumb to choose 2 facilitating subjects out of the three. Choosing what you are good at might rule you out of Bristol but choosing wisely won’t. Few know they are good at Geology at 16 anyway. You must understand the difference between facilitating and useful or required for certain degrees. Doing Economics and
Business Studies and Geology won’t get you on to an Economics course at Bristol.

[Xenia]

My school only offered facilitating subject A levels by the way. I did 3. That was partly because it was quite small. My friend left because she wanted to do needlework A level and the school did not do it. In those days the school did not do psychology, photography, drama, music or even RE A level.

My point above was about working backwards. Think about what you might want to study at university and work back from that. I agree that is not necessary in a lot of cases nor in the half of children who will not be going to university anyway, but for quite a few it does. Eg if you drop history but might want a history A level then that is problem. It is why it can be senible to make your core GCSEs something like history, geog, english lit, english lang, maths, a language like French (or in my case French and German) and your sciences (double or triple) and then if you want an extra software one then there is still scope for that ( I did music).

[dreamingofsun]

the chap at bristol told us that my son would be slightly disadvantaged because he took economics and they would probably expect a slightly higher grade because it wasnt a facilitator subject. they specified subjects for the degree and he complied with that. however, the info might have been wrong, since the geology department didnt bother sending anyone along to the day - despite knowing that potential geology students were attending

[Piggywaspushed]

xenia how many children do you think know what they want to do at uni in year 8, which is when many state schools make them choose options!?

That's more the reason why they should keep their options open. But, tbh, so long as they have sciences (triple if they already know they are science leaning), Eng Lit, maths and a hums of some kind they have plenty of A Level subjects to choose from. I, too, would like them all to keep MFL going but that is not the landscape in most state schools at the moment. And may have reduced students to three or four options beyond the core.

Triple science which they are pushed to do in so many schools takes up a whole option, which has knock on consequences.

I honestly cannot think so a single pretty able Year 10 or 11 student I teach who would not be able to take at least two of these subjects we call facilitating.

Has anyone else looked at the new site yet? It really is useless. I literally cannot input all my DS's subjects in there, even thought they are perfectly standard choices. there is no explanation of why they haven't included all subjects. I assume, for example, if one takes Film A level, one is supposed to select 'Media' but they are totally different subjects. business is not on there either. And yet, post reform, all subjects are supposed to now be considered rigorous, otherwise they were scrapped (and quite a few were)

[Needmoresleep]

That's strange.

Universities often don't like subjects like economics and business studies together as they feel they are too similar, but I am not sure economics was ever "easier" than say geography. And in terms of grades, humanities and subjects like economics are probably always more variable than say maths. A B in maths might suggest a student might struggle in maths modules, more than a B in history or economics might suggest a student might struggle in economics modules. (Which is why top offers often require A* in maths, but never in history or economics.)

My understanding is that when A levels were "reformed" a couple of years back some subjects were dropped and the content of others others such as economics and computer science were reviewed. Universities seem to like the new economics A level better and therefore seem to be encouraging it. (Students as well perhaps, the old one was dull.) Studying economics at A level is an obvious way of learning more about the subject, and an indication of interest. If you want to study economics at University, it would seem to be a better option than geography.

I wonder whether the A level reform is part of the reason for dropping facilitating subjects. Computer science, say, is not supposed to be an easy option any more.

[Needmoresleep]

I was replying to dreaming.

[Piggywaspushed]

You were, need but I agree with what you say and it echoes my point about Reform!

[Xenia]

It could certainly be made simpler for people. (incidentally was scanning an age 15 document I wrote of mine yesterday and I did at that age know I was almost certainly going into law but I accept that is quite unusual to pick your career that early).

I don't think my son who did economics was disadvantaged by it (for Bristol). His offer (and achieved grades) were AAA (geog, history, economics) so he wasn't asked e.g. to get A* in economics.

[ErrolTheDragon]

'The Bristol chap' alluded to may simply have been wrong - all sorts of people who should know better do make mistakes.

• Studying economics at A level is an obvious way of learning more about the subject, and an indication of interest. If you want to study economics at University, it would seem to be a better option than geography.
  *
  
  It can be argued either way, in the case of courses which don't have specific entry requirements (or limited ones eg just maths or 'a science') and don't assume any preexisting knowledge of the degree subject. I know someone who did geography at Cambridge who was told that they would be perfectly happy if she dropped geography A level, because they'd be teaching her geography - so learning more other stuff beforehand was fine. In the event she kept the geog (along with maths and physics) and ditched the English lit, but I thought it was an interesting viewpoint.

[Piggywaspushed]

There are now quite a lot of Languages degrees which offer ab initio languages : and no requirement to have done a language at A Level. I find it unlikely that applicant aren't studying Languages A Levels but it's a possibility, I guess.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Some of these issues eg no MFL can presumably be dealt with via foundation years, but it occurs to me that as pupils are entitled to 3 years sixth form education (I think?), sixth form colleges should be offering 1 year A levels, 1 or 2 subjects. It probably would only be possible to accommodate this in a large college not smaller sixth forms. Maybe some already do this?

[BubblesBuddy]

They usually offer ab initio as part of joint honours and usually want evidence of language ability. Starting from scratch with no obvious language ability at A level would be very difficult and definitely difficult at a good university. Ab ibnitio with a language talent is difficult enough!

dreaming: what course did your DC actually want? Or what was the context of the conversation? What is he studying? In what context might Economics be a slight disadvantage? If he doesn’t have Maths it is a disadvantage!

Lots of Economics students have studied Economics. However if they are not studying Maths as well, I would imagine Bristol would not be keen due to the nature of their course.

You also need to remember that the second tier of subjects are academic and useful subjects. They complement facilitating subjects. So for Geography there is no reason why Geology couldn’t be one of the A levels offered. Music would be important for a music degree. For Law, History and Maths are good but you could add in Politics if you wanted to and not be disadvantaged. Or Economics. Or Psychology.

There are A levels not on the web site, I would imagine, because they don’t have enough students taking them. Film isn’t offered everywhere! It’s niche. English Language isn’t offered universally either and isn’t great prep for any literature based degree. Literature is. Even languages are literature based at the best universities.

[Piggywaspushed]

I can see film could be considered niche (it's actually quite popular) but I couldn't find an explanation on their website as to why they had picked particular subjects for their list : Chinese is there, after all. Now that really is niche! (albeit I know it's a Language so will be there because of this factor)

But we really do need to stop saying facilitating : they have dropped the term, after all.

[Piggywaspushed]

Cardiff, for example, to study Chinese : no specific subjects required at A Level

European Languages : having the language fast tracks you but you can start from scratch in any language : it's a buyers' market for MFL.

[DitheringDan]

Starting from scratch with no obvious language ability at A level would be very difficult and definitely difficult at a good university.

I'll let you know in a year or so how that goes for DS -- off to Manchester to do joint MFL/English without a language A-level to his name, just a lot of determination.

[floraloctopus]

It's interesting that Trinity insist on Latin or Greek for entry to the Classics degree. They might as well say 'private school students only' for the 3 year degree.

[greathat]

What actually IS classics? I've often wondered, does it have any function in the modern world or is it just for people to learn to teach classics?