How on Earth do a level lower achievers get to uni with the grades that are being asked?

[NCTDN]

If I wanted to go to uni now, I'd have no chance. In my day, I needed three E grades to get into teaching, from which I've had a fabulous career.
DD is very lucky and looking at places asking for 3As (Not teaching) but I'm so shocked at how high everywhere asks for. I went to what was primarily a teacher training college and even that is asking for 3 alleged at grade b.
So my question is, what do teenagers do these days if they get grades C D or E? It must be so disheartening.

I am also a boffin!

I agree with you christina and wouldn't put things as bluntly as samuel. That said, 2 Es is very very low. I do teach a boy who is down at that level. His reading age (tested in year 9) is very low, he has extra time and use of a laptop in exams (he isn't dyslexic). I am not suggesting he should not be in sixth form pursuing something (already dropped out of college) and that some HE wouldn't be good for him - but two A Levels requiring a high level of literacy (geography and sociology) are going to result in fails or Es. Nothing to do with work ethic, or with a mental health crisis. I think some people don't realise that in many comprehensives and colleges , young people are doing A Levels with a few 4s at GCSE.

I feel despair for him as he won't countenance anything else other than uni (teaching has been mentioned). It is essentially what everyone at our school does and so he has no other obvious avenues to pursue. As percy says EEE is even low for most foundation degrees.

There are levels of BTec, though iheart and also T levels incoming (we'll see how that goes...) BTecs are often challenging in a whole different way and closer to how people study/are assessed in HE on many course.

Vocational provision is woeful in a lot of sixth from providers, too, especially in leafy, non urban areas where the demand is for traditional A Level education.

I'd love to see the actual hard evidence for that because that is nonsensical hyperbole! An E grade in the 80s might have been not pushed as much as now and could have been very lazy (students really weren't tracked at all) in which case, yes, they could get a B now. But the requirements are really not so different.

One major change in the mid 1980s was getting rid of the Quotas, it was possible to get 80% or 90% on an A Level paper but as there were only 20% of A grades available you might get a C or even a D.

Bell curves still exist! The grade boundaries are changed and adjusted!

five years ago in Eng Lit 76% was an A; the next year it was 83 and then down to 81. As an example.

I have been teaching undergrad students for years at the same institution. Despite the entry requirements steadily increasing over that time, I haven't noticed any change in the ability of incoming students.

Have you noticed a change in work ethic?

I worry about this too. My older DC is about to go into yr7, so we've got a long way to go yet. But I've already got a good idea that they won't be getting As at A level.

I went to uni in 1993. Russell Group, and got in with BBC (offer was BCC). The people I knew who'd got A's either went to Oxbridge or the like, or we're Oxbridge / med school etc "rejects" who hadn't got through the additional admissions tests. An A, and certainly more than one A, was the exception rather than the rule.

I also worry about those who aren't able to get a C in maths and English GCSE. There seem to be a lot of doors now closed that used to be wide open, such as plumbing apprenticeships etc. What happened to them?

Have you noticed a change in work ethic?

No, I can't say that I have. I have noticed that since fees were introduced, students are more likely to complain if they feel aggrieved. Not that surprising really.

@Piggywaspushed re your student who is worried about the extra year of fees/living costs if he does the foundation year, forward him this video of Martin Lewis breaking down what they will pay when they are working. It really clarifies that it isn't as scary as he may think. Martin talks to sixth formers and I think it should be shown to all year 12s.

Dh and I know that Ds1 who is in year 13 is working far harder at his A levels than either of us did. Dh came out with stellar grades, me just average, we both went to uni but his was and still is a prestigious one, mine is just meh

I also worry about those who aren't able to get a C in maths and English GCSE. There seem to be a lot of doors now closed that used to be wide open, such as plumbing apprenticeships etc.

This is so true. Lots of colleges local to hear are even asking for 5s for fairly entry level courses post 16 (and a 4 required at my place for A Levels, so it is obviously where that ends up!!). It's not because they need the 5 to get by : it is to protect their college's standards..

Thanksjohns! I did speak to him about this.

Didn't help that the careers advisor told him it was 'another year of debt' and that Gavin Williamson is also using the same expressions

I think I worked as hard as my children for my A levels but we are different people I respect their choices and priorities. Some worked less hard than I did. I graduated a teetotal virgin with prizes in law and had a really good time there but they might say they had more fun! As long as people make informed choices that is fine by me.

I had an AEE offer from Birmingham in the mid nineties.

hear = here, obviously...

I had a lowish offer from unis too in the late 80s , but I also had interviews and submitted essays.

That is a very weird offer bvop!

I think we're all being sold a pup, here.

At this moment, what post-Brexit needs is massive investment in technical skills, in high quality, post 16 education across the board education.

What it doesn't need is thousands more youngsters with a cobble together of low A levels in soft subjects, grade 4 GCSEs in core subjects after 3 retakes heading to 'uni' to do football studies, psychology degrees or the like at unis that'll admit them with the equivalent of EE at A level.

Sure, they'll never have to consider paying off that debt (unless the rules change 🤔 which they might, at any moment, as the tax-payer wakes up to the mountain of un-repaid uni debt), but they'll emerge still pretty much unemployable.

Why do we do this? Germany doesn't! Could it be our snobbery? Our inherent vanity? Our gullibility in believing that if St Gertrude's Institute is suddenly labelled 'university', it instantly assumes the prestige of a RG uni? Why do we sneer at vocational qualifications? Why has the term 'City and Guilds' more or less disappeared from our educational and training vocabulary?

Why have employers, often with no more than a couple of O levels themselves, been allowed to 'demand' a degree from new employees instead of training them themselves? Why, despite the Apprenticeship levy, have the numbers of apprenticeships plummeted? (And why is Costas allowed to even offer an apprenticeship to become a barista?)... Why do local trade/vocational colleges struggle to find good teachers? Because the pay and job security are rubbish, amid crumbling buildings and infrastructure, when many DC who should be doing your mechanics apprenticeship are instead failing A levels at the flash, well funded sixth form college next door?

I speak as the parent of two DC at uni, one doing Computing (ex-Poly), which I can see the value in, though wish he was doing it via block release from a big employer; and the other, graphic design which absolutely shouldn't need a uni degree to get that first job. Design studios should routinely offer apprenticeships.

I should add, to be fair on my two, they have 160 and 168 UCAS points apiece, first one via D star D star D at BTEC, switched to when his A levels were obviously imo heading into EEU territory; the other via D star D star at BTEC and an A star A level, so not 'the cobble together' I mentioned earlier.

Finally, I note the poster with the 2002 degree in Forensics now heading back to do midwifery....

@Piggywaspushed

There are levels of BTec, though iheart and also T levels incoming (we'll see how that goes...) BTecs are often challenging in a whole different way and closer to how people study/are assessed in HE on many course.

Vocational provision is woeful in a lot of sixth from providers, too, especially in leafy, non urban areas where the demand is for traditional A Level education.

As mentioned, my DSs did a mixture of BTECs and A levels. One was a three A level equivalent BTEC, the other, a 2 A level equivalent.

I will readily say the BTECs were easier than the A levels, but they had to keep working the whole time, and were tested in every module, so no 'luck on the day' if the A level questions were things your teacher had made a lucky guess about promoting.

Both did BTECs in their now uni subjects, so entered uni 'ahead of the game'. The Computing one breezed Y1 because he'd already covered much of the subject matter at BTEC; the other is doing Graphic Design in a rather more competitive entry Uni thus all his fellow students have a Foundation year at Distinction behind them.

But I do have a problem with non-examined courses in some subjects, like some health care environments where the ability to think fast under sudden, huge pressure is vital. So if you've got there via endless modular resits, all in-house assessments, from a uni that needs your 'pass' in its stats....

Piggywaspushed yes I agree that grade 'E's are very low and I do really feel for kids just on the 4/5 boundary of maths and English.

It was the 'I wouldn't want someone so thick or lazy' teaching my child that got my back up tbh.

I agree with lots of what you say Miljea (though not sure that I'd equate a degree in psychology with one in 'football studies'...). The UK education system is so unfit for purpose in many ways - even more so since the technological revolution - and it really angers me that it's young people and their families who are funding industry growth through student loans, rather than the other way around.

christina re psychology degrees, I did say 'from unis that admit EE equivalent students'!

A psychology degree from a RG uni is a very different kettle of fish!

But I do have a problem with non-examined courses in some subjects, like some health care environments where the ability to think fast under sudden, huge pressure is vital. So if you've got there via endless modular resits, all in-house assessments, from a uni that needs your 'pass' in its stats....

There should not be endless resits.

As a teacher and someone who has had a number of hospital stays I believe BTEC is better than A Levels for nursing.

BUT you need it to be taught well. I try to have lots of practical situations so for 'Health and Safety' you can ask for an essay but my favorite way to mark is is to create a disaster zone, patient (using the resus doll) smoking in bed on an oxygen mask with the oxygen tube draped across the floor.

leaving 'dirty' washing around and a bed pan complete with joke shop plastic poo.

I have a check list and each student has 2 mins to identify as many hazards as possible.

They do then have to do a written report about legislation and how to deal with different hazards.

The college I think that dealt with assessment and resits best had a 'grade up week'.

Basically work was handed in and marked throughout the term, towards the end of term there was 'grade up week' which had all teachers in to give support but no timetabled lessons/lectures.

If you had not passed a module you had the chance to upgrade to a pass and it was capped at a pass (unless you had special circs) if you had pass or merit you had the opportunity to 'grade up' to merit, distinction, D*.

If you were happy with your pass grades or you had already got D* then you had a reading week.

I have been teaching undergrad students for years at the same institution. Despite the entry requirements steadily increasing over that time, I haven't noticed any change in the ability of incoming students.

Of course pupils haven't become more intelligent. It's simply grade inflation.

Employers understand this too.

Really interesting discussion - I agree there has been grade inflation since my day (late 70s) but also the opportunities offered by the internet and other resources, and more exam focussed teaching, must play a big part. I had no idea about tailoring my answers to maximise my grades and had to rely on limited text books (and at A level excellent teaching, very dodgy at O level due to unqualified nuns, who had no aptitude for teaching being let loose in classrooms).
I did well at O level - 6A/3B, just OK at A level: BBC.
Offer from top 5 RG for English was 2 Bs and Birmingham 3Cs. Ended up with a richly deserved 2:2 as I did very little work. Only one person got a first in my large year group and even 2:1s were quite rare.
I think the world has changed so much since then, in a way education needs to completely adapt at all levels - to prepare for a different workforce and take into account the easy access to information - but children need to learn more about critical thinking about what they are seeing in the internet. Comparisons are meaningless, as they should be after 40 years, but classroom and university learning has not kept pace with changes in society and technology. I don’t agree with the Gove ‘back to the 80s’ reforms at all.

graphic design which absolutely shouldn't need a uni degree to get that first job.

Unlike football studies, graphic design degrees are well established and have been offered since the 1930/40s in the UK. Yale university in the US started their graphic design programme in the mid 1950s

I have an ex student at Loughborough at the moment doing graphic design. He got A A A in A Levels, all richly deserved. From a free school meals background, I am sure he would not have succeeded so well in this halcyon era some speak of.