Taking additional A leve in gap year

[Pretprep]

DD only decided what she wanted to study in year 12 after choosing her options; the degree she wants requires physics which she didn’t take. Where can she take the additional A level, assume she has to go to a private school for it? Where? How long does it take and how much it cost?

It really depends on what you want to pay. A private college/crammer is expensive but can deliver. Some good teachers prefer being outside a school environment with shorter hours, small classes and motivated pupils. That said we knew someone who taught French in a college aimed at rich British and international students (plenty of celeb students who didn't much care about UCAS points) and, well it was a different world. Private colleges will also be expert at University applications in a way that standalone night school courses won't be.

A whilst ago now, but the Italian boy we knew was unhappy in the Italian school system. He wanted to go to a British University and then it was decided he should move to a boarding school for sixth form, except the school suggested that he would get more out of it if he switched systems earlier and took GCSEs at Ashbourne in a year. Mum came over with him to support him through nine months of very hard work, but he ended up with 9 GCSEs including 8 A*s so well placed to start sixth form on solid academic ground...and indeed has done very well since.

Similarly the girl who took physics in a year was amazed at how quickly she was learning when you strip out the school stuff and simply get charge through the syllabus.

But pick the right one. Ask lots of questions. The good ones are likely to ask plenty back. They want motivated students.

This sounds like a very old-fashioned and out-of-date view of private sixth form colleges How long ago is your not-first-hand data from?

This may be a surprise to you, but academic and motivated students are asked to leave boarding schools too - it’s not just the non-academic and unmotivated who do things that get them permanently excluded. And sometimes they may have SEN or mental health needs that a boarding school can’t or doesn’t want to manage.

I drafted this badly and certainly did not mean what you seem to think I meant.

I was wanting to be helpful to OP by suggesting what she might look out for. There is a group in London tutorial colleges, either from boarding, newly arrived in the UK or seriously international rich who are not particularly serious students. Again my observation is slightly out of date but DD had a friend via her sports club whose dad was CEO of a major company and who had moved when the daughter was 16. They picked the wrong college and she found herself in the middle of a very very rich international student body where parties took priority over homework. It has also always been the case, since time immemorial that boarding schools will ask more problematic pupils to leave (drugs etc) and a proportion of these will end up in crammers.

What is different now is the cohort of international students taking A levels in advance of taking up places at good UK Universities. Which is why DLD offers boarding. Hard working, intelligent and motivated. Good classmates if you are taking an A level in a year.

If things have changed dramatically in recent years I am very happy to be corrected. At the end of the day OP needs to look for herself and ask questions, including some that might have been raised here.

@Needmoresleep IIRC from the medical students threads, your DD is now several years past graduating from her 6 year medical degree. So your info is at least 8 if not 10 years old.

Fyi, no one under 50 or who isn’t snobby calls them ‘crammers’ anymore.

My DC was at DLD. Yes it has boarding which isn’t just used by international students, although mostly is. I asked my DC, as I’d never presume to talk about student without hearing from someone who studied with them directly. DC said a lot of the overseas students were less concerned about wasting the money their parents spent on DLD than the very rich UK students were. There was a lot of drug-taking by both groups.

There were U.K. students who’d previously boarded but not many. The majority of U.K. students, and they formed well over 50% of the total, were from Greater London and hadn’t boarded.

DLD was in the same group as Portland Place and I believe a few (although not as many as you’d think) students went from PP to DLD as PP finished at 16 and DLD was marketed as the Alpha Group’s sixth form.

DLD also offers Btecs.

We weren’t especially impressed by the standard of teaching or pastoral care.

DC is now at a different private sixth form college. I won’t say which for confidentiality reasons.

I will say that we looked at Ashbourne in some depth, doing taster classes etc but chose to go elsewhere. My DC had friends who went there. The level of teaching and general engagement seemed high. They expected high grades especially for the one year courses. DC got accepted and they had very high GCSEs. We wouldn’t have considered Ashbourne otherwise because there would have been no point. A lot of these private sixth form courses are v academic these days. The crammer days are long gone.

I wince at students being sterotyped into boxes. A motivated student at GCSE level or even a first year A level student can become unmotivated during A levels for many reasons.
And unmotivated isn’t a crime, and doesn’t necessarily mean those students will be disruptive or even get bad grades.

“Chaotic” (as used by another poster) can be for many reasons, including SEND and family issues and MH and after-effects of the pandemic.

Also many students who party hard are also able to work hard. Was ever thus.

Your comment about further maths implies she is already taking maths?
A quick Google brought up the Uni of Birmingham (Russell group) requiring maths but not physics for a degree in mech eng. I’m sure it won’t be the only one.

I can recommend MPW in South Kensington. My DD needed major surgery in her gap year and they bent over backwards to accomodate her. There would be lots of people there doing a one year course - they are set up for it - and I imagine they'd not have an an issue with your DD sitting in on FM lessons and not taking the exam. (If she hasn't done an EPQ already she could perhaps think of doing a mathsy one to keep her hand in.).

They were super efficient at liaising with DDs old school for the UCAS form and reference etc and I was very impressed with the staff I encountered from the initial call to the final tutors and HoD.

Thank you, will check it out. DD did an EPQ

Mechanical engineering is very Maths-heavy and unis don't usually like a gap year, or A Levels not being taken all in the same sitting. So she needs to do some thorough research to make sure she doesn't do all that work for nothing.

An EPQ isn't usually a great help for Mathsy subjects. And a gap year is usually frowned upon.

Yes an EPQ isn’t really designed for Maths.

Mander Portman Woodward. Expensive but effective.

I cant find the fees for MPW; any idea how much it is per subject? For one year course

Its on their fees page (which isn't easy to find)
https://www.mpw.ac.uk/locations/london/admissions/fees/#:~:text=The%20tuition%20fees%20at%20MPW,both%20A%20level%20and%20GCSE.

Says 12,200 per term full time for A level and GCSE

Thanks. I think the 12k per term is for full time students; basically an arm and a leg. Not sure how much one A level will cost but doesn’t seem cheap.

Maybe she has to self study. Look for universities courses that don’t require physics.

Or do a foundation year, which has been suggested several times.

To put into context I paid about £2k in total for the EPQ with a weekly session for 2 terms plus quite a bit of toing and froing with the tutor in between times. A single A level will be less than taking 3 - I'd suggest calling them now before A level results are out as they then get inundated.

Thanks, will look at that.

Will check other ones as MPW seems quite expensive

DO but also ask MPW what it would actually cost as it won't be anywhere near £12k

Physics surely needs labs and will inevitably cost more than, say, English. As it would for a degree.

Also be aware there’s MEng and BEng.MEng is 4 years but a faster track to getting qualified. That means with Foundation it’s 5 years but is a faster return on investment. I doubt many high quality courses don’t want Physics, but worth checking via Complete university guide. BEng might be less prescriptive than MEng. It’s also possible, usually, to upgrade to MEng after y2. So check all of this out.

I called MPW and one year fast track is £5,387 per term for one subject; still quite a lot of money.

I called Ashbourne but they didn’t answer

Does your daughter have some universities she is interested in? It’s worth asking their admissions teams for advice.

Anyone without physics is at a disadvantage for mech Eng though. It is not maths by another name. Even if the unis don’t require it the best courses are likely to have dc with it.

@Pretprep What other A levels is DD doing?

Might be worth looking at the Open University as it may be possible for her to do eg a physics certificate or the more relevant modules of a first year degree. It would be distance learning but they tend to be flexible and I think a one year certificate costs about £6k. I've no idea whether its possible to study the modules she'd need though.

That could be an option. Thank you