Lottie With daughters having gone/going through A levels I would say there were advantages and disadvantages to AS levels. The disadvantages were that:
*there are three years of relentless exam taking, especially hard if you are moving to a new school / college at 16 and are thrown straight into two terms of covering the syllabus at a fast pace followed by exams, one term if you are taking modular A levels. Latymer and Oratory have already done away with sitting any exams at 17, they sit AS and A2 at 18 on the basis it gives them a third term of teaching in Year 12, as well as takes the pressure off and turns Year 12 back into a year where there is more room for achieving other things beyond the exam curriculum, both academic and extra curricular. Of course it puts the pressure back on at A2 and my daughter said she would not have wanted to do them all at once just because of the sheer workload, but then she did all 4 through to A2.
*I gather research shows boys do seem to do worse by taking AS levels so hot on the heels of GCSEs, especially if they are modular, and a lot under perform. I would say from my daughters peers that frankly it is because they are less mature, though there may be other sound psychological reasons why this might be.
*They can encourage a resit culture, students thinking if they don't do well this time, there is a chance to change it.
The advantages:
- The reason they were first introduced was to widen post 16 curriculum, to have something of the breadth of the IB. In the rest of the world the UK system is seen as narrow, specialising early. It gives students a chance to do a fourth discipline, sometimes something quite different to their main specialism. For instance I think it is quite favourably looked on if a would be medic has studied a humanity or other non Science subject, shows they are rounded. It can also give an academic student a chance to enjoy a talent e.g art, theatre studies. I don't know if Gove plans to have some means of a student doing a half subject or whatever, the Labour party are talking about taking Maths to 18 for instance.
*It gives students a chance to road test four subjects before dropping one, my daughter looks like dropping the subject she most wanted to do at A level, and possibly uni, because it turns out not to be what she thought and it also turns out she is actually doing much better at A level at her other subjects than she did at GCSE.
*It gives students evidence of achievement to offer to universities in their applications to back up predicted grades. Universities do not want to see the demise of ASs for that reason.
- They can act as a kick up the back side for the lazy, room for making mistakes and learning lessons, because they can resit with A2.
I have mixed feelings about what Gove is proposing, it doesn't seem as if it will be as disastrous as what he is proposing at GCSE, and it rather depends on what emerges in terms of the curriculum, workload and implementation plan. I think putting the curriculum in the hands of universities might be a good thing, providing they get the necessary resource, in terms of protecting it from political meddling, the old universities joint matriculation boards did seem to make for a more stable playing field. From the point of view of (an element of) my specialism, at least putting the History curriculum in the hands of universities should proof it from the sort of changes he proposes at GCSE which are out of step with how it is studied in universities, unless he puts Niall Ferguson in charge.......