Withdrawal from GCSE exam

[Kelly1115]

My son's school messed up one of his gcse exams last year, long story but about 12 children decided to withdraw their children from the exam after being assured by the school that by doing this the subject will be deleted from the childrens' record even though they had a mark for coursework. Yesterday and to my shock I received a phone call from the headteacher stuttering and all apologetic saying that those children have received a mark because for some reason it seems they weren't actually withdrawn as we were promised and my son (who is an A* student) now has F in this particular subject! The headteacher thinks it's due to a clerical error and they are talking to the exam board but with the way this whole was handled by the school from the start I think there is a lot more than meets the eye. What is even alarming is the school only found out about this yesterday despite GCSE results coming out about three weeks! We are in despair and don't know what to do. Has anyone been in a similar situation and can offer any advice?

In general terms, anything which is "advanced work" (for example, eligible for a student loan) requires a minimum of two A Levels, and always (within the lifetime of most people posting here) did: certainly the definition was 2 Es at A Level back to the 1960s.

That's why, for example, people who passed the old pre-1990 Oxbridge admission exams still had to get two Es at A level; without it, they wouldn't be able to get a grant, and a course which didn't impose this requirement wouldn't have been eligible for HEFCE funding as a degree.

This held throughout all the time of the current AS system, and there's absolutely no reason to believe it will change: the idea that an AS was "half an A Level" never had real traction. The military can do what they want, but as Sandhurst sees itself as a university-standard, I would be very surprised if they would accept a suite of qualifications which would be rejected by all UK universities.

I think DS would like Army best but he seems firm on RM or RAF instead. I believe attending Sandhurst isn't the only route to become an officer in Navy-RAF-Marines. Anyway, will be his choice whether he works hard enough for any of these options.

blimey, > half of British Army officers came from private schools.