Impact of changes to the A level on IB uptake

[Figmentofmyimagination]

DD is currently deciding between the IB and A levels. She is lucky that both are offered at her school - they have maintained a dual sixth form successfully for several years now (single sex independent) although up until now, A level students have significantly outnumbered IBers.

I am wondering whether the change - and the resulting uncertainty - over A levels for the sept 2016 intake - may push more children - and schools - generally across the uk - in the direction of IB where it is offered. Obviously the choice has to be right for the child, but in DD's case, her school has decided that it will no longer be offering AS exams, and anyway with the Gove changes, one of the key attractions of the A level for some children - partial completion after year 1 - will fall away. Also IB has a coursework component, which is interesting.

It would be good to have an AS score, to show universities at Ucas time, but the more schools that stop offering AS exams at all, the less useful it will be as an indicator - rather like the EPQ. I wonder what others think.

Bobo& / Shegot*
One of DDs friends is going to college in the US - on a sports scholarship - she is doing A levels and a BTEC but also managed 1600 in her SATs.
She'll be in the UK Olympic squad for 2020
If the school offered IB she'd have got low marks over all.
The pick and mix of the UK system has allowed her to excel in her chosen area and get some academic credentials.

Thank you for the explanation SheGotAll.

Bobo I am not sure that I understand you. Are you saying English Literature as in just texts written by English authors? I have assumed of course that anybody studying English Literature would have done the native language literature in English. With that assumption I would have thought that notwithstanding the disadvantage of less depth, insights from cross culture IB texts would enrich discussions and perspectives when studying History or English.

Harder does not necessarily means "better", nor does easier. IB is tough time wise. Observation suggests the same applies French Bac. The final two years of school in England (and Wales) seem uniquely specialised when compared with the systems elsewhere in America or Europe. Our University system is naturally adapted to this and many degrees will assume that prospective students will have concentrated on just their main subject and a couple of supporting/complementary subjects before arriving. Obviously there will be some subjects where maining a greater breadth will be an advantage, but many which assume this greater focus.

The advantage is that a University degree here is often done and dusted within three years, despite UK Universities more than holding their own in international rankings. Plus the ability to select students who have already specialised can be expected to reduce the drop out rate, with students clearer about the reasons they want to study a subject and demonstrating a level of aptitude. The disadvantage of having a system which is different from our European and North American peers is that movement between systems, either inwards or outwards, can be difficult. Hence the appeal of IB for some international London parents. And presumably one reason why selective London private schools routinely have their students taking four A levels. American students will often keep up both maths and English to A2 not just to help with entrance tests but because they need to continue with both in the early stages of a typical Liberal Arts Degree. Many Europeans obviously take their mother tongue as an early additional A level, so can well end up with five.

FWIW DD is keeping five subjects up to A2 as she wants to retain the option of applying to Irish Universities next year should she get nowhere with UCAS this, which would mean achieving four absolutely top grades, plus it gives her the option of completely changing track should she need to. DS took five as well, useful as his offer was based on four A levels and he had an off two years day on one. (Five A levels seems mainly a science thing. I don't think you would get away with it and still have lots of time for computer gaming with humanities, though an EPQ on top of four humanities is reasonably common in London days schools.)

Generalist or specialist? Both mine were very relieved to get to A level and to be able to drop English and focus on subjects they found easier. There certainly is an argument for saying that British students, and my DC in particular, should keep up English or another essay subject to the end of school and beyond. Ditto for those who find maths hard. Our system probably does land us with too many geeky illiterates or the reverse.

Whether IB or A levels is a better preparation for a degree in England/Wales probably depends on the subject. If you are aiming for, say, Liberal Arts at UCL, then IB is probably going to be helpful. Engineering at Imperial, then A levels will allow you to narrow down your studies to relevent subjects from the age of 16, meaning you hit the ground running. We had a brief look at European alternatives when DS was applying for Economics and at Undergraduate level the UK seemed to have by far and away the best offer. (Shorter course, better ranked, more relevent content, wider employment/post graduate prospects.) And indeed the traffic seems to be overwhelmingly from elsewhere in Europe towards British courses. Universities have lots of experience, and top ones are very focussed on their international rankings so will want to recruit the best students. If there is a perception that they prefer A levels as a preparation, there is probably a reason.

Having worked in an international setting I can agree with Bobo, that there are cultural differences in an approach to analysis. It would not be unusual for Anglo-Saxons to look confused as a Frenchman launched into a lengthy, seemingly philisophical, argument about something quite straight-forward. Le Monde is hard to follow, not so much because of the language, though that is convoluted enough, but the argument. Similar English papers are much easier. (And third country nationals would say that American English, bar the jargon, was easier than Bristish English. We speak faster and use more vocabularly.)

European Bachelors degrees are, following the Bologna agreement, three years and are comparable in content to those in the UK.

However in Europe it is much more common to do a two year Masters degree as well and so many graduate jobs in practice require this. For example, in Switzerland teachers would have five years of university education (cf 3 years Bachelor and 1 year PGCE or equivalent here).

In my experience UK Bachelors graduates are less educated and less mature than European Masters graduates and for some multinational companies the former may well feel that they need to get higher level qualifications to get jobs and progress.

TemporaryUserName8 - there are all sorts of ways in which analysis and writing vary across languages and cultures. I'm not sure that I can attempt any sort of comprehensive list on MN - quite apart from the limitations of internet posting, the topic is worthy of a PhD thesis at least :)

My DP (French to the core) always says about my written French (which is technically almost faultless) that I write English in French. My approach to explaining issues or solving problems in writing is very different to the French approach. The way French students write, with a visible plan, is anathema to me. One of the really fundamental underlying differences is probably that France is a pays d'ingénieurs, not of storytellers. That difference constantly shows up in any form of analysis or writing.

disquistiones - while I agree with everything you write, I think it's worth pointing out that the UK has one of the most universally selective UG entrance processes in Europe. Students don't work at the same pace or in the same depth at all universities, by quite a long shot. Three years of an UG degree when the course is highly selective and students have to work very hard takes UGs to a place that not many continental students can get to. In many countries, the wheat is only really sorted from the chaff at Masters level.

The top few universities for any given subject in the UK are indeed very selective and so e.g. Oxbridge bachelors degree will be at a higher level/pace than a typical European bachelors degree.

But if you look at top 10-20 universities as a whole (often erroneously called RG on Mumsnet, although for any given subject not all of the top 20 will be Russell Group) I don't think that the average standards are particularly different from continental standards. European universities often don't select on the basis of high school leaving grades, but they can and do throw out a lot of students at the end of the first year. Moreover, Germanic countries have grammar school systems and fairly tough high school graduation exams so the students they accept onto academic courses at research intensive universities are already top 20% or higher.

Outside the very top few UK universities I don't think there is that much to choose between bachelors degrees (in my subject area) around Europe, although comparing grades is often quite difficult. In fact I would go further and say that quite a few European universities (even outside the French grandes ecoles) work to rather higher standards: students can retake more easily so there is less pressure to pass students rather than getting them to retake. Many people in the UK might be surprised at how high undergraduate standards are in places like Greece, Bulgaria,...

On the other hand, there is not much monitoring and assessment of standards in many other European countries which means that undergraduate education can be much more variable in quality.

I do think European masters graduates are typically head and shoulders above UK bachelors graduates, and it is a shame that funding for masters degrees is very difficult in the UK.

BoboChic I have no problem grasping different styles of writing across cultures. Indeed I have direct personal experience of that even in science papers My question (which was obviously not clear) was different and relates to the texts read not when the student's native language is different from English.
A native English speaker or a bilingual English speaker educated purely with the English IB and HL English (as a native language) and choosing to do an English Literature degree in the UK would have problems with depth from what SheGotAllDaMoves says but I would have thought (my point) that the insights from cross culture texts should be a positive not a negative for HE Literature analysis.

Sure, insights from comparative literature and language are incredibly enriching but universities see those skills in prospective students as "nice to have" rather than alternative, .IYSWIM.

IMO academics often "accuse" prospective students from other education systems of lacking depth when judging them from their own cultural prism. "Lacking depth" often means no more than "they don't think about the things that 18 year olds in our culture think about".