Bright child, good school, Year 11, got to choose A Levels. Tell me - 3 or 4?

[nonnomnom]

If your child is reasonably bright and at a good school, can you tell me if they will be expected/are expecting to do 3 or 4 subjects, now that AS Levels are largely going? (Not counting those doing Further Maths or General Studies here.)

DD's school surprised me by saying they needed to do 4 - even if essay subjects - but dd now saying she's only going to do 3 as there only 3 she really wants to do and better to get 3 good results than 4 mediocre ones.

But will decent unis expect 4 now? Or at least 3.5?

What will most Year 11s be doing? National guidance seems unclear.

Thank you...

And it's well known that there was particular opposition about the structure of the programme from Cambridge.

The main criticisms in the meeting with Gove were subject specific and not about the overall structure of the programme (loss of AS).

Talkin I still don't get why you think predicted grades with final A2 grades to clinch the offers are worse than AS levels for contextual. All the same contextual flags will be there.
IMO what will be a problem for the present year 12s and year 11s is that for the first 2 years of new exams is that there will be unfamiliarity with the exam question style and therefore more thinking on their feet required by the students. That will work against the schools that are very exam technique orientated and really drill their students but the effect will only be temporary.

incase
My concern is that low achieving schools have historically underestimated their bright kids and held them back

just remember some of shegots anecdotes about the shite careers advice she hears as part of her WP work

If we go back to predicted grades and those same staff start to underestimate their kids again, the Top200 Unis will struggle to keep getting the kids from WC backgrounds in the door.

Also kids who change school for A levels will have teachers who do not know them very well when making the predictions ....

A big problem is that state schools and colleges tend to under predict, and private over predict, so without AS grades to support the prediction, many state school kids are likely to think they're not quite good enough to aim for high ranking institutions. MN kids aside of course

disquisitiones you're referring to a specific single meeting with Mr Gove. The opposition from Cambridge hasn't been resticted to that one single meeting. Cambrdge has voiced very strong opposition to the loss of AS, and very publicly, not just behind closed doors. You'll know very well that Cambridge sent a letter round to HTs lobbying them to continue with AS before the election. But since the election went the wrong way, it's become pretty clear that what Cambridge wanted to happen isn't going to, as you yourself said in a post upthread.

Historically pre AS is a long time ago and I think most teachers don't want to hold DCs back who are clearly doing well. Good AS grades are not necessarily encouraging students to apply who are put off by their background. Schools which hold pupils back manage that with the AS level system by poor advice and teaching.
In fact I think the AS system favours those pupils from schools with the best exam taught technique whilst pretests may be more able to test ability

University admissions will likely give a margin of predicted grades from schools that are poor enough to under predict despite the evidence of internal Y12 exams. For overpredicted grades, well the students may get offers but they won't get places if they don't achieve those grades or pass the pretests for the top courses.

But before 1989 when the AS was brought in, the school leaving age was 16 and a lot less kids took A Levels and a lot less went to University.

As Titchy says, private schools are very good at bigging their kids up
and many state schools are much more cautious

so top Unis will have to put shed loads of work into contextualised offers
or the Widening Participation efforts of the last 25 years will just end up in the bin.

I really can't see how Molio cannot say the whole thing is a mess. It's one huge cock up and anyone involved in education knows that!

One of the problems is that the govt rushed through these changes without time for trial runs... This has meant that we have no idea what an A (or any grade for that matter!) is. The exam board won't know what an A is... They haven't released grade descriptors, they can't they won't know what makes an A until the first set of students go through. So we're all teaching blind. When I give my students an A or C, I am making it up. I have no idea whether that really is an A or so on. For those teachers whose teaching is similar to the old specs, it's okay - but when there are complete changes, it really does screw things up. I was at a philosophy teachers conference the other day, and the number of teachers who said their students had failed because those changes had been rushed through, and they had misinterpreted the mark schemes (again lack of guidance, although these changes were different). The effects really can be catastrophic for students.

And don't even talk about consultation that was a bloody joke. I was at the DFE for the govt consultation for RS. We told the govt you can't exclude humanism etc from the new specs... Would they listen!?! No... Now the courts have decided that we were right, and these changes are in fact unlawful. So who knows what is going to happen!

For my other subject (RS), the spec has not yet been approved, there are no resources, we have no idea what we will be teaching in Sept, and yet before then I'll have to teach myself a whole new religion so I can start teaching it to the students. If the specs get approved in Jan, they're hoping the books will be published by May or June. That will give me the whole of two months to teach myself a new religion, and then to write all my resources, lesson plans and everything the students need to get an A.... Except I can't prepare them for an A, because I won't know what that is, because the board won't tell me!

I'm just very thankful my daughter is not doing her exams at the moment!

But to get back to the OP - I took a bunch of students on a higher ed conference the other day and they had admissions people from Kings and Oxford there. Both said 3 A levels + EPQ would be fine and all they need. There wouldn't be an advantage to doing 4, with the exception of maths / further maths.

I'm not an apologist for the government Kitla but I do quite like the general thinking behind the changes with the major (very major) caveat that the changes across GCSEs and A Levels are going to cause real problems for the less able, who matter every bit as much as the more able. They need proper but different provision.

On the 'one huge cock up' front I reckon there are plenty of people in education who welcome the end of the interruption to teaching each January and June and quite like the challenge of the new specs. I think you're just generalizing because you aren't in that camp. From a parental perspective I think it's far more productive not to moan incessantly about how this cohort are as flies to wanton boys and to just get on positively with what's on offer. Otherwise all the negativity and woe is you is going to filter through to the kids. I'm quite happy with what's there for my two guinea pigs anyway actually, but I'd be very, very worried if they were less able. That's where the real deficiency in all this lies.

^As Titchy says, private schools are very good at bigging their kids up
and many state schools are much more cautious^

This may or may not be true, I am not sure whether the supposition is actually borne out by fact. From mumsnet it would seem that a lot of state schools seem to predict their students all A* at GCSE so also seem quite optimistic about grades.
I think if private schools 'bigup' they would be doing it in the AS system by their references anyway and predicted A2 grades so if it is happening consistently the universities would be aware. As I said for overpredicted grades, well the students may get offers but they won't get places if they don't achieve those grades or pass the pretests for the top courses.

Glitches in the implementation of a system for syllabus and specs I can see as a problem (my DCs will have to put up with it over the next two years) but why a devotion by some posters here for a system of continual exams for our DCs which take away time from actually teaching subject matter and exploration.

But before 1989 when the AS was brought in, the school leaving age was 16 and a lot less kids took A Levels and a lot less went to University.

and now there are a huge number more university places so more offers to be had.

I'm not sure that either under or over predicting grades is helpful. What's needed is accuracy but I can see where teachers are not sure what constitutes a particular grade in this new system makes that harder in the early stages. Disquis's post above makes more hopeful reading.

I think I am right that DS's school would not give official predictions to the pupils or parents.

Universities do have time to think about how accurate the prediction is based on the applicant's school! It's mostly administrators that make offers anyway.

Obviously those private school applicants who's predictions turn out to be over-inflated won't make their offer, which is as it should be. The problem is the state schools who maybe predict 3 X Bs, and so the applicant doesn't bother looking at Durham or Bristol as they don't think they'll achieve good enough grades, so they go for the safety of a lower ranking place.

PP - I certainly hope your school tells you it's predictions - how is your child supposed to make decisions about where to apply if they don't know what grades they're predicted!

Sorry universities DONT have time!

The problem is the state schools who maybe predict 3 X Bs, if that does happen then, as now, students can apply post A levels and earn some money for university through working during gap year.

Do state school teachers get penalised for over predictions? Why are they more likely to want to under predict A level grades than private schools?

incase I don't think anyone is wedded to public examinations in year 12 per se.

It's more that the current position of some in and some out is unhelpful in terms of trying to level the playing field.

And whilst the idea of extra depth and exploration is appealing the reality is that many schools and colleges are using the demise of AS as an ideal opportunity to cut costs.

Students are being offered three choices with much less teaching time.

It makes sense for the budgets ( which have been slashed for post 16 education) but actually provides less for the sixth formers.

BTW my concerns over what happens to the current crop of year 12s and 11s are not fuelled by my own DC.

Their situation is very privileged and protected from this mess.

Rather my concern is for the continuing widening of participation to the most selective universities which cannot be divorced from what happens in state sixth forms.

The government. ( and the public to a certain extent) expect these universities ( Oxbridge in particular) to widen access, level the playing field etc whilst introducing measures in the secondary education system which make this more difficult.

SheGotAllDaMoves why exactly do you think the changes will make access to top unis more challenging than it currently is?

I feel far more concerned about the less gifted. The new GCSEs ignore the needs of a whole sector of young people and that's before one even gets on to the new specs for A2.

SheGotAllDaMoves why exactly do you think the changes will make access to top unis more challenging than it currently is?

Poor choices of subjects could well become an even bigger issue with students taking 3 rather than 4 subjects at AS, and then dropping one.

You could argue that particularly at the very able end of the spectrum, having to do three will concentrate the mind.

Shegotalldemoves the present variation in position of schools and colleges reflects the transition but is not a reason to hold onto AS levels. Disparity in teaching time is a concern but with the cuts in funding of sixth forms the present AS system would also have suffered, either by teaching time or quality of teaching or by less subject choice.

If the cuts continue to impact on contact time then I see online add-on courses becoming more popular particularly when partially supported by the sixth form

Yes, I'm not convinced that the demise of ASs has a particular impact on the issue of access. disquisitiones has explained how Cambridge intends to tackle the lack of ASs/ mixed offer and since Oxford has always relied much less heavily on ASs it's going to be even less of a problem there. Funding is linked to contact time so there's a basic minimum in any event and beyond that there's the funding agreed for broader programmes aimed specifically at the more able. If funding constraints mean that state school students don't do ASs in the same subject as their A2s then ironically that might actually be very helpful to them.

You could argue that particularly at the very able end of the spectrum, having to do three will concentrate the mind.

Yes, I agree with this.

My concern is that students who would currently do 4 AS and then drop to 3 A2 may well choose the "wrong" 3 A levels under the new system. It's very common that students change their minds about which subjects to continue to A2, having experienced AS. It's also common that students don't really look into which subjects they need for specific university courses until late in year 12, and then they use this information to decide which subject to drop. Dropping the number of subjects studied in year 12 will almost certainly close off options for lots of students who aren't getting good advice: I worry that there will be lots of students doing only 1 facilitating and 2 non-facilitating subjects or very restrictive combinations of subjects, unaware of the possible consequences.

Meanwhile schools which have the resources/knowledge will be making sure their students are making choices which keep as many doors as possible open. For example, stronger science students may well start year 12 doing maths, physics, chemistry and biology to keep almost all STEM doors open; even if they drop one with no qualification the improved knowledge of the subject dropped will almost certainly be useful for their university course.

It's very common that students change their minds about which subjects to continue to A2, having experienced AS.
Hear hear with bells on.
One of DDs dead cert A2 subjects was dropped like a stone after being an utter drag as AS
and her favourite year 13 option (the EPQ) had not even been on the cards at the end of year 11

For example, stronger science students may well start year 12 doing maths, physics, chemistry and biology to keep almost all STEM doors open; even if they drop one with no qualification the improved knowledge of the subject dropped will almost certainly be useful for their university course.
Hmm, you must have heard my conversation with DS yesterday