ABOUT TO FAIL A’LEVELS!- What next?

[Fabricanta]

DS is at an Indy and in upper sixth form. To give some background, he is bright and capable but as lady as sin. He coaster through GCSEs and managed 6A’s 3B’s and C all by the skin of his teeth. Started A’levels and inspite of so many warning. At home and school has continued in the same fashion, hardly any revision, never opens a book just does a few revision questions.

End of last term exams he got a woeful BCE. He decided to retake them and has just told me yesterday, that the E subject is now worst does that mean a U? The other two remain unchanged. Now this is where it gets really weird. Shocked I asked what school have said about his predicted grades and his reply was the head of the failed subject said they will predict him a B in that subject but he’ll have a hell of a lot of work to do. DS doesn’t seem bothered by this.

My feeling is they are managing him out aren’t they? How the hell can they predict a B for somebody who has failed that subject. He basically hasn’t even got enough grades to do a prediction, he is short one A’level and if he couldn’t get the E up to a decent B during the 8weeks of summer how on earth is he going to do it now?

So what are his options? Take him out immediately?isnt it late to join a BTEC course? Let him complete his current journey but then enrol him somewhere to retake? Can he do a foundation yr at a good uni? Just to add, he is an August born, I don’t know wether that will affect funding for further education.

I have not slept all night, very sick with runs and sweating that suddenly came after news arrived, so please be gentle.

thank you BigBlue. Sounds like BTEC could suit DS very well, and I can sell it to him as NOT lots of revision & homework which is what he struggles with.

What are your son's interests? What subjects was he good at in the past?

I agree that there’s a disconnect between BTEC style learning and a degree. But a BTEC in the hand followed by no degree is a better outcome than no A levels AND no degree.

A lot of BTEC students continue on to a HND, which is equivalent to the first two years of a degree. Then they do one year at university to top up to a degree. The style of classroom based learning and coursework for HND is the same as BTEC, so students receive a lot of support. Then they only have one year of traditional university to cope with. And worst case scenario, if they fail that one year at university they still walk away with a HND.

What KeneftYakimoski said about parking the university issue and focussing on A levels or similar for now. As a few posters said, your DS current problems will be barriers and precursors of further problems at university, so you need to really identify the barriers for his success now and remove them as much as possible first, and then re-evaluate his path to the suitable career.

I had to grapple with similar questions for my DS, however due to trauma and health problems, not attitude. But some of it might be relevant. The lack of work and effort thing could be a psychological reaction, anxiety and denial due to GCSEs not being as high as he expected. Loss of confidence. That in turn could be because he feels he knows all the answers and can do all those questions, but somehow in the exam hall it does not happen. If this is roughly accurate, why it doesn't happen is the real question.

For us the answer was obvious from DS's particular circumstances. You need to put your finger on what is really going on for your son. Did you get copies of his exam papers and discussed with teachers where, how and why does he lose marks? They seem to think he has the ability, they must have an insight. How does he explain what is going on in exams and why his marks are not what he hoped for?

Your DS seem to be drawn to logical and quantitative subjects, yet struggles with maths, which is contradictory. Does he have some specific blockages and a good underlying ability? My DS, as I said in different circumstances, had some odd selective blockages for some units of his Further Maths A lelels, while getting A* on other units. He could do some more difficult maths, but would go 'off line' when he saw some specific topics. We had to deal with those blockages, panic, 'escapism' before he could progress to uni.

And also this
You presumably pay for a phone, a console, a Netflix subscription......(insert thing he does actually give a toss about here). It’s time to introduce some performance related pay.

Well he has chosen pretty hard A levels.
What did he get for those subjects at GCSE?
Ds's school say they need an A* or an 8/9 to do Maths A level. It is a huge jump, hence the new curriculum, too late for your ds.

What does he say about it all? Is he really lazy or is it beyond him? If he is set on uni then I would be looking at starting his A levels again. Which A levels are a requirement for computer science?

DD dropped put after he second year of A levels doing Maths, Biology and Geography. She was suffering with anxiety and depression. She actually got AAB at AS levels but the cost was too high for her mental health. The college tried to press her to finish her Alevels but she wasn't able to do that at the time. She enrolled in a Extended BTEC in Applied Science and is doing well. I don't know about 'easy' - she certainly seems to be working very hard but without the big looming exam stress of A levels she is much happier. I know the tutor looks at the assessment she hands in and she gets a chance to amend them after that before final submission.

She is hoping for DDD at least and is planning to go to university to study Bio Sciences. So far so good. I guess it's horses for courses but it suits DD.

You will need to fund a BTEC

Not if you go this year - its free until 19. Colleges around here are still enrolling so if he wants to go and him wanting to go is the key here, then I would choose a 2 year extended diploma. The top grade of D D D attracts the same ucas points as 3 x A at A level. Lots of universities take them.

If he’s bright he can catch up. Have the conversation about whether he’s prepared to make the effort and if he is then get tutors. Online through something like Alpha tutors. Face to face from local recommendation. Book him into half term and Christmas crammers like Cherwell college.
Get school to provide more structure and supervision with added tuition.
Remove blocks to work. No internet except for working until he’s completed 2 hours work a night minimum. Ask house staff or tutor to check what’s happening in study periods.

No food until assignments done well. No lie ins at weekends until he pulls socks up. Sport is good though, in moderation.
Reward for full weeks hard work - pizza or something on a Saturday night.
It can be done. We dragged our son from poor AS results overall to 4As at A2. Goodness it was hard work though and he now says he’ll be forever grateful that we took a hard line.

One DD went up from a D in AS mock to an A at AS on one of those intensive two-day courses. She was coasting before. She was motivated to do well in the public exams though and it kick started her revision. I think she'd just been ignoring all the things she didn't understand before that!

One DD went up from a D in AS mock to an A at AS on one of those intensive two-day courses.

In maths?

Yes maths.

She is pretty numerate but was highly focused on her social life and drama !!

I don't pretend it was just the course- but I think it helped her understand some tricky things and also changed her mindset so she was more positive about the exams.

What were the school's Y12 exams like? At the selective independent school where I teach, the Y12 exams are deliberately pitched above the level of AS and are much more like the A level will be in level and, sometimes, content. We are usually happy to predict pupils who get B grades in these exams As in their A2s because we know we're stretching them in Y12, especially in science and maths subjects.

Has the school explained how the internal exams were set and graded?

He’s not going to fail his exams though. He’s on course for perfectly adequate A level grades in two subjects: possibly really good grades if he pulls his socks up. The problem is maths.

I think you need advice from school about whether they think he does have potential to get a passing grade and is just screwing up or whether he’s genuinely reached his limits. Science courses are a buyers’ market so if he can get that grade even up to a D then there might be possibilities. I’m speaking here as the parent of a child whose GCSE maths went from 6 in January mocks to a solid 9 in the real thing so it is possible, but not for everyone.

Plenty of students get BBD in A levels would not be the end of the world by any means. No need to pull him out or restart, but just keep going with the poorest subject.

Ds's school forced him to restart one of his A levels in Year 13 because he didn't get the minimum C to progress to Year 13 (No ASes, internal exams) He did a subsidiary Btec as an one year A level subsitute and did very well in it, top marks, but really what he should have been encouraged to do was continue in the D level A level. If he had achieved 3 Cs that would not have been the end of the world. He ended up with 2 Cs and a Distinction Star in Btec, which is fine for his course, but for later life I think it would have been better to just plod on with the A level he had started. Very boring having to explain the Btec to most unis in applications, some had not heard of it, and Glasgow outright rejected those with Btec as part of predicted grades (in the subsidiary)

If he can get his Maths from an E to a D or a C that would be still worth something. BBC is perfectly respectable.