Doing AS year again whilst sitting A2-Business?

[Notsureabouthis]

My DS has just done badly (E but 1 mark off a D) in his end of year A level Business Studies exams.

He is dyslexic and misread a question, ran out of time (even on top of extra time) plus his understanding of some topics was shaky.

The teacher has suggested he does AS lessons again next year alongside his A2 lessons. He is sitting 2 other A levels (we haven’t got those results back but they’re likely to be fairly low).

We’re going to chat to the teacher - she’s great and very supportive of my son who has been working hard.

Anyone been through similar and got any advice?

Thanks.

I teach a different A Level subject but that sounds like a total overreaction to me. It’s hardly unusual for students to underperform in end of year mock exams. If he thinks the extra lessons will help him then great but in most cases I think sitting through a year’s worth of lessons you’ve already done once would be dull and counterproductive. That time would be better spent on independent study IMO.

I thought that A Levels are linear now, through to one exam at the end. So students don't get an AS grade at the end of year 12, this grade will be just from internal school end of year exams. I think doing the workload of effectively 4 A Levels in year 13 is not what your DS needs. In addition, has the teacher checked timetabling being possible for your son to be able to do this?

Thanks both. That was my feeling too. However part of his issue is organising himself so it may be good to have some extra supervision - even if he only attended some of the lessons. We’re going to spend some of the summer helping him get up to speed. Luckily my husband did Business A level himself so does have an understanding of it.

Just praying his other two subject results are better. He’s pretty down on himself.

The AS exams he has just taken are internal school ones, he could ask to resist them in September and see how he does then using the summer to support areas of weakness.

Is it worth considering repeating the year? Might give that extra time for consolidation and remove some of the time pressure.

I think a student has 3 year of ks5 funding but it is only available before they take A-levels (or equivalent) so you can’t repeat after sitting the final exams.

Hi, thanks the letterz- no way he’s repeating the year! That would be awful for his confidence. He’ll just need to resit at FE college if it comes to it or do an HND before Uni.

It is an idea him resitting in September - I might suggest that....thanks. It’s also highlighted some extra support needs - text to voice software- that the school thinks he needs. He mixed up salaries/shares which lost him a large number of marks. I think he misread it in a panic.

My dyslexic son did exactly the same in his as level for Business Studies mucked up his exam (grade d) . In fact the lecturer actually asked if he had done a different paper to everyone else! . Anyway turned it around to a B for his A2 exams so I agree with the comments repeating the year would be an extreme reaction unless your son feels he is just not understanding the topic. In which case it may be beneficial otherwise lots of exam practice should turn around his result

I think as long as it has highlighted what areas he needs to work on there isn't any need to repeat any of it. It would sound quite sensible to ask perhaps if he can redo the test in the autumn so that he has a timescale to work on the bits he got confused with which would ensure he starts next year confident he now knows what he needs to and can build on it. Starting next year lacking in confidence could be really quite damaging, if he can do the work over the summer and prove to himself he can do it then he will be in a much better place

@Notsureabouthis how does he have his a level results already if they're not issued to until August?

@user20- it’s the first year of his A level. He’s sitting them next year. It was an internal exam replicating AS level.

@Notsureabouthis ah I get you. so he is in Year 12 doing his AS' exams?

You could ask his school. My DS is in year 13 and last year a person who was in his year group failed all his AS' and was allowed to repeat Year 12 again this year and retake all his AS exams. He passed AS ict so the guy was allowed to attend year 13 ict classes and was able to do his A2 ict in year 12 along with his two other AS repeats. That means when that guy enters Year 13 next year he will have already completed one a level.

@user20 his school don’t do AS levels so it’s internal exams similar to AS.

He won’t repeat the year. It would be humiliating and shit for his confidence.

Luckily his other 2 subject results are better -a B and a C. So we’re meeting with his BS teacher to discuss a plan for getting up to speed over the summer. If you see in my OP it would have been a D if he hadn’t completely misread a question so not totally disastrous.

Feeling a bit better now the other results have come back

@Notsureabouthis yeah I wouldn't recommend a repeat Year unless it was absolutely necessary! My ds kinda wants to repeat Year 13 next year but it's not looking likely as his attendance and punctuality has been crap over the last two years.

But what do you mean internal exams? Are they mocks? If so, mocks have nothing to do with exam boards and don't contribute to the course / students grade in any way as they're done by the school to assess progress.

@Notsureabouthis it sounds like you've mixed up internal mock exams set by the school with real external exams set by exam boards.

If your dc is in yr 12 then he won't have his AS (or whatever they're called) exam results until August so therefore these must be mocks conducted by the school.

Why would he need to repeat a year if he hadn't passed his mocks? Like I said, mocks do not have anything to do with exam boards or the grade the student gets. They're merely just internal tests done by subject teachers to assess how the kids are performing within a course / they're understanding of the content and then they use these as guidance to help them improve for the real exams.

So if these aren't real exams then you have nothing to worry about

@user20 I do appreciate you taking the time to reply but it’s you who is misunderstanding! Please reread my posts.

My sons school DOES NOT do AS levels. They do A levels over 2 years and this current exam that he just sat is NOT a mock but a REPLICATION of the AS level. As such you are right it does not count but it is an indicator of a problem.

We have decided that he will work on his Business Studies over the summer with a view to doing better in his next test/exam in September.