Can students retake Alevel years at 6th form college?

[F1rstTimeVegGrower]

My dd has had a wobbly few years with MH. About to start Alevels. If she needs to retake her first or second year. Is that a possibility?

Yes most centres will allow the retake of one year, but not both because they don't get funding for adult learners.

What does that mean? You can retake the first year but not the second? Can you fund it yourself. If so, any idea how much it would cost?

You can retake your first OR your second, you can't have 2 attempts at both x

I worked in a college for many years and they would allow the odd student to resit but they didn't receive funding for them. So if that student's attitude, attendance, punctuality etc were great normally but they had a blip halfway through the year leading to some time off and they couldn't catch up, then that would be the sort of student they'd allow to resit.

Are you sure that A levels would be the right course for your child, OP? They can be demanding, especially now that they only take exams at the end of the second year.

Pressed post too soon. If she wants to resit EXAMS after this she can fund that privately but won't be able to attend college and be taught, as far as I know. She could enroll and pay for adult college/night school x

DS's school has Y14s but as a pp has said, they can only resit one year, so sometimes they are do Y12 again, sometimes Y13 but either way they are funded until they are 19 and after that there isn't any funding so they have to leave.

Colleges can get 3 years worth of funding for a 6th former I believe so many do let them either retake year 12 or year 13 but as another poster says not usually both. I think they will let you resit exams as a private candidate if you need to after leaving.

So is it best to wait until completely guaranteed 100% ok( could be waiting forever)until you start at all for Alevels or do you have to start before 18? Dd v bright, wouldn't struggle with the work, just her MH.

Where do over 18s do Alevels?

My ds did badly in one subject at AS level and so decided to start again, he retook a year with 2 a levels the same and 1 new one. He did much better and fingers crossed will get good grades In this odd year. It would have been better if he had just done 2 years but he has got there in the end.

You can have a maximum of three years funded in post-16 education, so if your DD had difficulties in yr12 she could start yr 12 again, or if she had difficulties in yr13 she could restart yr 13. What she couldn't do is restart from the beginning of yr12 if she had problems once she was already in yr13, because that would mean four years of funding.
There is the possibility of sitting A levels as a private candidate (i.e. just paying for the exam, not at school/ college), the cost varies with the centre but it's usually a couple of hundred per subject. These can be taken at any age. Unless you persuaded a college to be paid to take her on (not sure how likely this is, I suspect not), you'd also have to pay for private tuition if she wanted help with her subjects, which is usually around £25-30 per hour.

If she didn’t do Alevels in Sep what do they make her do? Can she just sit at home self studying or does she have to be in some form of education?

Colleges only get full funding if they re-start doing different ALevels, so there may be some resistance to accepting someone to redo Y12 with the same subject choices. If it's someone who has been with us Y7-11 and they were I'll in this way, we would let them restart, possibly with one subject change (to something more achievable say, or drop to two subjects) and take the hit on funding. As a school, we'd want the best outcome for the child, it's not all about money.
We wouldn't necessarily do that for someone from another school, unless there were extenuating circumstances. (We've taken someone this year that won't be fully funded but morally it was the right thing to do. We can do this because it's only 1, not lots that request it).

Is she ill now F1rsttime?
I'd have thought she could defer due to illness

Colleges/schools get funded about £4800 per pupil for A Levels.
Would she be up to studying one subject from home via a virtual college? Then she could go at her own pace without becoming overwhelmed. People do A Levels in Home Ed- maybe ask on Home Ed board if that's something that would work for her?

I'm not sure but I think you can only attend college up to and including at 19 years age. So she couldn't just wait until 24 then go to college with the 16 year olds for example.

Would home school for college be better for her possibly? And then pay to sit the exams? You can do that at any age.

I think the law is she needs to be in full time education til 18 - obviously she can be excused if there are health issues, of which mental health is obviously an issue to excuse her from formal education.

I thought the same as what Haskell has said. My friend's son failed his year 12 he believed, as did his mother that he could just resit. But, the college said no, he would be taking the place of a student who could potentially do really well, why would they give that place to him when he had wasted his opportunity? He could re-do year 12 with different subjects or transfer to another college and start over. He dropped out and started working.

This would obviously be different with your DD because it is a MH issue not a lack of commitment on her behalf.

How was she fairing with GCSEs? A levels are different because you are down to just 3 subjects but you have to love them. Ds is doing 4 A levels and still has 5 hours of free periods every week. Is she looking at a sixth form? Is it one attached to her school? What do they advise?

I think the law is she needs to be in full time education til 18

I don't think it is the law, but they are encouraged to be in education, employment or training of some kind to avoid being a NEET and then hitting 18 and claiming benefits.

Her circumstances are health related.

She can study at home in September - she can be home educated. It's generally considered quite hard work to home educate for A levels though due to the specialist knowledge required, and self-study is really difficult without input and support from parents/ online education provider/ private tuition. Basically A levels are really difficult to do if you don't have someone to find and collate resources, plan what you should learn when etc

Not sure what GCSEs will bring as she didn’t sit them due to CV. High grades should have been easy but had a bumpy couple of years.

I looked on the gov site re school leavers,the third option is work and part time course. Can you do some GCSEs part time and where would you do them?

Could buy us some time for a year. But would that then make A levels a bit risky as you’d only have a couple of years left instead of 3 if needs be.

The state school sixth forms near me no longer allow students to retake a year. The funding is simply not available to them. It's also clear that those who do poorly at a level rarely improve their grades if they resit. A levels are really hard. If DD wants to do them, she needs to find a school or college with excellent MH support

This may be wrong.
My understanding is there is up to 3 years funding, but not to retake exams if passes are obtained.
So if she had a wobble in the second year but took the exams anyway and came out with 3 Es there wouldn't be funding for another year to retake.
But if she had a wobble in the second year and didn't sit the exams or came out with 3Us there would be funding to repeat the year.
Provided of course the college thought she would do better next time.

Not sure what happens if she gets just 1 pass.

F1rstTime the school leavers thing is for the vast majority of students, not those suffering with mental health. It is also to do with child benefit stopping if they leave education or training at 16 so some people are affected by that and any other benefits being claimed for children. No-one will come knocking on your door holding a clipboard asking what she is doing with her life.

How does your DD feel about A levels? Has she chosen subjects? Talk to her school either pastoral or head of year to get their side of it, how they think she will cope. She has June, July and 2/3 of August before her results are in. Use this time to help her in whatever way she needs.

There are other routes into university, it doesn't have to be A levels, it can be BTECs or she can go to university when she is 20 or never. You do not have to have your life planned out at 16. She has plenty of time to figure all of this out as long as you can afford to support her.

@TeenPlusTwenties The school where I work does allow students to repeat a year to improve their grades even if they passed, & we've had many students mess up in year 12 (eg. get a bunch of Es) and then repeat the year, grow up a bit, & end up with good grades at the end.

Blue that would be taking ASs wouldn't it, which aren't the full A level (or Level 3 equivalent). I think its funding to take a 3rd year when you already have A level passes which isn't allowed.

Teen We've had y13 students resit y13 to improve their A levels too. I had one student who got a C the first time but went on to get an A* (with 100% in one exam).

I always think it must be so boring for them to sit through the same lessons all over again.