Year 12 struggling with A’levels or is this normal?

[worryinsurrey]

DS has joined a selective grammar school for 6th form. He did extremely well in his GCSEs and was feeling really confident about starting A’levels. The majority of dc at the school were already pupils there as they only take around 30 new students at 6th form.
It’s been about a month now and he’s finding the step up much harder than expected. He thinks he hasn’t covered some stuff at GCSE that the other dc have and it’s difficult to keep up. Is this normal at this stage and he just needs to get used to the fact A’levels are much harder than GCSEs?

What subjects is he doing? How did his last school deal with home learning during lockdown? Has he come from a non selective school? Could this be partly a confidence issue due to the school change, where suddenly everyone is at least as smart as him? Our school told us to expect marks to be low to start with because of the step up in difficulty.

It's always a huge step-up to A-level, but there are also unique circumstances for your DS.

Can you afford a tutor? There are some good online ones that don’t cost the Earth.
Otherwise, he needs to have a chat with his teachers.

There is definitely a step up from GCSE to A level.

There may also have been a difference in teaching styles, ie more focus on research / independent learning at the grammar that maybe wasn't as much as a focus at his old school?

It may also be that he has followed different syllabuses, so the children already at the school have knowledge in different key areas perhaps?

Also just silly things like having to concentrate on finding his way around and getting to know the teachers etc - all things that the other kids don't have to give any head space to.

I'm sure he'll be fine and well done him for his GCSEs!

Also this year, schools didn't have to finish the syllabus and could award grades based on what they had taught.
If this is maths or sciences (& MFL) this could be a big issue. Should be less so for other subjects maybe?

Thanks for the reassurance. He’s already dropped from further maths to maths even though he got a 9 for GCSE as he said he’s never been taught the stuff they were doing and he couldn’t get his head around it. It could be a confidence thing. Everyone is being really nice but apparently the other dc are having to explain things to him in physics too which doesn’t sound great. I’ve checked and he did the same syllabuses as the school he’s joined. Home learning at his old was a bit hit and miss tbh but he managed to get really good grades.

Did he spend any time June-August checking he had actually covered all of the triple science & maths syllabus?
With maths, did the new school perhaps do Further/Additional maths with their top set in y11?
The trouble is, schools were permitted to grade based on what they had taught, so they could have missed stuff.

I am going to against the grain and say that I don't think a-levels are a huge step up from gcse in year 12. They will have covered many of the same content and skills at gcse. The first topic nearly always covers prior learning, with a bit of extension (or at least for my subject).

But students regress going between a levels and gcse. Like going from primary to senior. Or an adult equivalent is starting a new job where you try to push a door marked pull in front of your new boss.

Also all that content they crammed at gcse has left the short-term memory - because that where most of it was stored in the brain!

He's going to have a harder transition as well coming from a different school. He has all the people and new enviroment to process. Maybe if you explain to him that the brain's way of coping with so many new experiences is to let some of the older not-so-vital facts fade from memory. Also social influences are prioritised by the brain - not covalent bonding (or what ever he studies). And dealing with all these new sensations makes it harder to process and remember new facts and concepts.

He got great grades once. He has the ability to do it again. When his surroundings and social interactions become normal for him, i have no doubt he will be academically achieving what he should be.

DS did further maths GCSE at his old school as he was in the top set but is now saying they weren’t really taught much. Not sure what they covered in other subjects I think we’d assumed they’d done everything they needed to.

Sounds as though he may have missed large sections of the gcse syllabus. That has happened at lots of schools because of lockdown and no exams. Could you get a tutor?

I feel so bad for him as there’s hardly any new ones and they do seem to be further ahead than ds which has been a surprise. So he’s dealing with that as well as getting to know a new school. He really likes all the other boys and says they’re trying to help him but I’ll talk to him about a tutor later.

Talk to the school. My son is one of the boys that stayed on at a school like this and this is the first time I've seen him really work. So the step up is not to be played down. We went to parents information evening the other day and the stress was on not falling behind. So if there's even the remotest possiblity of that, talk to the school as early as possible.

Your D's should talk to his form tutor first as well as individual subject teachers.

How organised is he? One of the things my Ds has noticed is the sheer volume of stuff. Text books, work books, exercise books, revision guides (already!) Sheets of paper. We've had to help him get a system in place to manage it and I wouldn't have said my Ds was terribly disorganised before.

Keep an eye on things. Encourage him to talk to the staff, to manage the stuff and his time.

How many self study hours is he doing a week? We were told it's 5-7 per a level plus 3-6 EPQ.

worryinsurrey can you encourage him to speak to his form tutor, or make contact yourself? My school only takes a few students from outside and it can be a culture shock for them. Mostly what other posters are saying - getting used to a new building, all new staff, all new classmates. There may be some stuff he has missed but he'll be able to catch up.

That said, the jump to A level can be quite a shock for all students. More independent study, greater organisation skills needed, increased expectation to speak up if you need help etc. Particularly with brighter students who don't find GCSE overly difficult - they are so used to just "getting it" that it can be quite a shock for them to realise they may have to actually work at understanding a new concept.

It is a step-up to A level and he won't be the only one feeling out of his depth.

I really recommend you contact the school and talk to them asap; they may have ways to support him.

It has been a strange year and, with exams cancelled, the grades are only representative of what his school covered. Hundreds of kids are in the same situation so please reassure him about that. He will realise that in A levels the classmates are going to be those who loved the subject AND who are good at it so he may find himself at the top of the class in a couple of months or realise he is just average among other maths lovers, but that is not a bad thing, he is still as good as it was before joining the new school, he just needs to catch up a bit. I strongly recommend you get the study guides for each subject so he can start catching up on his own.

My son also moved schools for A levels, and experienced the same at the beginning. I am grateful that the headteacher mentioned at the open day (mostly attended by their own pupils and a handful of prospective newbies) that most kids find they are “not as good” in A levels as they were in GCSE, and that is not because they are not as good but because they have not realised that to get the same grades they got in GCSEs, they do require to study twice as much time. DS school required 2-3 hours of self study for each hour spent in the classroom.

I work with university students helping freshers to set up, believe me, most students say that the big jump in hours of study needed was not from A levels to Year 1 but from GCSE to A levels.

There is a lot of work to do, but please reassure him he is not feeling lost just he changed schools or his previous school didn’t taught him that well but because the work is far more demanding than A levels.

But again, to reassure him, get the complete study guides from Amazon, just ensure you order the right ones for the exam board curricula followed by the school.

Great replies thanks. I do think there’s a lot of very clever dc in his classes so he’s probably feeling a bit intimidated plus looking back now he was only tested on a couple of topics for most of his GCSEs. I’m going to encourage him to talk with his tutor.

I think the difference is the amount spent on each subject, and the pressure from day one, coupled with the schools already discussing UCAS points and personal statements.
My daughter is also at a new school for sixth form, and she is finding that as schools can do different history subjects at GCSE, she has not studied some of the things that the other girls did who were at the school for GCSE. She is also finding the way one particular teacher teaches very difficult (this teacher has made one girl cry twice in class and two others said they cried doing the homework there was so much and it is graded - these girls all got 8 or 9 so they are not weak on the subject).
The expectation for them to suddenly be very self motivated and independent can also come as a shock.

It is probably a Covid thing: as he comes from a different school, his old school may have dropped certain topics from the curriculum. Schools have set exams differently, my DS school still covered full curriculum, other schools here have not.

So your DS ability is good (with a 9) but if he simply has not covered certain topics in his old school, it is discouraging for him. His current teacher can maybe check with him what the assumed knowledge is, so he knows which areas he needs to focus on?

Not fair on him, but it can be solved

Did he do any transition work for maths over the summer? A lot of work done in the first weeks of maths A-level is rehashing GCSE content so if he is struggling it's possible that his school didn't teach it because of the cancelled exams. He needs to get up to speed because a lot of future work hinges on a fluent understanding of the current work.

He is also probably not used to putting in serious levels of work at home. There are lots of online resources he could be using to support his learning - have the school suggested any? The DrFrostMaths website or videos here youtube.com/channel/UCyyRmnmtgVy5Sm7_UiCLFgQ would be good for him to work through.

Maths specific- he shouldn't be too discouraged about dropping the further maths. I work in a selective school where 100+ kids get a grade 9 at GCSE each year, but only 5-10 of those cope with the pace of further maths (they tend to drop it rather than slogging through to a D). You really need a grade 8 at GCSE to cope well with even regular maths tbh. It might also be the case that the other kids did Additional Maths gcse last year?

If he's happy enough having dropped down into single maths, then I wouldn't worry too much x

I think it's a big step up from GCSEs to A level. Both my children (who both worked very hard for GCSEs and did very well) have found that the amount of work and the level of work expected was a big jump up and they are/were in a selective school all the way through. So I suspect it is normal but that your ds has the issue where his last school maybe didn't teach enough to get him up to the level where the others are at. I'm sure chatting to the maths teacher will help as they might be able to show him the areas he needs to concentrate on.

As a teacher of three A Level subjects and a long-term Sixth Form tutor, this is extremely normal. I deal with this every year, often with students with 7-9 grades who are most affronted to get C’s and ads on the first L6 assessment. Maths and Physics are always the subjects where this issue is greatest. Second PPs’ advice about bridging the gap— some of them are Maths/ other A Level teachers.