Advice on A level resits - where and how in North East London

[dm514]

Can anyone advise on resitting A levels. My son didn't get the grades he needed. He had a bad year and didn't do the work so it wasn't due to ability but lack of revision. He wants to retake. It will do him good to take a year off and to devleop independent study skills so not a bad thing. However, he won't go back to the school and they weren't great anyway. We're North/East London. Not sure if there are sixth form colleges that take resits, or do you have to study independently / online and sit as an external candidate next summer?

There are lots of independent sixth form colleges in London which cater for retakes, if that is an option financially. Most of them are central/SW but should be reachable by public transport. Look at DLD, MPW, David Game, Collingham.

I couldn't find anywhere to do this. Weird as it a resits year used to be quite a normal thing at our local college, and they also offered evening classes where you could do an A level in a year.
The only places I found were the expensive private crammers linked above which charge several thousand pounds for each subject.

Yes I have done more research and the sixth form colleges do not accept resits. The main provider does a one year A level intensive course but only for new subjects, they do not allow resits. Which makes absolutely no sense.

Can’t afford the private crammers unfortunately.

most schools will allow a student to resit and will just re-enter them as an external the next year with the references and predicted grades. Our school has refused to do that and been incredibly unhelpful and unsupportive. as well as taking a week to reply after results day

Have you looked at Kingsway College, now part of Capital City College? It is just south of Kings Cross station, off Grays Inn Road, so north central.

My son is going to enrol there today (crosses fingers) to study for A levels, though he is in a different situation (restarting year 12 and doing something rather different after dropping out of a music diploma course at almost the end of the first year).

We're also north east London, and it's normally a fairly easy journey on the Victoria Line, or if he's happy to set out a little earlier, a few minutes extra by bus.

Is there a thread for parents whose kids are restarting/resitting post 16 options?

all the previous colleges that were independent like CANDI, and Kingsway are now part of Capital and they don’t accept resits. You can do a new subject in one year intensive but you only if you haven’t studied it before. Which seems really bizarre? As there is government funding for 18y olds to do another year post Y13

Capital college Kings X does A level in a year but not sure if you can do same subject

Sorry, seen above

How unhelpful of the current school. Can you push them any further??

There are places that will just let them sit exams, but he wants the teaching too??

The extra year is often used by students who don't pass year 12. DS2 is using it to restart, having decided that his college course simply wasn't working for him (though he stuck it out to so close to the end of the year that he hasn't counted as NEET - he stopped going in June I'm not actually sure whether DS2 actually passed his assessments for year 12 or not, because he had made up his mind to leave the course before the deadline for the last assessment, and he simply won't talk about it, but I think he had handed something in!

His old college (in Walthamstow, not in our borough - his best friend from secondary school to 16 is continuing on an art course there) has been sending me (rather than or as well as him? not sure) texts about enrolling for year 2, which suggests that he wasn't actually failed/kicked out, and it's a bit odd! I think he simply won't even respond to their correspondence at all, which is rather sad, so tomorrow/next week I am going to email them saying you've been texting me - your former student "DS2" decided after your very helpful careers advice session (this is not sarcasm, he came home from college saying this had been useful) that he would like to do A levels and he has now enrolled at Kingsway.
I believe he's still at Kingsway - he has enrolled to study for 3 A levels ovver 2 years.

DS1 completed his A levels last year, as did many of his friends, and has just finished the 1st year of university (University of Manchester). But one of DS1's best friends passed one of his year 12 subjects, started again at Kingsway and is going up to Manchester Met.