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In your opinion is a bad sixth form college really responsible for your bad grades ?

Or is it the effort you put in...

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It's both. I'm not at college or sixth form or whatever but my friends are back at my old school they have just finished AS. Al they ever did was study and revise and stay until 8pm to make sure they could get the best grades but in their mock only scraping Fs in maths, chemistry and physics. This was purely because the school was awful (why I left) and the teachers put in minimal effort. Also they'd swap the teachers around so frequently it was ridiculous.

Of course if you don't put any effort in you will most likely fail but I reckon it is both.
Reply 2
If you have a bad school with bad teachers, you will not learn anything. Learning by yourself is so much harder and very few can do it well
It can be both, I think.
For a levels you need to out the effort in if you want to do well so it definitely effects results.
But I know I had a level teachers who certainly made things more difficult and stressful for me such as not completing the syllabus in time and having to learn some of the course in my own time. They also didnt tell us our coursework marks and not letting us improve on them bringing a lot of people's grades down because of it.
Having bad teaching may also discourage students and mean they aren't as motivated to work.
(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 4
The quality of teaching will definitely affect your grades, but the effort as well is certainly a key factor. As already said, both will have an impact and you need to have a high standard of both.
Reply 5
well I'd say both cause you could really put all the effort in to revise the content but if your teacher doesn't effectively prepare you for the exams - teach you exam technique ect- then you could still do bad in the exams...
Reply 6
Well at my school I've had to self teach two units all together over my A-level years so I guess if i went to a ' better ' sixth form where they had more teachers then I wouldn't have had to do so much of the learning myself.
Reply 7
Thanks for your reply everyone . Just i am considering moving college :frown:
Original post by im.a.witch
Thanks for your reply everyone . Just i am considering moving college :frown:

I would move, however, remember that wherever you go you are going to have to rely on yourself, as there will always be bad/lazy/incompetent teachers wherever you go. Make sure you go ahead of the class and don't wait for your school to finish the spec, you will make your life a lot easier in the long run because you won't have to wait for them, and on top of that you when you do go over them in class you would instead only be going over familiar content.
Reply 9
I think that it is the college's role to enable you to fulfil your potential, but for you to actually do it. So a teacher enables you to get an A*, but you have to put the work in to actually get the grade (not saying that everyone aims for an A*.)


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Original post by OrionMusicNet
I would move, however, remember that wherever you go you are going to have to rely on yourself, as there will always be bad/lazy/incompetent teachers wherever you go. Make sure you go ahead of the class and don't wait for your school to finish the spec, you will make your life a lot easier in the long run because you won't have to wait for them, and on top of that you when you do go over them in class you would instead only be going over familiar content.


I have moved before and got crappy teachers at an "outstanding" sixth form centre. It seems wherever I move I get at least 1 bad teacher :frown:
Original post by im.a.witch
I have moved before and got crappy teachers at an "outstanding" sixth form centre. It seems wherever I move I get at least 1 bad teacher :frown:

Yeah that's basically always the case. Ultimately, you end up having to take responsibility for yourself and the grade you get at the end because relying on teachers can be too much of a risk sometimes.
Reply 12
Don't think you can blame anyone else other than yourself for your grades (obvious exceptions here). How can you learn much at school learning things for only 1 hour at a time? Your grades really do depend on how much work you do at home and how well you work at home. I think people who rely on learning everything at school will struggle- as you simply cannot do it. At home you can revise any topic you want. When I count how much work I've done, I don't even count the time I spent at school as it's mostly a waste of time.
That depends. If the quality of teaching sucks, then you tend be left pretty much on your own to learn. In such cases you can lack a lot of info that is not in the course books and online.
But at the same time, if you end up having no motivation to even attempt to help yourself out and learn on your own, then really, you end up with pretty low grades.

Self teaching due to a crap teacher can still score you a high grade but it's all down to your determination in the end. While you don't have much effect on your teachers/college and their quality of teaching.

It's good remembering that most of the "well known, hard to get into and great" colleges/sixths forms are based on as little guidance by the teacher as possible.

Also, in every college/sixth form you become more independed than you were in school. You're expected to be anyway. Of course, there are plenty of college teachers who are great and will offer as much help as they can in having you achieve the highest grade possible. But even then, it's still down to you to get that grade in the end. All they can do is help and teach you all they possibly can
(edited 7 years ago)
The bad sixth forms are less confident in putting forward a high predicted grades for their candidates. Private schools often put higher predicted grades; in the worst case scenario the candidate underperforms but is still accepted to that university which gave him the offer because of the high predicted grades on UCAS application.
For most subjects, there are enough resources online to make up for any poor teachers :dontknow:
In part. It's not an insurmountable hurdle though.
Effort > Quality of sixth form

That's not to say that the quality of the sixth form won't have an impact though.
You're the football team, they're the manager. If you're really good, then obviously you will always do okay (chelsea were obviously never going to be relegated this season). If you have a great manager, they will help you to exceed.
Original post by richpanda
You're the football team, they're the manager. If you're really good, then obviously you will always do okay (chelsea were obviously never going to be relegated this season). If you have a great manager, they will help you to exceed.

:yep: well explained and it's true

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