[matthew769]

(Original post by Cutmeloose)
Some schools don't do January exams, for example I had to sit all my A2 exams in June, so only had 1 shot whilst some of my friends took the exams twice.. see my point?.

Agree totally. This summer, I had Biology on Monday, Chemistry on Tuesday and M1 on Wednesday, followed by Biology on the next Monday and Chemistry on the next Wednesday. If my school offered January exams I could have had the first 3 of those out of the way and focused on the unit 5 for bio and chem. I also would have had a better idea of what I needed in the remaining exams. Bottom line, schools doing exams in January have an advantage. Potentially cost me an A* in biology but meh

[Cutmeloose]

(Original post by matthew769)
Agree totally. This summer, I had Biology on Monday, Chemistry on Tuesday and M1 on Wednesday, followed by Biology on the next Monday and Chemistry on the next Wednesday. If my school offered January exams I could have had the first 3 of those out of the way and focused on the unit 5 for bio and chem. I also would have had a better idea of what I needed in the remaining exams. Bottom line, schools doing exams in January have an advantage. Potentially cost me an A* in biology but meh

I had two days of exam clashes. so 4 exams over two days, How would that not impact on my performance?

[lilyobz]

(Original post by matthew769)
My school doesn't offer January exams, had to sit everything in summer.

Ouch

[textbookloser]

This is the tories attempting to bring about an elitist society. Idiots.

[Chiseph]

I did all of my AS modules in the summer... wasn't too bad! I like this idea, because then the grade expectations would be lowered: getting As should be amazing, and getting Cs should be good, because that should be the average, but isn't considered so at my school.

Take a look at how the French Baccalaureate goes - they have around 12 subjects to take exams in (if I remember correctly), and my friends in French school do them all over a period of about 4/5 days, having had 4/5 days maximum of study leave beforehand. The exams are like 2/3 hours each as well - so they do these exams from 9-5 during the exam period. THAT would probably stress me out.

The highest grade possible is 20/20 for the French Bac, but Oxford requires only 16/20 because of how difficult it is. A-Levels aren't taken as seriously because they're easier...

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[Chocip]

I think language A-levels really need to be looked at. I'm currently doing French A2, and the amount of native speakers that take it is ridiculous. There's a person in my class who moved to the UK from France three years ago and is currently doing French, there's also someone else who was brought up in the French Caribbean before moving here, should they not be taking a different exam to the other people in the class like French as a first language or something? It's so unfair that native speakers can push the grade boundaries up making it harder from non-native speakers to get top marks.

From what I've heard from other people, this is particularly an issue in Asian languages such as Mandarin and Urdu because so many people are brought up speaking them.

[Chiseph]

No, of course not! Are you required to take English at A- Level? If it's not compulsory for everyone to take their native language to that standard, then it's not compulsory for EVERYONE.

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[Chiseph]

(Original post by Chocip)
I think language A-levels really need to be looked at. I'm currently doing French A2, and the amount of native speakers that take it is ridiculous. There's a person in my class who moved to the UK from France three years ago and is currently doing French, there's also someone else who was brought up in the French Caribbean before moving here, should they not be taking a different exam to the other people in the class like French as a first language or something? It's so unfair that native speakers can push the grade boundaries up making it harder from non-native speakers to get top marks.

From what I've heard from other people, this is particularly an issue in Asian languages such as Mandarin and Urdu because so many people are brought up speaking them.

Read my comment just above.

Oh, and the fact that our grade boundaries are based and how the nation does as whole is greatly flawed.

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[Chocip]

(Original post by Chiseph)
No, of course not! Are you required to take English at A- Level? If it's not compulsory for everyone to take their native language to that standard, then it's not compulsory for EVERYONE.

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I think you're misunderstanding me a bit (or maybe I'm misunderstanding you xD I'm really tired atm)

What I meant was, at IGSCE (If I'm remembering correctly) there's a French as a first language exam which is designed for French natives and there's French for people like me for example who are learning French as a second language.

So if someone who's lived in France moves to the UK and decides to do French A level (like the two French natives in my class) would it not be fairer that they sit a French as a first language exam rather than the standard A Level French exam which is really designed for people picking it up as a second language? That way it would be fairer on people who don't speak French as a first language because they're not being judged against those who do.

But then you have the whole issue with people sitting the exam in year 12 being marked against people who are resitting in year 13, whose abilities would've improved.

Sorry if I explained this in a roundabout way, I really need some sleep.

[oxymoronic]

Thanks for your opinions everyone!
The consultation response has been submitted and I'm currently working on getting your opinions into a nice summary (as I'm assuming that you don't all want to read 50+ pages of responses) so our site editor will get a piece written up soon and hopefully we'll also get it into a pod.

There were clear trends and opinions coming out from the discussions on here and also from the responses of the 150 people who replied to the questionnaire. Some of the things I expected, other things surprised me so they all made an interesting read and there were certainly some good solutions coming out too as well as opinions of the proposals.

Thanks! I'll post updates as they come through from OFQUAL too

[nanodesu512]

OFQUAL have proposed these changes to A levels:


* End January assessments and allow only one resit opportunity.

* All examination papers should be taken in the summer.

* Specifications and assessment requirements should be appropriate to the subject rather than a "one size fits all" approach.

* Universities should "sign-off" A level courses to signify that the curriculum fits with their expectations for new undergraduate students.

* Schools should be involved with the development of A level courses to ensure that the curriculum can be taught as a high quality programme of study.

OFQUAL are also considering the AS/A2 structure and whether it should be retained. They have made three possible suggestions:

* Remove the AS option entirely and have A levels as a two year linear course of study.

* Make the AS level a stand alone qualification which does not count towards the A level grade. This would be similar to Highers and Advanced Highers in Scotland.

* Retain the AS level qualification in the present form with some modifications outlined in the proposal.

how can people even think these are ok changes? it's like they're taking everything I hate about a levels and keeping it >
the idea of a "resit culture" is a daft one! there should be more effort into bringing GCSE workloads closer to A level ones. GCSE's are great, but there's too much of a gap between workloads (and A levels aint gonna get easier). It seems like most of the people in my school did well due to lower GCSE results than expected, whilst others became a bit more complacent.
The complacency then leads to lower grades in january, which act ass a stern warning to year 12's. If we were to just eradicate january exams, then the first sign of a warning would really be just before year 13.
Don't forget, some exams can just go all pear shaped; there's a world of difference between achieving 100% in a practice paper in a comfortable classroom environment and achieving it in silence in an exam hall.
I really don't see how giving students fewer opportunities and encouraging the linear (as opposed to modular) style of exam scheduling would help anyone? It just acts to increase the pressure all at one single point.
I don't understand what the limitation of resits will achieve either? there will always be people who don't do as well in the first year as others, and this isn't always due to lack of effort. It's not like we have the pressure of achieving the best AS results possible in 1 year with as few retakes already? why do we need further anxiety?

Now all that rubbish about making students either commit to full a level courses or have an AS which cannot become an a level seems rather bizarre. It throws flexibility out the windows, which A level students really don't need considering that they'll be narrowing down their subjects to 4 from more than 10.

(Original post by matthew769)
Agree totally. This summer, I had Biology on Monday, Chemistry on Tuesday and M1 on Wednesday, followed by Biology on the next Monday and Chemistry on the next Wednesday. If my school offered January exams I could have had the first 3 of those out of the way and focused on the unit 5 for bio and chem. I also would have had a better idea of what I needed in the remaining exams. Bottom line, schools doing exams in January have an advantage. Potentially cost me an A* in biology but meh

no offense to your place of education, but that seems kind of backwards to me? I can understand in some situations (e.g. in physics we took both tests in june, so that we completely understand the more abstract concepts of duality and all that stuff), but forcing people into that seems strange and unfair. Rather than limiting everyone to this, they should really encourage schools to allow for exams in january, lessening the stress on a lot of people *shock horror!*

Is it just me, or is there a general theme of the education system going backwards lately?

[hannah60000]

(Original post by Cutmeloose)
Some schools don't do January exams, for example I had to sit all my A2 exams in June, so only had 1 shot whilst some of my friends took the exams twice.. see my point?. Where did you get the notion of resitting a paper four times? You definitely can't do that with A2 exams, and you shouldn't be allowed to resit a AS paper 4 times.

I was referring to AS papers if sat in January of year 12 at least you could possible resit it 4 times if you wished to.
Well whether or not an AS paper should be resat 4 times is down to the school and the individual. I am sure this well vary from school to school. As for me personal, it does not particular bother me if a person resits a unit 4 times, however I do think that if they were to restructure the exams they should permit one resit per paper or something along those lines as things can go wrong, ect.