A-levels switch to 'summer only'

Well THANKYOU for consulting us about this, Mr Gove!
I do have respect for the man but he hasn't exactly considered our views. I'm going to try and really ace my AS levels now - A2 is going to be even harder than I thought.

What about university applications? People will not have an indicator officially of how they are doing until results day in Aug, what if they messed up? They can't go to uni, Clearing will be swamped! University applications will have to be changed to meet these new demands....

You can't really expect Gove to consult students about this can you? XD Teachers, universities and employers yes, but students are overall going to want everything easy, as would anyone.

Exactly your right , there is no official confirmation until results day and by that time If they don't do well or as they wanted , the UCAS will be sent by then and will mean missing out on Uni places , clearing , above all will have to wait till may/June next year to resit : which will be extra pressure, extra burden and more stress which will not keep consistent exam results but instead increase failing rate ... I think cap on resits but do not get rid of January exams , that will be fair balance but they are playing games with children's futures and have not taken into account disadvantages : for example to poorer backgrounds ...

Thank you and good luck with your revision and exams

Not necessarily. I think that this, if implemented properly and with decent teaching, could be better. But this affects us massively, more than anyone else. It is our future and we should get a say in it. If you don't listen to what the affected party says, then how do you know which problems to address?
It's quite frankly pathetic how certain older people believe today's young are lazy and have it easy. We deserve better than that. All they have to do is listen, but oh no we're just a bunch of spongers with an entitlement complex, right?
Well I'm not paying for their ****ing pensions.

Thank you someone who understands : it is totally unfair and I personally think modules allowed greater flexibility and I am sure others will agree. It is more pressure , more workload , more burden and will lead to more people failing which I don't understand will sort out grade inflation as the point is to keep consistent difficulty and grades not increase failing rate ... The exams are not getting easier , people are more hard working and work concious and their efforts are ridiculed and lastly annoyingly changed during a levels September 2012 course which means students will feel stressed

Good luck for your revision and exams , I hope you smash the exams

Exactly! I'll be honest, all the courses I am doing now are June exams only, but when I did Biology, Chemistry and Psychology, there was so much work for each unit that it would be too stressful to take all the exams in June. I got E grades in Biology and Chemistry Unit 1, so I had to re-sit them in June, along with Unit 2 (I didn't do any better), and it was so much work that I ended up getting ill because of all the exams I had to do.

I feel sorry for anybody in Year 12 or below, for their education is being messed with again. The current Year 12 students, in particular, are the ones who are going to suffer the most, after all, they've had to deal with the GCSE scandal, and now this. During a game of football, you cannot move the goalposts around, and neither should you shift the grade boundaries/change the examinations halfway through a course.

Yes, there are some students who thought that their exams didn't matter, and that they could just re-sit in the summer if it didn't work out, and so for them, it would be a wake-up call, but for the majority of A Level students, this isn't the case, and it is just adding extra pressure to them. Having just submitted my UCAS form, I have seen the required grades rise from BBC to AAB, and I fear that cutting the January exams will mean than students may not be able to achieve the grades they deserve.

Thank you I am in Year 14, so I'm luckily not going to suffer because of this. I just need to get an A and a B from my A2 subjects, and then I'm off! I hope that all goes well for you too! Just keep studying, and hopefully you will achieve the grades you want!

Yes. This is taken from BBC News:

So it will affect current year 12s in the sense that when they become year 13 in September 2013 they won't have an January exams. But not current year 13s who are sitting A2 January 2013 exams, nor the current year 12s sitting AS january 2013 exams?

So it will affect current year 12s in the sense that when they become year 13 in September 2013 they won't have an January exams. But not current year 13s who are sitting A2 January 2013 exams, nor the current year 12s sitting AS january 2013 exams?

kill me now. just kill me now

The 1 resit only is a move in the right direction, though I would rather it be no resits unless the candidate missed the exam for medical/grief reasons. Allowing 2 attempts is still going to favour those who can afford to pay for the two goes, and still allows schools to not fully teach the syllabus in a gamble that certain topics won't come up twice.

I'm not so sure about the summer only exams, unless A Levels are to non-modular as well as GCSEs. I can see why they want to do it though, seeing the trouble with the English GCSE this summer. Then again, you could treat 3 modules (typically one in January and two in summer) as one massive module in the summer so it wouldn't be unfair within that group of candidates.

Why can't people resit? At the end of the day, a student may not do well for a number of reasons including stress, and not being able to cope under pressure. Not to mention the fact that really all an A grade shows is that you are fantastic at that exam paper, not necessarily the entire subject.

Moreover, can someone answer how this is fair on people in England, as it only affects the English pupils? Wales pupils are still free to sit in January, and an unlimited number of times.

Because those students and teachers are not politicians and therefore do not get to decide who is qualified to tell them what to do.


Which sucks