Hi,
Yes you only have 40 ucas points. You only did 1/4 of the qualifications most 6th form students do though, so did you have a part or full time job at the same time? You must've only had 5 or 6 hours of lessons a week! You can go to 6th form for free if you're under 19 on the 1st of september I think. If you're over 19 how about an access course?
I'm really sorry that your tutors misled you, I've been working with school students this year and whilst their school is good and hasn't misled them, I've seen that so many schools and teachers will just to get the money for having those pupils enrolled at their school or college. But perhaps the college looked at your gcse grades and thought you would fail a BTEC certificate or diploma, so just wanted to help you get a qualification? Although I don't understand why any college would let you enrol for such a small qualification on its own! Did you do your level 2 qualifications at the college in the same year?
Because it sounds like you went to them with below 5 A*-C gcses, so then they accepted you as a 'L2 retake' student (redoing L2 but doing different qualifications). You now have level 2 qualifications which are valuable for employment: qualifications aren't all about getting into university! Without getting the L2 qualifications you almost definitely wouldn't have been allowed on any L3 course; it's all about building up to the next stage.
You didn't get good enough grades on your first attempt at L2 qualifications (your gcses) so you needed to get more L2 qualifications before you went on to Level 3. So they wouldn't have spoken to you about UCAS/etc because you weren't at that stage yet (but I agree, they should definitely have explained exactly what courses you were doing, at which level and where you could go from there.) What you have is basically the same as someone who sits an AS level in their gcse year as an extra. They would then go on to do 3 full A levels like normal, but just have an extra AS level which is always helpful if a university's decision about them is borderline. But it's just an add-on, not their primary qualification at all.
What is important is L2 qualifications (ie GCSE grades A*-C and their equivalents). You now have 3 GCSEs at grade C (English Lit, History and single Science. You also have the equivalent of another 4 GCSEs at grade A*-C because your L2 OCR National Certificate in ICT is 'worth' another 4 GCSEs (the website doesn't say what GCSE grade they are equivalent to but maybe a grade B at a guess?).
A lot of universities wouldn't accept your OCR National Certificate as counting towards their '5 GCSEs at grades A*-C' requirements but I can now definitely see what your college has done.
They have taken you on as a L2 resit student and have increased your L2 GCSEs from 3 to the equivalent of 7, plus the equivalent of an AS grade C. So you now have a fair number of L2 qualifications. The only problem is your lack of English Language and Maths GCSEs, maths in particular. Your L2 key skills in communication qualification is meant to be an equivalent to GCSE English Language but not very many employers would accept that, and I doubt any universities would. You haven't got a L2 Key Skills in Maths so redoing your maths GCSE is definitely a good idea.You definitely don't need a degree to go into work though. What did you study in your ICT course? Perhaps you could get a job - or even better, an apprenticeship - in an IT repair shop or as an IT technician in a school or workplace? How do you feel about your gcses - do you think you did the best you could? Because normally schools/colleges recommend you have 5 A* - Cs as a bare minimum if you want to do a full set of L3 qualifications (eg 3 A levels). If you feel you could have achieved better grades, then I think redoing your maths and English language gcses, and getting a few more so you have a good set of grade C+ gcses, is definitely the way to go.
You could do them in a year and that would help you work out which subjects you're interested in. However if you don't like studying, then an apprenticeship is probably the best way forwards.
http://www.apprenticeships.org.uk/Types-of-Apprenticeships/Information-and-Communication-Technology.aspxIf you don't have much work experience, try getting some voluntary work to increase your skills and experience. Talk to your local adult learning centre, you can search online to find the details for one near you. They should have evening courses in GCSEs and Level 3 qualifications, and you could also talk to a connexions advisor or go on the connexions website. They can also help you thnk about what sort of work would suit you. There's absolutely no point going to university for the sake of it, especially as there are many courses now which have been shown to only increase your salary by £25,000ish over your whole life! (So about £500 a year - definitely not worth it when you will have spent more than £25,000 at university.)