Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate Skills Challenge

For A-Level, I've picked History, English Literature and Government & Poltics. Alongside these choices, i will be taking the Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate Skills Challenge as required by my college.

However...
I have literally no idea what it is - so i was wondering, for those that are already taking it: what is it like?
I know however that it can be used in lieu of one a-level, as suggested by various universities

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 1

lphistory

Pain and suffering...

To be fair, it's a lot of pointless paperwork and repeating yourself until you get to do the Individual Project in year thirteen. It's pretty much the same as at GCSE (if you took it), with a lot more to write, but it is manageable.

Reply 2

username4469564

My secondary school is based within England and as a result, I've never taken the Welsh Baccalaureate. My college, of course, is in Wales and within the college criteria, everyone must partake in the 'Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate' alongside their a-levels/equivalents

Original post by lphistory

Reply 3

lphistory

Fair does, my mistake - you haven't missed out on much! :biggrin:

Some people don't take it seriously and it's a bit of pot luck as to whether unis will accept it. Most universities within Wales do, and there are some like Birmingham, Cambridge, York or Exeter who have certain rules, eg you should have three other A Levels if you want to apply to do medicine, engineering or the sciences, etc or it might only count as an AS, but you sound like you already have an idea of that from your original post.

It's usually split into four "challenges", with the Community Challenge, the Enterprise & Employability section, the Individual Project (which is normally 50% of your overall grade) and the Global Citizenship section, the details in which will vary from college to college, etc. You normally do the Community and Enterprise & Employability Challenges in your first year, which involve thirty hours' of volunteering and creating a sort of business, and then take the last two in year thirteen. The best way I can think of to describe the Individual Project is as a sort of EPQ (in year eleven, we had to write a 2,000-word essay exploring a question, and then justify and evaluate, so it'll be similar). The Global Citizenship part is just a short essay explaining your "personal standpoint" on an issue relevant to society, which was extremism for me in year eleven.

A lot of it is just writing out your skills, why you're good/bad, how you'll improve it through the challenge, reflecting and evaluating, why you did this or that, what you'd do if you could do it again, etc, so you do end up repeating yourself at points. It's easy to fall behind on it, but it's an easy-ish A Level if you like or can waffle fairly well. :smile: