Open study college 2021

Hiya,
How was your third paper?
Hope it went well.

Hi,

It wasn’t too bad to be honest, I was expecting a lot worse!
How are you feeling about yours?
Due to do my Biology in October and feeling really nervous for that one!

Hi,
I had mine today. I didn't do very well, I'm dreading my maths tomorrow. You must be relieved it's all over.

Hi,
I had mine today. I didn't do very well, I'm dreading my maths tomorrow. You must be relieved it's all over.

Hiya, how did your maths go?

Yes I had some issues, also I had some problems with my email aswell. Honestly it was really frustrating, and I cut it close so I had alot less time to revise. But I just wanted to get it over and done with. How was your overall experience with open study college? In all honesty I didn't enjoy my experience with them.

Hello, Do you know if it is possible to get predicted grades for Uni admission from Open Study College? Are they providing teacher assessed A level grades this year? Thanks

Hi,
I contacted the lately about predicted grades for a course I had been considering. One of the tutors told me they would contact them for me, but I changed my mind and didn't really want to go for that course. The other tutor directed me to the lady in charge of exams. I did not receive a reply form her. I have to add they say they don't 'grade' work instead give 'feedback'. I had to really push to know what grades I was receiving for my TMAs. I don't think it was my tutors fault as this OSC policy, according to them. We will be receiving grades this year, but we literally took an exam disguised as assessments. It was actually a very horrible situation. As I had received a very misleading phone call a couple of months prior telling me to make sure all my Tmas were completed by the end of march. The assessments were proper papers and to say I have done terribly in them is an understatement. I still do not know why all my TMAS had to be completed, because when I spoke to the lady in charge of exams at the centre I am taking my 'assessments', she told me that my grades will be taken from how I performed in them(assessments). She said they would use the TMAs as a comparison, to see if there are any discrepancies. Are you considering OSC?

Hi,
I contacted the lately about predicted grades for a course I had been considering. One of the tutors told me they would contact them for me, but I changed my mind and didn't really want to go for that course. The other tutor directed me to the lady in charge of exams. I did not receive a reply form her. I have to add they say they don't 'grade' work instead give 'feedback'. I had to really push to know what grades I was receiving for my TMAs. I don't think it was my tutors fault as this OSC policy, according to them. We will be receiving grades this year, but we literally took an exam disguised as assessments. It was actually a very horrible situation. As I had received a very misleading phone call a couple of months prior telling me to make sure all my Tmas were completed by the end of march. The assessments were proper papers and to say I have done terribly in them is an understatement. I still do not know why all my TMAS had to be completed, because when I spoke to the lady in charge of exams at the centre I am taking my 'assessments', she told me that my grades will be taken from how I performed in them(assessments). She said they would use the TMAs as a comparison, to see if there are any discrepancies. Are you considering OSC?

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply. My son is has been doing A levels with OCS for 2 years now and has one year left of study before sitting his real exams (hopefully) in 2022. So if I understand correctly, you were due to sit your A levels this year and they suddenly asked you to make sure all the TMAs were finished and then sent you to an private exam centre to sit a full set of mock papers that you weren't ready for (their own TMAs are considered insufficient proof of level, I guess)?

Hello, Do you know if it is possible to get predicted grades for Uni admission from Open Study College? Are they providing teacher assessed A level grades this year? Thanks

Hi,
Yes, so I received a phone call at around the end of February. I was told to have all tmas completed by the end of march, at the time I had quite a few left. I had not been told of any deadlines and it was clear they were not compulsory, so this whole ordeal was a shock. Then on the 25 march, I received an email with three options:
I could choose to take assessments this summer, which would take place between 26 April and 28 May.
I could do the exam in autumn.
I could defer to 2022.

I agreed to take them in summer 2021, as I had just completed all my tmas and I was told that they would go towards grading. I also did not think the assessments would be actual exams. After the 29 march when I sent them my decision, I received no further information. For example length of each assessment or whether or not they would be like formal exams. I phoned multiple times and even sent emails. Every reply was brief and very uninformative, they would just say they were not sure. I eventually phoned the centre around Monday 26 April, they told me the timetables would be completed soon and be sent to OSC. Moving forward I phoned both the centre and OSC, on the following Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The centre did not answer( I think maybe because of an influx of calls) and OSC said they did not know. It was because of TSR, I realised on Saturday(same week) that other people had received there timetables. So I phoned the exam centre straight away, and the lady told me emails had been sent out on Tuesday. I hadn't received the email(something had gone wrong), the lady sent me the email again. I was horrified to realise I then had an exam was in 5 days time( meaning four days of revision), and the next one was the day after. I still do not understand why OSC did not tell me the emails had been sent out when I called on the Wednesday or Thursday. I performed terribly in all the assessments, I had caught the cold and was very ill and the stress made everything worse. I most probably will receive D maybe C if I'm lucky. Which is really upsetting considering all my TMA's ranged from between A*- A, and when I got a paper privately marked earlier in in the year I Received a B. I think I am going to appeal and maybe do the exam in autumn. Did your son receive a phone call or email? If you don't mind me asking what subject is he studying and how has he found the course equipment? I'm doing A level maths and biology, and I found the booklets provided very confusing and frustrating. It felt very cheap, with typos and the lack of colour(which is important in cell biology)

Hiya, yes I’m doing my A levels through open study college and unfortunately I’ve had pretty much the same experience as Maisy.

Thanks for replying! Did you do ok on the day? Were they real A level past papers?

No problem!
I had to do three assessments, I’m not entirely sure how I did on them but I know my second one was absolutely awful!
It’s a mixture of questions from different exam papers to be honest, I had seen some of the questions from past papers and some were from the released 2021 assessments but some I can only presume have come from the 2019 and 2020 past papers, these are locked at the moment so unsure for certain if they’re from there.

Oh, I understand - they put together a mix of past paper questions. Did you have to pay to sit them?

Hello Again, Thanks for answering so completely - I understand your situation perfectly. It must have been very stressful. My son is doing Maths, further maths and physics. Yes, the course material is very dry and has errors. Physics was incomplete until I complained and they improved it. However, my son has a tutor at home and so it's ok. Did you have to pay extra to take the 3 exams per subject or was it included in your initial OSC fees? At the end of the day, OSC candidates ended up taking A level exams for real, right?

Hi,
Yes I purchased the package with the exams and course included. I didn't get the practical included pack, so I'm not entirely sure how OSC students are doing practicals . It was basically like a real exam, even the way it was displayed and number of questions. I feel as though my first paper had past paper questions but the rest was most probably 2019-2020. I found the maths course very difficult, it was not presented in the way a maths book normally is. I also feel the activities for both subjects were so easy, compared to the TMAs.

Yea so it was set out as a proper exam but it was different questions taken from different places. I paid for my exams to be included in my course so I didn’t have to pay for them

Thanks for this insight, yes I think you're right about the discrepancy between course material and TMAs. The timing of them was hard too. I do hope it works out for you