A Level News Roundup
A Level Changes to Cost Teachers Jobs
2014’s been a big year for A Levels with plans afoot to radically change the way they work.
As part of these changes, more students are likely to go down the three A Levels path to university as opposed to taking four AS levels and then dropping whichever they felt to be their weakest. And the upshot? Fewer teachers, according to The Independent.
Students Not Happy at A Level Reform
The Times Higher Education followed up on this story by saying that the majority of students polled by the NUS/OCR were none too impressed by the proposed reforms. 71% feared the new A Levels would be “too stressful”, while 69% were unhappy about the way in which the new system would miss the feedback that was involved previously.
Vice President of Further Education at the NUS Joe Vinson summed up the mood: “There was not one positive statistic relating to the proposed reforms”.
Find out more about the reaction here.
Unconditional A Level Offers Demotivating?
The number of unconditional offers for university places is on the rise according to The Guardian. As many as 15% of applicants to the University of Sussex apparently received unconditional offers, which some are claiming is a tactic designed to turn the best and brightest students’ heads from the higher ranked universities.
Others, however, support the move for the way in which it reduces pressure on students during the exam period. Ryan Hinton, who was given an unconditional offer to study chemistry at Sussex, said: “It allowed me to sort out my student finance and accommodation, knowing for certain I wouldn’t have to muck around and change it all later.”
Check out the full article here.
Students Forget A Levels Revision Shocker
Revision helps you remember, right? Well, yes. Up to a point. The point being a year after your A Levels when you forget around 60% of the information you’ve worked so hard to cram in there, according to findings revealed in The Telegraph.
We can’t confirm or deny whether that’s the case. But to make sure you don’t lose any key information before exam day, here are some memory improvements tips and revision tips.
Need to study your A Levels from home? Check out Oxford College’s list of online A Level courses.