Why the new linear A Levels provide an exciting opportunity for schools.
Teachers of a certain age could be forgiven for some Proustian nostalgia not prompted by a Madeleine cake, but by the prospect of a return to linear A Levels. The notion that once more the Summer term of the Lower Sixth would be unencumbered by revision, public exams, the dreaded post-AS vacuum and teaching could continue unimpeded perhaps recalls the halcyon days of their youth.
If only it were as straightforward as that. The ambiguous role of the new AS exam, which does not contribute towards the final A Level grade, unlike its predecessor which was worth a weighty fifty percent, but is still reportedly being valued by some universities as an indicator of likely A Level performance, has created a good deal of consternation. The new AS’s role was described as ‘The Contradiction at the Heart of A Level Reform’ in The Daily Telegraph recently with some justification given the demotion in its material value in achieving an A Level grade but its maintained status in Higher Education circles. As Kevin Stannard argued, a tension exists between a single exam being ‘both a pre-university selection device and a national school-leaving qualification’.
From pedagogical and practical perspectives the choice of whether to sit the new AS exams is relatively clear: the case for a Summer term of uninterrupted teaching offered by the new qualification is a very strong one. It is for this reason at King Edward’s Witley, we have made the decision not to sit AS exams, a decision tempered by the fact the School has run the IB Diploma for the last four years with great success, without providing evidence of public exam performance at the end of the Lower Sixth. In this regard, the return to linear examinations holds much less fear for schools familiar with the IB system. As a school fortunate enough to be able to offer both the IB and new A Level curricula in the Sixth Form from September 2015, running the two parallel programmes without the disruption created by modular exams at the end of the first year of A Levels is attractive. Without disruption to the teaching of one of the two courses, we hope that the two programmes will prove to be symbiotic in a way that they have not been able to be in the past.
The opportunity to use the Summer term to provide the much sought after depth and rigour offered by the new A Level will hopefully allow for more adventurous projects and creative tasks, mirroring the IB’s Group 4 project which traditionally tends to take place at this time of the year. Practically the whole of the term will be reclaimed for teaching which from many schools’ perspective, has to be a good thing. Whilst splitting AS and A2modules was difficult to argue against when they had equal weighting to avoid overloading the second year, this is now no longer the case.
The benefits of linear A Levels for pupils are not limited to the mainstream curriculum, as without disruption to the Summer term of the Lower Sixth, there is far greater scope for involvement in the type of Creativity Action Service (CAS) activities and Theory of Knowledge lessons which students of the IB have been enjoying throughout the Diploma programme. In terms of a holistic education, there is much greater scope for students following the new A Level route to enjoy thoroughly beneficial creative, sporting and community projects without the spectre of looming AS exams shackling their otherwise participative instincts.
The fact that the new A Levels fit much more comfortably alongside the IB Diploma is very exciting as it not only allows the choice between specialisation and breadth that many children and their parents want, but allows for the symbiotic relationship alluded to earlier. In our case, the new state of the art Business and Economics suite is ideally placed to serve both programmes of study and allow for the cross-fertilisation of ideas both in lessons, extra-curricular lectures and seminars. The same will be true of many schools’ resources from drama to sport and from art to music in that with a closer and more coherent relationship between the IB and A Level curricula there will be far greater opportunity for collaboration and mutual benefit.
It is understandable why some schools are wary of how universities will view UCASapplications without AS UMS scores, but the benefits to teaching and learning offered by an uninterrupted Summer term of the Lower Sixth are surely more fundamental? It is not that long ago university applications took place unsupported by AS scores and this has always been the case for applications from IB students without adverse effect. Therefore, to return to the earlier literary allusion, for many schools, the new A Levels offer the welcome prospect of Time Regained.
Mr James Hole
Deputy Head (Academic)
King Edward’s Witley