16th July 2010 9:00
By Harriet Boulding
The education secretary Michael Gove has recently announced intentions to bring back a more traditional A level system in which exams are taken only at the end of the 2 year A level course. Whilst most private tutors are no doubt extremely wary of changes to our education system, I can’t help but harbour a quiet optimism about this one. Or at least the principle behind it, namely that we need to close the gap between A levels and university.
One of the skills a private tutor needs to develop is the ability to adjust to the requirements of exams and exam boards in order to give their students the best advice. This is particularly necessary for arts subjects. Each exam board has a different style, but one thing they currently have in common is an increasingly standardised approach with staggeringly narrow assessment objectives. This can sometimes leave the brightest students wondering why they scraped a C grade. In other cases, students who would previously achieved B and C grades are attaining A grades because they are taught not to think for themselves, but merely the formula for meeting the assessment objectives.
Admissions tutors at Russell Group universities have been shouting from the rooftops that they have no means of telling the difference between candidates. Research compiled by the Sutton Trust states that over 17,000 students achieved at least 3 A grades at A level in the year 2002, and the figure has risen steadily since. Many in the schools community even suspected exam boards of artificially adjusting grades in an attempt to diversify the results.
All in all the AS system, which requires exams with narrow content to be taken at the end of both 6th form years has presented a unique challenge for private tutors who want to encourage independent learning and thinking. It is at best hypocritical for a tutor to advise a student to explore ideas in a way that stretches them academically, and then to add the caveat that this kind of thinking is dangerous if they want the top A level grades. Want an A? Play it safe – this is the painful message which schools often give to students. Students are required to wait until university before they are allowed to explore more complex and challenging concepts. But how can universities know which candidates will cope with advanced thinking?
Finally it seems that the pretence that the current AS system prepares student for university has fallen, after the shouts from the academic community became deafening and several universities brought back their own admissions exams in despair. It seems that these exams will now become models for the new A level system. In my experience as an English and Sociology tutor, changes to exams for Arts subjects are always fraught with stress and bumps in the road. But I do think this is one change that will be for the good.