Recent
Most read
Most shared
Lessons from the new A level: one department head’s guide
As students sit the new A levels for the first time, Tom Finn-Kelcey reflects on how the exam reforms have forced teachers to make major changes to the way they work – but says that this new system should deliver improved learning
I’m sitting at my desk with a well-deserved mug of coffee and a celebratory doughnut, and I’m breathing just that little bit easier because Year 13 have finally left the building. It’s been three especially full-on years for A-level teachers. Since the government announced its intention to move to two-year linear courses rather than the AS and A2 modular system, we have been busy: rewriting schemes of work; teaching ourselves about new areas of subject content before we then teach it to the students; and, of course, getting to grips with new assessment styles, especially the difficult process of trying to work out exactly what hoops to jump through to answer the new-style questions.
There are some really good things to report, some bad things, but, most importantly, there are aspects of the new A levels as a whole that will have a long-term effect on the that way schools do things in the lower years. Here’s my assessment of how the new system has changed what we do and how it should change what we will do.
Learning synoptically and not just in chunks
The movement away from what I like to call “learning in boxes” has been a real plus. In the past, students would learn a set of content for one module and quickly forget it again post-examination. The new courses require students to see the subject in a far more interconnected way, and this is good for learning. In time, as this becomes a cultural norm among A-level students and their teachers, it should create more mature and sophisticated learners overall. I would imagine that, after this beds in over the next few years, universities will really see the impact.
A whole lot more teaching time, but a whole lot more to cover
On the face of it, the new system should have given us more teaching time to really get students studying in more intellectual depth. But, unfortunately, almost every subject area I have asked about this has reported a huge increase in the amount of content to be covered. The problem with this is very simple - spending time ploughing through an increased amount of content sacrifices depth of knowledge. This is such a pity.
One of the perverse consequences is very likely to be that in the actual exam, students will end up being able only to offer relatively superficial knowledge to answer the highly specific questions that are a feature of the new courses.
As a result, exam technique skills will end up becoming the differentiator when it comes to grades. This incentivises teachers to spend less time teaching knowledge, and more time “teaching to the test”. The irony of this should not be lost - the whole point of the A-level reforms was to try to create a more knowledge-driven A-level.
By overloading the specifications, Ofqual will very likely end up with the exact opposite of the intended outcome. This needs urgent remedy, and specs must be trimmed as soon as possible to allow the teaching of depth.
We need assessment that is fit for linear A levels
Under the old system, I had a pretty rigid assessment structure: step 1 - teach a three-week chunk of the course; step 2 - a timed assessment using exam questions on that section; step 3 - repeat steps 1 and 2 for two years.
This was built around modular learning, and it worked pretty damn well. The trouble is, as I discovered last year, it isn’t really fit for purpose on a linear course.
Firstly, the questions are pretty much all synoptic, so you can’t really assess one bit without applying the next bit - and if you persevere regardless, you teach your students bad exam habits.
Secondly, I found that this was incentivising my students to learn one bit intensively and then not come back to it for months, or in some cases the whole year. A well-planned linear course needs to force students to frequently revisit things they learned three to four months ago, not just things they learned in the past fortnight, if they are to survive at the end of two years.
What I will do next time around is regular knowledge-only type tests on topics learned much earlier in the year.
I’m also planning to do exam practice questions far less frequently - but when I do them, say once a term, they will cover far more extensive topics requiring broader revision. This, I think, will better prepare students for pulling the whole course together at the end.
Assessment across the school needs to be reformed
Given all I have said above, we need to ask the following question: do the working practices we teach students in the lower years prepare them for this linear-style learning? The answer in most schools is no.
Most schools spend Years 7-11 doing assessment based on short chunks of work. This is partly for accountability, but also because that’s what used to work best for old GCSE and A level. But the rules of the game have changed.
Schools now need younger pupils to sit two to three high-stakes extended assessments each year, both to get them used to the process but also to incentivise them to revisit extended bodies of knowledge, not learn it for three weeks and then never revisit it again. Many schools are already doing this, and in three to four years’ time will reap the rewards of higher A-level grades for their students.
Lots of independent study is not optional - we need to help students realise this early
Over the past 6 months, the realisation about the level of work involved has hit each of the current students at various times - and in too many cases, the results haven’t been that pretty.
Year 13 is supposed to be stressful, and I’m very much of the ilk who say, “Bloody good thing, too.” But if that stress is as a result of students being socialised into one style of learning and working practice, only for them to arrive at A level to discover that actually the expectations are completely different, that is an undue additional burden for them to carry alongside the already considerable ramifications of success or failure.
We can help with this, though. We need rigorous teaching from day one of A level, high and explicit expectations of students’ independent study and effective monitoring systems to pick up on those who “don’t get it” early doors.
Hopefully, in a few years’ time, we can be more hands-off once we inherit year groups who have been better socialised for this higher standard, but, in the meantime, we are still in loco parentis and I think we’d be negligent if we didn’t do far more to help provide a bit more supportive scaffolding in the interim.
Tom Finn-Kelcey is head of social sciences at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Faversham, Kent. He tweets @TFinnKelcey