One of the saddest things one ever encounters in the world of home education is watching that moment when a parent realises that the dogged pursuit of ideology has irrevocably screwed up a child’s life. Sometimes this moment is almost invisible. For example, seeing a mother on a blog who says, ‘We have decided not to do GCSEs’. Because it is of course parents who arrange and pay for the taking of such examinations, this may be translated as, ‘I have decided that my child will not be taking GCSEs’. Sometimes, this particular decision is not altogether catastrophic for a home educated child. It is still possible to find some Further Education colleges which will allow a child in without GCSEs, although this is becoming rarer every year. Even then, it will seldom be for A levels and so the parent’s decision has effectively restricted the kid’s life chances at the age of twelve or thirteen. Even if she takes A levels, many universities will raise their eyebrows if she applies without having any GCSEs as well.
What is even worse that the above scenario is the parents who steadfastly refuses, and teaches her child to refuse, to consider gaining any formal qualifications up to the age of seventeen and then still hopes to be able to swing a place at university. Often, these people have been lured on in their folly by the story of Ian Dowty’s son getting into Oxford without any GCSEs or A levels and are unaware of the background to this story. They breeze up to some university in the Russell Group when their daughter or son is seventeen and try to get the child in on the strength of a portfolio or life experiences. This is truly tragic, because they have not the slightest chance of succeeding in this endeavour. Here is a very well-known home educator having this ‘Eureka’ moment of discovery last week. She writes:
Has anyone had any success with Edinburgh University?
We've just had a disappointing response to my home educating daughter's enquiry about what they 'need' for entrance. The bod suggests that my daughter put her home educating experience in her 'personal statement' and I feel like suggesting where the bod should put a copy of her mechanical response to student enquiries.
It's the usual demand for A levels or an Access Course.
Yet when we went up for the Open Day the head of the department was quite positive about her chances.
XXXXX
P.S. She wants to study Japanese at University level and Edinburgh's MA is 'supposed' to be the 'best'.
I find this almost literally unbelievable. Approaching one of the best universities in the United Kingdom without any A levels and hoping for her child to be given a place on the say-so of the mother! I am particularly enchanted by the anger she expresses towards Edinburgh University, as though it is somehow their fault that she has not arranged for her daughter to take A levels! Here is a woman who took her daughter on a misguided and foolish educational journey, only to find that the result is likely to be complete failure for the child. Can anybody imagine anything sadder?
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I'm amazed that this sort of thing still happens, given the enormous amount of information that has been available to HE parents over the last few years about exams/uni entries etc.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I suppose that if you have 'decided not to go down the exam route' you wouldn't join the very groups which have all the information about, and experience in, such things.
It's also important, though, not to overstate the case unnecessarily. Occasionally, exceptionally, a few students do manage to get into top universities with no GCSEs. There was a long thread in the comments section on one of your posts last month, I think, where that was demonstrated.
It is rare, but people tend to cling to those exceptions as though there is a common, proven, alternative 'route'. That isn't the case.
'Occasionally, exceptionally, a few students do manage to get into top universities with no GCSEs. There was a long thread in the comments section on one of your posts last month, I think, where that was demonstrated'
ReplyDeleteYes, this does happen from time to time; for instance Shena Deuchars' daughter got into Exeter on the strength of OU points. I would not care to attempt getting into Edinburgh without anything at all though!
This particular woman is a longstanding stalwart of various lists and forums and really should have known better. Perhaps it is a case of a dedicated propagandist coming to believe her own propaganda.
Peter doing AS/A level Physics at college and has no GCSE the college tested him he passed and they where then more than willing to allow him to do this subject and he is doing really will in the subject the teacher has told us that.he also doing well in all his other subjects and the teacher said i wish more of our pupils where like Peter wanting to learn!
ReplyDelete"Often, these people have been lured on in their folly by the story of Ian Dowty’s son getting into Oxford without any GCSEs or A levels and are unaware of the background to this story"
ReplyDeleteYes I'd be interested in knowing the background to this story too. I have have seen it reiterated again and again in various lists in the past - as though it were proof that getting into a top Uni without qualifications were easy and happens all the time.
One keeps hearing these stories about children who do no 'formal' study (although I suspect the child in question has gained enough knowledge to study at such a high level through their 'hobbies' instead; No uni will take on a child who will not be able to work at the same level as their other students) and then breeze into top uni's on the basis of talking animatedly about the subject they wish to study, or the strength of a portfolio. I am sure it can and does happen, but it certainly isn't commonplace and parents wishing their children to enter such institutions should not be persuaded that it is.
'Yes I'd be interested in knowing the background to this story too'
ReplyDeleteThis is easily told. Alex Dowty grew up in the London suburb of Leytonstone. His father is a lawyer and there was intitially no intention to home educate the child; he was sent to a crank school, Steiner or some such, up to the age of eight. It closed down and rather than send him to one of the ordinary primary schools in the area, which are truly dreadful, his mother Terri decided to educate him at home.
His parents had ideological objections to GCSEs and so he as enrolled on Open University courses in Politics and Humanities. He also passed examinations in the harp at Grade 8.
So far, there is nothing to distinguish him from many other home educated children whose parents hope to get them a place at university without GCSEs or A levels. Where Alex had a huge advantage was that he wanted to study law. His father of course has a legal practice and as a teenager Alex was able to work in his father's office, studying and all but practicing law for four years before applying to university. This is not the sort of thing that most home educated children are able to put on their personal statement! It also gave him a huge boost when it came to sitting the LNAT entrance test.
Other children have got into universities on the strength of OU courses, but I have not heard of any other getting into Oxford in this way and I have to say that unless your father were a lawyer and you were able to work in his office for years in this way, I doubt that it would be possible.
"Irrevocably screwed up a child's life" seems a bit harsh, Simon.
ReplyDeleteExams can be taken at any age, and there's a fair bit of evidence to show that mature students do better at University because they have maturity.
I agree it's harder to do exams outside a school framework but that applies at any age.
Another thought occurs to me which I'd like your view of. If 99.5% of the population go one route and 0.5% go another, then the rare exceptions referred to above where people go to Uni without conventional qualifications may represent a larger percentage of the sample size they're applicable to. In other words, while it is rare amongst the schooled population, it is relatively common amongst the HE population.)
(Sorry if that went a bit technical. You can probably tell I've studied statistics and it's all coming back to the surface now I've started doing it with my son who has the same aptitude for detail.)
' then the rare exceptions referred to above where people go to Uni without conventional qualifications may represent a larger percentage of the sample size they're applicable to. In other words, while it is rare amongst the schooled population, it is relatively common amongst the HE population.)'
ReplyDeleteIf we taks a figure of fifty or sixty thousand home educated children in this country and then assume that each year roughly five thousand teenagers who were home educated reach seventeen, then this might give us a very approximate baseline. We don't have precise figures, but if half a dozen of those children got into university by unconventional means, that would still be only one in a thousand. We can't really work without figures. One in a thousand schooled children might get in by the same route; we just don't know.
'"Irrevocably screwed up a child's life" seems a bit harsh, Simon.
Exams can be taken at any age'
It's not at all harsh. One hears about the possibility of GCSEs being able to be taken at any age, but often people are remembering evening classes in GCEs back in the sixties and seventies. Times are very different now. Does anybody actually know of anybody in recent years who has studied for and sat GCSEs after the age of eighteen?
Yes, I do know a couple of people who've sat as external candidates in their 20's after not doing well in schools. I've helped them find exam centres to do it because one of them got the idea after seeing my daughter studying and realising school wasn't the only route.
DeleteAlso, are you saying that anyone who doesn't go to University has irrevocably screwed up their lives? Wasn't it Mr Milliband who said yesterday that fifty per cent don't?
Finally, how have you got your distribution of the age range of home educated children to get numbers? Are you assuming it's an even curve? It may be in London, but down here in the South-West we tend to have a decreasing number of older children as lots go in to school or college to take various different exams.
Also, you're assuming that half a dozen get into university every year by unconventional means. We don't know how many do, any more than we know the sample size they come from, which doesn't strike me as being grounds to reject my hypothesis.
If this girl wants to go to that University and nowhere else will do then she needs to ask what qualifcations she needs to get in, then get her head down and work to get them by whatever means necessary, be that college or private study. She's still young enough to do it and arrive at the same time as those who've taken a year out, so her life isn't remotely wrecked.
'Also, are you saying that anyone who doesn't go to University has irrevocably screwed up their lives? Wasn't it Mr Milliband who said yesterday that fifty per cent don't?'
ReplyDeleteNot a bit of it! One of my daughters has gone to university and the other has not. I was referring to those children who had pinned their hopes on going and being able to get in without qualifications.
'Finally, how have you got your distribution of the age range of home educated children to get numbers? Are you assuming it's an even curve? It may be in London, but down here in the South-West we tend to have a decreasing number of older children as lots go in to school or college to take various different exams.
Also, you're assuming that half a dozen get into university every year by unconventional means. We don't know how many do, any more than we know the sample size they come from, which doesn't strike me as being grounds to reject my hypothesis.'
Since we have no figures, it is hard to prove or disprove any hypothesis. If you are the one putting forwards an hypothesis Anne, it is really for you to state your case and provide evidence. I am open-minded, but dubious.
I can't provide figures either, which is why it's only a hypothesis. I'm simply unhappy with your sample sizes, because I don't think I've seen any evidence that there are fifty or sixty thousand home educated children in this country.
DeleteThe other factor, of course, is the the percentage of children who are home educated because of SEN's which may well reduce their chances of taking formal qualifications no matter how good the education they've received has been. The Welsh research you referred to yesterday seemed to indicate that this the largest proportion of the home educators that they interviewed. Okay, it's a small sample, but it's still independent research and Wales is part of the UK, so it's more relevant than US or New Zealand based research.
(Do tell me when you've had enough of statistical arguments. I'm afraid it's my pet 'thing' when people start talking about HE. We don't have any reliable data and the way HE has been handled by Government over the time I've been involved in it means that we're unlikely to get any reliable data for years. The best stuff I've seen is that where people take exams under the umbrella of a HE group they seem to do better than the equivalent group at school, but that doesn't stand up either because home edders who pay fees themselves aren't likely to put children in for expensive exams that they aren't likely to pass so you'd have to compare them with grammar schools to get something vaguely approaching like for like, and they have different definitions of success so the numbers sat would probably be higher, exactly as your daughter would probably have sat more in a school setting without proving anything about her ability at all. Self-selecting samples are never any real use.)
One last little thing for the not statistically minded who probably wish I'd shut up.
DeleteIf your sample size is Simon's 5000 and five get in then the odds are one in a thousand.
If your sample size is 500 and the same number gets in then the odds become one in a hundred.
In the groups I've been to there have been very few older children and there's nothing locally for older children, so I'd say it was safe to assume that in my area you'd be working from a very small sample size at 16 -18 who were still home educated and capable of university, both academically and in terms of living independently. If this trend was replicated nationally this would make the odds better still.
"It's not at all harsh. One hears about the possibility of GCSEs being able to be taken at any age, but often people are remembering evening classes in GCEs back in the sixties and seventies. Times are very different now. Does anybody actually know of anybody in recent years who has studied for and sat GCSEs after the age of eighteen?"
ReplyDeleteWhy couldn't they do exactly as your daughter did, studying at home and taking the exams as external candidates? I did that many years ago aged over 18, your daughter did it a few years ago aged under 18, have things changed since then in some way?
'Why couldn't they do exactly as your daughter did, studying at home and taking the exams as external candidates? I did that many years ago aged over 18, your daughter did it a few years ago aged under 18, have things changed since then in some way?'
ReplyDeleteOne or two things might have changed. To get the sort of qualfications which would give the child a sporting chance of getting into Edinburgh would mean taking both GCSEs and also A levels. She would not be able to get a place at an FE collge this year and so would have to wait until next year, when she would be two years older than the other students. Forget the difficulty that she will have in finding a college to accept her to study for the sort of academic A levels needed to secure a place at Edinburgh, she has no GCSEs, her mother will also have to pay the fees if she is going to be studying at an FE college after the age of eighteen. You might not know this, but another point is that Edinburgh requires anybody applying in any subject also to have a qualification in a language. It might conceivably be possible, but you also have to ask yourself if, having studied and taken no A levels or I believe any other qualifications up to now, the child will have the necessary mental tools to spend the next two or three years taking a string of GCSEs and A levels.
Why does she have to go to a FE college to study? If she did distance learning she could start today and do A-levels and GCSE's simultaneously. Yes, the cost is an issue, but surely this is a case where LA's could and should help if asked so it's not necessarily a deterrent.
DeleteAnd as for the necessary mental tools, yet again, we don't know what this young lady can or can't do. Motivation makes a big difference to willingness to learn in my experience. If she wants it badly enough she'll find a way and I don't believe being two years older than the other students will be irrevocably damaging. It may even be the opposite because she'll have more maturity and more appreciation of the importance of education.
Plus, of course, if she wants to study Japanese at University then I'd assume one of her GCSE's and one of her A-levels would be in it, so that's the language box ticked. And pick the right Maths and English boards and things would get a lot easier too. No, I wouldn't write her off yet.
DeleteBut I do agree with you about one thing, Simon. If University is a possibility for a child then you need to email the admissions department and sound them out in plenty of time about what they want from a candidate and plan accordingly.
I don't expect anyone to make exceptions for my children. I think they're wonderful, but I'm their Mum so that's my job. Everyone else, they have to prove it to and that means playing the exam game with a straight face no matter what you think of it.
Simon wrote,
Delete"To get the sort of qualfications which would give the child a sporting chance of getting into Edinburgh would mean taking both GCSEs and also A levels. She would not be able to get a place at an FE collge this year and so would have to wait until next year, when she would be two years older than the other students."
But that's hardly the end of the world, many of the young people in my daughter's university class are older than her and she started a year later than 'usual', so it has not been an issue at all.
Simon wrote,
"Forget the difficulty that she will have in finding a college to accept her to study for the sort of academic A levels needed to secure a place at Edinburgh, she has no GCSEs, her mother will also have to pay the fees if she is going to be studying at an FE college after the age of eighteen."
She could take the GCSEs at home this year (as your daughter did), then enrol at an FE college for A levels next year. She would not have to pay the fees. Tuition fees are met by the Government for your first full Level 2 qualification if you are under 24 and for your first full Level 3 qualification if you are under 25. My son began a Level 3 qualification at age 19 and did not have to pay fees.
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/EducationAndLearning/AdultLearning/FinancialHelpForAdultLearners/DG_10033130
Simon wrote,
"It might conceivably be possible, but you also have to ask yourself if, having studied and taken no A levels or I believe any other qualifications up to now, the child will have the necessary mental tools to spend the next two or three years taking a string of GCSEs and A levels."
Obviously that depends on the child, but an example of a young man who took 5 GCSEs and then A levels a few years after school leaving age, and then gained a place at Oxford was posted not long ago on your blog. Many people also return to learning after several years by completing only a year long access course before going to University. My children went into FE college without any formal learning or qualifications and have done fine so far, so it's certainly not impossible.
'I don't think I've seen any evidence that there are fifty or sixty thousand home educated children in this country'
ReplyDeleteIndeed, you speak truly Anne. We know that there are at least twenty thousand, because this is how many are known to local authorities. We also know that some children are not known to their local authority. The most common guess and it may be wildly wrong, is that there are two or three times as many unknowns as there are knowns. This is all guesswork though and it could be many more or far fewer.
The 'two or three times known home educators' estimate originated quite a few years ago, well before the introduction of the law requiring local authorities to find children missing from education, so this estimate is likely to be too high in my opinion. I think, the 20,000 figure was a result of information provided two years after this law was introduced.
DeleteWe need to accept that, while GCSEs (and even many iGCSEs) and modern A-levels are largely worthless as a measure of ability in a subject, university entrance requires some hoops to be jumped-through in order to whittle-down the numbers.
ReplyDeleteIf the candidate is well prepared for the subject in advance, then it shouldn't be a big deal to find-out what is in the GCSE/A-level syllabus and take some of those, (although cost is often an issue; that really needs legislation).
Remember that in some subjects you might have to learn buzz words or give stupid answers, but that's the nature of GCSE and A-level in dumb Britain.
Home educated children should be in a better position for university than those from school, as they haven't had their inherent skills of curiosity and problem-solving knocked-out of them.
People should also consider whether they really want a degree; the dumbing down of education in schools is having a knock-on effect in universities. But again, a first degree is just another hoop to jump through - a passport to a chance to do something more advanced, or a job.
People should also be reasonably sure that they really want the degree they apply for since they will only have one chance at a funded degree, unlike previous generations. I've 'spoken' to many people online on the OU forums who made a mistake and were able to take a second funded degree, but this is no longer an option. Quite a few are teachers who recommend to their students that they might consider working for a few years first if they have serious doubts about which degree to take for this reason.
DeleteAnd of course, when I say 'funded' I mean given a loan, though some people still qualify for grants.
Delete'(although cost is often an issue; that really needs legislation).'
ReplyDeleteDo you mean that we should have a law that limits how much examination boards can charge? This was tried many times over the years with things like milk and bread; rigging the market in this way never works well in the long run.
'Home educated children should be in a better position for university than those from school, as they haven't had their inherent skills of curiosity and problem-solving knocked-out of them.'
This may be so, but how will universities know that? Some home educated children well be able to cope at university; otehrs will not.
'People should also consider whether they really want a degree; '
I couldn't agree more, but the woman whom I mentioned did want her daughter to go to university.
I'd like to open up the exam system so that anyone could get a second chance at any age, with fees linked to income, like the OU used to be.
DeleteI suspect you, like me, are old enough to remember the WEA and when people could go to evening classes if they realised in adult life that those qualifications they dismissed as unnecessary and boring as teens were useful after all.
If there is money available to regulate HE, then wouldn't it be better used for this? Especially now that distance learning is easier than ever before? It works in Australia as 'School of the Air' so surely it could work here?
You're a natural campaigner, so surely I can't be blamed for trying to divert you to a project that'd work wonders for home edders and late developers alike?
"I suspect you, like me, are old enough to remember the WEA and when people could go to evening classes if they realised in adult life that those qualifications they dismissed as unnecessary and boring as teens were useful after all."
DeleteOr need to retrain because their original career no longer exists due to progres!.
Simon wrote:
Delete"rigging the market in this way never works well in the long run."
The market is the problem; if we care about education and educational standards, then the market should be eliminated in favour of a single examination authority, with a low cost barrier to entry. An educated population benefits the nation as a whole, not only individuals.
"This may be so, but how will universities know that? Some home educated children well be able to cope at university; otehrs will not."
The same is true of the general population, but we also know that children coming in from schools, taught only to the test, are deficient in the skills that earlier generations had.
"but the woman whom I mentioned did want her daughter to go to university."
Then I agree with you that she should have prepared, but stupidity is not confined to home educators; overall, a bigger problem in the larger scheme of things is that school children, with their 10 A*GCSEs and 5 A* A-levels are getting a nasty shock when they get to university, and degrees are having to be dumbed-down to cope.
'But I do agree with you about one thing, Simon. If University is a possibility for a child then you need to email the admissions department and sound them out in plenty of time about what they want from a candidate and plan accordingly. '
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, this is pointless. Because of the drive to make universities more 'accessible', no Admissions Officer will want to be seen to be excluding any group. You will notice that at the open day the woman says that the Head of Department was 'quite positive'. If you ask any university whether or not they will be open to applications from students with no qualifications, they will all say, 'yes'. This does not mean that anybody without A levels will be offered a place though!
I didn't say ask about exceptions. I said ask what they want from a candidate. In most cases you can see the qualifications they want from their brochures and then it's you have to make sure the child has those qualifications and as much experience that'd weight the scales in their favour as they can get.
DeleteAn autonomously educated child of that age would be perfectly capable of seeing that that would be what they needed to do and going and doing it, exactly as your daughter did and my daughter now is doing. They can also go looking for relevant life experience and use the freedom of HE and the greater efficiency of studying at home for exams to get it.
With regards to the open day I wouldn't rely on anything I was told by someone who's effectively a salesperson. I'd assume that given a choice between 2 candidates, one who has the boxes ticked and one who hasn't, the box ticked one would win every time and make very sure that my child knew they had to tick the box if they wanted to go there.
Sorry if this sounds vehement but we are currently playing 'you have to please the examiner if you want to get the grade, and you have to get the grade if you want the career you very passionately do even if you can't see why they'd need you to have done this' and 'answer the question you've been asked in the way they want' with my daughter. If she can learn to do it despite autism reducing her flexibility then so can anyone.
''answer the question you've been asked in the way they want' '
ReplyDeleteAh, this brings back memories of when my daughter was studying IGCSE history! The book we worked from had three reasons why the Schlieffan Plan failed in 1914. My daughter came up with another one, quite original and not mentioned anywhere in the books. I had to suppress that original idea ruthlessly, lest it lose her a mark in the examination. Happy days!
'I didn't say ask about exceptions. I said ask what they want from a candidate.'
ReplyDeleteThey can't tell you. So many universities now rely for their finances upon foreign students that they are reluctant to be too specific. After all, you might get a brilliant applicant from Swaziland and then find that you have not listed the qualifications in that country. The best way is to pretend that you are accessible to all and will consider any qualifications or indeed none at all. In practice, this means that British students need A levels, but of course you might also allow somebody in with the IB or points from the OU. My advice for anybody wanting to go to one of the more selective universities would be to make sure you have a string of GCSEs at A or A* and also at least three A levels. You might strike lucky without this, but I wouldn't bank on it. Even the IB is touch and go.
'You might strike lucky without this, but I wouldn't bank on it. Even the IB is touch and go.'
DeleteThirty-plus years ago, the IB was thought to be a bit a bit dodgy; these days, it look rigorous in comparison to many British qualifications, although it depends on the subject and individual prejudices.
An early discussion with the target department to pin them down is the best approach, leaving plenty of time to sit the appropriate exams. Simon's advice of a string of GCSEs and A-levels is unpalatable, but pretty realistic in order to get on an even footing with everyone else. Then, in an interview, HE kids tend to stand out.
Even with GCSEs and A-levels, some candidates from schools ask whether they can win a place with alternative subjects, e.g., arts/humanities A-levels suddenly deciding they want a science degree. Those types are best advised to go into politics.
It sounds like you have insider experience. Do you work for a university admissions dept?
DeleteOh no! I have had the same problem as Simon Webb! I do hope your daughter was less unhappy about the situation than mine is. Although if you have any strategies to handle it then I'd love to hear them.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I'd go for the academic GCSE's rather than the fluffy ones like media studies or food tech, and ditto with the A-levels. I'm not sure what you do about choosing the board, if you're lucky enough to get a choice. I worked backwards and found a centre that'd take us, got a list of the exams we could do without making life hard for the examinations officer and then we chose from that for my daughter and are now doing the same for my son. We went for one language, maths, english, one science, one humanity and after that it was up to them.
This probably makes me seem like the demon pushy mum from hell, but since GCSE study only takes around 3 hours a day if you do it rather than complain about it, I reckon they still have plenty of time to pursue their own interests and learn for the fun of learning rather than to a syllabus. And, of course, if they feel they're that cruelly treated, there is always an alternative...
'Oh no! I have had the same problem as Simon Webb!'
ReplyDeleteRun Anne, while you still have any credibility as a home educator!
'This probably makes me seem like the demon pushy mum from hell'
No, it makes you sound like a loving an responsible parent; but then I would say that...
'And, of course, if they feel they're that cruelly treated, there is always an alternative...'
Yes, the threat of school is so much more effective than corporal punishment. My daughter could not have been more distressed when school was mentioned if I had talked of exiling her to Botany Bay.
Simon wrote,
ReplyDelete"'"Irrevocably screwed up a child's life" seems a bit harsh, Simon.
Exams can be taken at any age'
It's not at all harsh. One hears about the possibility of GCSEs being able to be taken at any age, but often people are remembering evening classes in GCEs back in the sixties and seventies. Times are very different now. Does anybody actually know of anybody in recent years who has studied for and sat GCSEs after the age of eighteen?"
What on earth would prevent anyone of any age doing what your daughter did in order to take GCSEs? And then what would stop them either enrolling at college for A Levels (for free if they are under 25) or doing the same for A Levels as Simone did for GCSEs as other home educators have done?
This shows a complete lack of awareness of the practical issues involved and the situation in many areas.
DeleteWhich practical issues do you feel are involved? And what situation are you referring to?
DeleteYes, finding a private centre may involve travelling and initiative, but so does going to university.
I am not saying it's easy, but there is an exam list of people who have found ways to do it, and Simon managed it recently for his daughter, including science subjects, so it cannot be impossible.
I would be interested to know how anyone in later life managed to sit gcses including science ones, lately.
DeleteAre we taking at cross-purposes? I know that HE'ers can do IGCSEs at home. My own kids did.
Interestingly U of E doesn't require a Maths GCSE for an Arts degree, the college doesn't require it either but if you don't have it, then they make you take 'foundation skills' which includes the GCSE in Maths.
ReplyDeleteTake a look at U of E's degrees and see what each degree programme requires. The ones we looked at did not even mention GCSE Maths. The only ones that were specifically mentioned were English and an Art GCSE of some sort.
College however is a different situation, you need to have GCSE in Maths because if you don't have your Maths and English GCSEs they make you do them at college or you have to do 'Foundation Skills' which is basically English and Maths.
My late friend did GCSEs or A levels in her 40s in various languages, I can't remember now which qualification she took.
Many would be keen to know how she did this and how long ago this was. In our area the only GCSEs which are available are Maths and English.
DeleteNot the original anonymous, but in our area English and Maths GCSEs can be studied at any age for free and Science GCSE (or Biology) can be studied for free if you are under 19 or unemployed (£374 otherwise), so that's 3 GCSEs accounted for. You would only need a couple more taken either through a correspondence course or through studying IGCSEs using the syllabus and text books. This would be enough allow you to enrol for A levels for free if you are under 25 (and older if you are on certain benefits).
DeleteI would feel I have let my child down if she had to spend her twenties doing GCSEs and A levels to get where she wants to be. Surely the point of homeschooling is to give them a better education. I know that means a different thing to different people, but if the child is academically minded, why avoid exams for the sake of avoiding them? I don't understand.
ReplyDelete"I would feel I have let my child down if she had to spend her twenties doing GCSEs and A levels to get where she wants to be."
ReplyDeleteTwenties? She's 17!
I think I'd rather have the option of taking Level 3 courses for free in my twenties than having to pay the fees because I'd taken the wrong A Levels before I really knew what I wanted to do. Even worse if you've used up your one and only shot at a degree!
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing wrong with doing an access course. They're often far superior preparation for the kind of study required by universities. And most of the people who require access courses aren't previously home educated - they're the perfectly intelligent people who've been abysmally let down by the school system. Really, you'd think that GCSEs and A Levels were some kind of single opportunity 'gold standard'.
ReplyDeleteAlthough i agree that a child who wants to go to university should try their best to tick all the required boxes for entry, surely one of the beautiful things about HE is its flexibility. Not all children are academically minded, not all children know exactly what they want to do in terms of a career. For some children GCSES may well not be an appropriate path.
ReplyDeleteSimon's example (unfairly lifted from some other forum) wanted something that was at odds with her previous educational philosophy i.e. wanting her child to go to a prestigious educational establishment which values exams as proof of ability, whilst previously having thought exams not worth doing. Had university been her goal, she should have prepared accordingly.
I believe that most parents who decide not to persue formal exams would be prepared in other ways to help their children deal with their future opportunities either by phoning around collages to see what vocational courses their children can take, or enquiring as to whether their child will be accepted on the strength of a portfolio beforehand or preparing them for entering the workplace with work experience etc.
If a child doesn't take exams under the aforementioned conditions it needn't be a disaster.
'Really, you'd think that GCSEs and A Levels were some kind of single opportunity 'gold standard'.'
ReplyDeleteFor entry to the best universities, they pretty much are. Which was the point of the post.
"'Really, you'd think that GCSEs and A Levels were some kind of single opportunity 'gold standard'.'
ReplyDeleteFor entry to the best universities, they pretty much are. Which was the point of the post."
Because no-one has ever been admitted to Oxbridge without GCSEs and A Levels. Oh, hold on ... we know quite a few who've done just that.
No, you don't.
DeleteOxford takes rather a dim view of people from access courses.
Delete'Because no-one has ever been admitted to Oxbridge without GCSEs and A Levels. Oh, hold on ... we know quite a few who've done just that'
ReplyDeleteOf course, overseas students are admitted without GCSEs or A. They are however expected to have the equivalent qualifications from their own country. Apart from Alex Dowty, can you tell us a single person who has been admitted to Oxford without GCSEs or A levels? You say that you know quite a few; could you just tell us about a couple of them?
Simon wrote,
ReplyDelete"To get the sort of qualfications which would give the child a sporting chance of getting into Edinburgh would mean taking both GCSEs and also A levels. She would not be able to get a place at an FE collge this year and so would have to wait until next year, when she would be two years older than the other students."
67% of accepted 2011 Cambridge students were aged 18 or under. 23% were aged 19 and 10% were older, so whilst 18 year olds are in the majority, it's clearly not that uncommon to be older. Nationally, according to UCAS, 22% of university students begin studying aged 21+ and only 41% were aged 18 and below.
"Even if she takes A levels, many universities will raise their eyebrows if she applies without having any GCSEs as well."
ReplyDeleteA home educated young person was accepted at Cambridge this year without GCSEs (mathematics, St Johns). They went straight to A Level, self-studying up to AS Level at home before enrolling at a sixth form for the final year. They gaining 5 A* A Levels plus an A at AS Level and S grades in STEP II & III.
As someone who both teaches at a university and has home educated children I thought I would chip in based on my own experiences - that is, my experiences of universities (my kids being too young for such things as yet).
ReplyDeleteI'd have to say Simon is definitely right that not having A-levels and GCSE's will cause a significant problem for anyone wanting to attend university. However, I think it's important to appreciate why, as it makes clearer the nature of the problem.
That is, it is not that people at universities generally have anything against home education. Indeed, in the discussions I'm currently having with my own institution (encouraging them to develop an express policy on home education admission) no-one has challenged me when I've suggested that home educated students can actually be a great asset to a university, given their experience with thinking for themselves, etc.
The reality, though, is that universities are simply enormously bureaucratic institutions. They have a developed and long-standing system for handling admissions, and there is an enormous amount of institutional resistance to varying processes with which the people concerned are very comfortable, and that they think work just fine.
Remember, after all, that undergraduate admissions are usually (if not always) centrally determined. They are not determined by the individual departments. This is what I see in the case of the Edinburgh university Head giving a positive response to an admissions question only to have the actual admissions people be less flexible. Most likely it seemed entirely reasonable to the Head that a clearly promising student would get in.
However, as I said, we departments don't choose who gets in. We are told by the "center" who we are getting. And those involved in admissions tend not to be educators who would find home educated students interesting, but rather individuals doing a job (in genuine good faith) who are faced with people that just don't meet the criteria they are told they can use for admission.
Of course, the fact that I've had at least some minor early success at getting people at my own institution to at least look into this issue indicates things are hardly a lost cause. But it also indicates the difficulties involved. We university-teaching-home-educators are a fairly rare breed, after all, and when you're dealing with an institution having someone on the inside makes an enormous difference
I've seen evidence (mostly on The Student Room forums) that universities make allowances for those who have a good reason (e.g. illness) for not having taken qualifications or for getting poor marks. There seems to be some kind of recognised process for this and I've seen home educated young people included within this process. For instance, I've seen people accepted at Russell Group universities without GCSEs or with only a few, low grade GCSEs, as long as A Level grades are up to scratch, or sometimes, an alternative qualification is required (STEP or IELTS). Does this sound familiar to you as an insider?
DeleteFirstly, just to re-emphasise, I can obviously only speak based on my own experience and understanding. I don't claim generalised expertise in admissions.
DeleteThat said, what you've said doesn't really surprise me. At the university level what matters the most are certainly A-levels. When we describe the students we want, for example, we will say AAA, AAB, ABB, etc. GCSE's don't get mentioned. I don't mean to suggest that makes them irrelevant, as clearly they could play a role, but so long as you have the A-level "box" ticked it would be a lot easier to get accepted by a university than otherwise.
I'l note also the connection you make with people who receive allowances because of illness, etc. That connects well to the institutional point I was making. The approach least likely to work is simply to approach a university with none of the qualifications they require, and ask for an exception. But if you can point to an exception they already make for others, and suggest it might also be usable in your case, that can ease things significantly. Admissions people aren't stubborn and unfriendly, they just have a particular way they have been told to do their job. The less you ask them to bend, the more likely they will actually bend.
One final thing strikes me as worth mentioning, and that is that this coming year is arguably a particularly good one for getting universities to address the issue of home educated students. As I mentioned, I have gotten at least some traction at my university, and one of the reasons for that is that as with just about every other university in the UK, we have had trouble filling our classes this year, simply because there are fewer applicants than in previous years. It was thought that tuition fees might cause a drop in students, but they seem not to have had a major impact. Instead, it is a basic demographic issue. At the relevant time a couple of decades ago, people just had fewer children. So there are just fewer children of university-applicant age this year. Moreoever, next year is expected to be even worse.
Because of this, universities are taking on students they would previously have rejected, such as by lowering their entrance requirements (e.g. if they previously required AAA, they might take AAB). The difficulty this creates is that you get a cascading effect, because then the universities who previously took AAB students no longer have enough, and so they look at ABB students. And so on. Obviously the more elite the university, the less this is a serious problem (Oxford and Cambridge, for example, are never going to have an admissions problem). However, since universities are already accepting students they see as not really appropriately qualified for their course, they are potentially going to be more open to atypical students, who can nonetheless demonstrate they have the ability the university would normally expect.
That anyway is what seems to be feeding the muted positive response I have gotten here. At this stage it's too early to know if things will end up going anywhere even at my institution, and perhaps home educated students will still be regarded by universities as too much trouble to evaluate. But maybe not. At least that's what I'm hoping.
Thanks very much for your reply - some very interesting points!
DeleteLuckily my daughter didn't need A Levels for her Fine Art degree and, even more luckily, she made it just before the prices went up! They actually seemed to prefer BTEC entrants, recommending that A Level applicants apply for the 4 year course that includes a foundation year whilst they were happy for BTEC entrants to apply for the 3 year course. They did wave the GCSE English and Maths requirement though (as did several other universities that made offers). I'm not sure if that was because she was home educated or not. But she did have 360 UCAS points plus a very good reference from her tutor. Presumably this might be more of an issue on more academic courses, though essays and other writing still play a big part in her degree.
PS Good luck with your work within your university on behalf of HE!
DeleteYour point about BTEC is a good one, Sarah, so thanks for making it. As I said, my comments are coloured by my own experience, and BTEC had simply slipped my mind, as it isn't something that would be useful for my own department.
DeleteThat said, I do know that there are indeed programmes at my own institution that accept BTEC qualifications. The key, of course, is that it is a recognised qualification. That means that even though it's not an A-level, the university knows how to deal with it. Again, it's a matter of fitting into what the university understands, rather than asking them to adapt to you.
The usefulness of BTECs will, though, vary from institution to institution and department to department, so they certainly can't be seen as a generalisable replacement for A-levels. Some places will take them, others won't. So unless someone has a child definitely set on a subject and institution for which BTECs are acceptable, I wouldn't advise them looking at BTECS as a substitute for A-levels. Things may work out, but they may either end up missing out on a place, or else studying someone far less desirable than they could have obtained with A-levels.
Personally I would love my kids to be able to avoid A-levels, as we didn't home educate them just to tell them at the end "now stop thinking for a couple of years so you can learn how to do well in an exam". But with the system as focused on A-levels as it is, there are real risks involved in opting out of them. Hopefully, though, by the time my kids are of A-level age things will have changed enough that they will indeed be able to skip them. After all, home educated kids in the US do just fine at getting into even the most prestigious universities there. It's just a matter of convincing universities here to be a little less rigid, particularly when no educational good is achieved by it.
Anyway, enough from me. Congratulations on your daughter getting into the course she wanted. Even better that she was able to do it without having to put herself through the examination system.
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I don't know where you got my comments from, Mr. Webb, but they were not written to be repeated by you in a public blog. As it happens, my daughter got into university without A levels, is top of her class and top of her year, and will graduate shortly with a first class degree. The only blighting of my child's life occurred during the schools that allowed, and even encouraged, bullying. Thank you for your interest in my family's personal matters.
ReplyDeleteThey are hardly your family's personal matters if you tell a couple of thousand people about them! When you post stuff like that on a group with a couple of thousand members; you are essentially making the information public.
DeleteHere is the sort of thing that you say publicly in your blog: A university will offer a place because the people there have reason to believe that the student is capable of studying a course and is enthusiastic about that course.
DeleteIf any university turns down a student on grounds other than those criteria... Well, would a bright-minded, independent thinker actually want to waste time there? Would you?
We have to go to school. No, we don't.
We have to 'do' exams. No, we don't.
We have to follow our dreams, respect our natures and our talents. Yes, we do.
And, if all else fails, there's the University of Life from which we - sooner or later - will graduate.'
There is not point in your criticising me for making your private life public; you are happy to tell all the world and his dog about your educational ides. I was simply explaining how they worked out in practice.