A level results. ‘A kick up the arse propels you forward’
So AS level results day yesterday. For those of who haven’t reached this milestone yet, AS is the first year of A levels, A2 being the second year. To be honest, our Mad Professor, Sam, knew that he’d not done brilliantly. After breezing through his GCSEs, the workload was a bit of a shock, and the first term he knows he really didn’t do enough. The school insist that they take three subjects, and he was struggling with the huge workload, struggling understanding the physics, and obviously missing the first hour of his biology exam didn’t exactly help, even with a B in his first module. He ended up just scraping through in two of them with an E and failing the physics. Ungraded. After all that hard work and revision…
The school have told him that he can’t retake. They’ve told him he can come back and do three completely different subjects at AS level, just not the ones he’s just done. I don’t understand. Its something to do with funding.
After initially being devastated, he’s a bit more philosophical now. He’s got his Royal Navy fitness test next but, bar a disaster in that, is looking forward to a career in the Navy. BUT he needs at least two A levels for what he wants to do, so if the school really won’t have him back to do the same subjects, he’ll have to pick three new ones, or he’ll have to go on to a sixth form college and repeat his A levels there, away from his friends and the teachers that he likes so much…
Ah well. As his Grandad said to me this morning: ‘a kick up the arse propels you forward’.
Wise words.
24 Responses to “A level results. ‘A kick up the arse propels you forward’”
Love Rachel xx
For now, you need cake, booze and hugs.
xxx
He’s a bright boy – VERY bright – and sometimes the bitter sip of disappointment helps you to savour the sweetness of success.
He’s a determined lad and will take this personally enough to ‘pull out the stops’ whether he takes 3 new modules, or tries a different school.
He’ll be fine, Missus. x
Are there no longer November retakes?
I’d be clobbering the head with a wooden spoon and if not joy getting onto my MP and LEA.
Why choose appropriate subjects in the first place if for some reason you don’t achieve high enough grade they say ‘Oh, just pick something else’.
I sometimes doubt if our young people are truelly encouraged to achieve by the powers that be..
One of my grandaughters had grumbled all through one of her important subjects about the amount of time the tutor for that class is away; another that can be accessed by email when she is away….. the thing is my grandi’ is attending college, not a correspondence course. She’s on holiday at the moment so yet to hear her results.
Good luck to Sam for the next part of his life journey. Life has a habit of coming right even if it is by a slightly different route to the one we would have prefered.
However, I agree with the sentiment that “everything happens for a reason”. Time to take stock and re-evaluate. And go all out for the Navy – once in there he may find something else that he wants to do more.
Completely wrong subject choice maybe -was he doing English?
The exams haven’t changed – just the way they mark them. The whole direction of the current education policy just stinks.
Free schools – grammar schools – independent schools; read segregation – 2 tier – privilege. Michael Gove is a supreme political light-weight and should go back to book reviews.
Get the family together and support him – Now is the time to re-group and come back fighting!