h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The AS syllabus was rushed this year, its been a mite hectic. My school is also one of the first to make the Key Skills course compulsory for all students. Not only does this take up a hell of a lot of time that could be better spent being taught, its also really... really dull.

The worst AS I'm taking is Graphics. The main body of coursework consists of an individual project chosen by the student, which is good (if you're disciplined enough to do it). The theory for it involves sitting around in a lesson being read the syllabus and told to go and find out more. The word 'teaching' can only be used very vaguely to describe this.

Rant over... My other subjects are fine... I just have to try learning..

Good luck to all of you taking ASs this year, we know luck will be involved...

[HP}=~~

So us A-level people don't deserve luck then?

Reading that over again, it sounds like I was far too jaded over my ASs... There are good things

I've enjoyed history a lot, as there was a lot of room for interest and topical debate. I put this down to the style of teaching of my history teachers and the high standards they maintain (and the fact that there are only 5 people in my history class, I pity the other group of 20). My maths teachers have adapted well and provided us with the most and best revision material. Physics has been a mixture of boredom, interest, good teaching, bad teaching, and star wars jokes.... but thats more just us...

*Darth Vader theme tune (imperial march) plays in the back ground*

*sings* Da Da Da, Dum Dada, Dum Dada... *laughs maniacally*

Hi, just want to add my thoughts to this little debate!

My own subjects are Art and Design, Design and Technology, Geography and Computing, and I must admit I come down on the side of not agreeing with the idea of AS's. Maybe I'm just biased, I suppose if I were doing A-Levels I might think the AS's were better; the grass is always greener.

The major problem I've found with my subjects at AS-Level is that with all coursework subjects the deadlines are at the same time. In GCSE for example, the dates were staggered (Geography - Feb, Graphics - March, Art - May) and so there was time to make sure the courseworks were done to their full potential.
Now there is no time to stagger and so I've found I've simply had to do them in:
1. the order the subject teachers have bugged me for the work most, or
2. my preference for university/next year,
... which isn't really fair.
Most of my teachers have said that they do regret not being able to stagger the time, but with the level of coursework required not really being much lower than that of A-Level, then there is no way that can happen without us being further disadvantaged.

I agree that the past papers are limited, but another problem is that at least Geography and Computing p.papers cannot have been proof-read. Many diagrams are impossible to understand or ambiguous and some mistakes in the text mean that you have to guess what you're being asked to do.

A little problem in Art, I don't know if you've experienced this Emily, is that there is no time to experiment now. That was a major thing about A-Levels, you got to use different media, visit art centres where you could try out different things and look at a wide range of subjects. Now being limited for time you simply have to know what you want to do from the beginning and just do it, without experimenting with new ideas. It's difficult to be creative under pressure!

One thing on the plus side for AS's though is that, as my Geography teachers do keep stressing, there is only the one year's syllabus to learn and therefore revising is reduced! Thank goodness!

[Sorry about the length of the post!]

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I don't really know what real art A-level is like, since I made up the extra in my spare time. I have noticed that the AS groups have a much more prescriptive course, though; I've always hated the sketchbook mentality and having to make fake prep-sheets, but I think it would have been even worse under the AS system.