A-Level Agony

It’s the half-term holidays! A whole week away from school! I should have looked forward to it. Sleeping in ‘til midday, watching daytime TV and doing nothing of any importance. But NO! As the holidays drew closer my feelings of dread grew.

Since the British Government changed the structure of the A-Level course, our workload has increased to almost unbearable levels. Instead of choosing three subjects after GCSE, we now have to choose four. Instead of leading us gently in to the harder more complex life of A-Levels, teachers now have to jump straight into the "hard stuff" in order to cover enough work to get us through the summer AS exams (these are worth half an A Level). The stress levels of both teachers and pupils are getting higher and higher, but to what avail?

The reasoning behind this is that by taking four courses instead of three, we as pupils are able to widen our horizons, thus making the road to the "real world" slightly smoother. I however am not convinced. A-Levels (as they were) I have heard it said are the hardest part of your education. This includes university degrees and adult education. Why then, make them any harder? Haven’t we got enough to cope with in this day and age already?

Although I enjoy the courses I have taken: Government and Politics, English Language, Theatre Studies and History, I feel that the amount of work I am expected to complete is far too much. Especially considering we are only seven weeks into the courses. It is extremely difficult to juggle all this work with other responsibilities I have at home as well as a part-time job. I usually spend about three hours a night on homework and all day Sunday catching up on all the things I didn’t have time to do during the week.

Hopefully with the amount of hard work and effort I have put in to these courses, I will do well, achieve the grades I need and be able to get into a decent university. I still don’t understand however, why the people in charge of education in Britain are still saying that A – Levels need to be made harder just because people are achieving more than they have in the past. I guess that if they were to take the level of work we have at the moment and sat the exams as we do, then they would see how hard A – Levels actually are. I don’t suppose they would pass with the grades necessary to get a decent job or a place in a decent university. And I believe a good few of them would even fail.

Do you have a lot of work to do outside of school? How do you cope? Do you agree with the educational system in your country?

Tori Davison, Bishop Heber Community School, Cheshire.

Tori.d@another.co.uk