Tag Archives: A levels

Exam results – what just happened?

Posted on August 23, 2020 by Eddie Playfair

Most years, the national drama of A Level and GCSE results days in England plays out in two distinct but related acts one week apart, focusing on the performance of the education system and the young people navigating their way … Continue reading →

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England’s unexpected exam revolution.

Posted on May 5, 2020 by Eddie Playfair

One consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic is that we are embarking on an extraordinary national experiment in the way young people achieve their exam grades in England; switching from a heavy reliance on externally set and marked written exams towards … Continue reading →

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NewVIc results 2017

Posted on August 19, 2017 by Eddie Playfair

Students and staff at Newham Sixth Form College (NewVIc) are celebrating another year of improvement in A-level pass rates and top grades, all of which have continued to increase faster than nationally. NewVIc’s A-level pass rate is up 1% on … Continue reading →

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Life in the qualification market

Posted on May 22, 2016 by Eddie Playfair

‘The truth is in the whole’ and if we want to understand the impact of recent post-16 qualification reform on sixth formers’ experience of education we need to start with an overview of the whole educational landscape before analysing specific … Continue reading →

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A-level Drama in London.

Posted on March 6, 2016 by Eddie Playfair

Drama / Theatre Studies is an important area of study. It enriches the sixth form offer and provides students with opportunities to develop their cultural education, their understanding of the human condition, their confidence and ability to communicate well and work … Continue reading →

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Classical Capital.

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Eddie Playfair

Studying early civilizations helps us understand how people built sustainable ways of living together and made sense of the world many centuries before us. These civilizations have contributed so much to our own that studying them must form part of … Continue reading →

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A level languages in London.

Posted on February 20, 2016 by Eddie Playfair

What is the condition of A-level language provision in London’s sixth forms? Data from the 2015 performance tables show that: Over 5,500 London sixth formers entered A-levels in 19 different languages last year. Over two thirds of these were entered … Continue reading →

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A level minority report: Dance, Music, Philosophy.

Posted on February 5, 2016 by Eddie Playfair

I start from a belief that Dance, Music and Philosophy are wonderful A level subjects which should be accessible to sixth form students not too far from where they live as part of a broad educational offer. The published performance tables provide … Continue reading →

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Results Day: best of days, worst of days.

Posted on August 15, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

It’s a love / hate thing. On the one hand results day is a wonderful moment of celebration when all the hard work put in by students and staff is publicly celebrated, a moment when young people can reflect on … Continue reading →

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Glasto-Bacc

Posted on June 30, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

At last week’s National Baccalaureate convention, the ‘Glastonbury analogy’ was used to describe the way we’re choosing to develop this new curriculum framework. I don’t know if this is its first outing, but the idea is that lots of different … Continue reading →

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Demonstrating high achievement in comprehensive settings

Posted on February 7, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

Comprehensive schools and colleges can face a challenge when trying to show how well their highest achieving students do and how many of them there are. They can suffer from ‘bog standard’ syndrome and the assumption that all their students … Continue reading →

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Post-16 performance tables: taking the long view

Posted on January 31, 2015 by Eddie Playfair

The recently published 2014 post-16 performance tables show that A-level students at Newham Sixth Form College (NewVIc) improved their performance faster than the national average for the second year running. They also show that our advanced vocational students performed better … Continue reading →

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What’s wrong with bite-sized learning?

Posted on November 4, 2014 by Eddie Playfair

The phrase ‘bite-sized learning’ suggests that a substantial, chunky educational programme has been chopped up into smaller pieces which are easy to take in but have lost any sense of overall meaning; little gobbets of knowledge of no real use. … Continue reading →

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