Completed petition Recent Decisions Regarding AS Grades 2020

A decision was recently made by Education Minister Kirsty Williams regarding AS Level qualifications 2020. The statement released says:

In summer 2021, current AS learners will have two options for their A level award. They will choose whether to:

- only sit the A2 units, with the A level grade based on their performance in the A2 units;

- or sit both the AS and A2 units. They will be awarded the best grade from either route.

However, this fails to take into consideration students that have worked extremely hard to achieve good predicted grades throughout the entirety of Year 12, and who were therefore prepared for upcoming exams, the first of which were due to begin in only four weeks from when this decision was made.

Year 12 would ordinarily contribute to 40% of the overall A Level grade.

If a student chooses to sit only A2 Units, as per the first option above, students will have worked tirelessly during Year 12 for 0% of their A Level grade, which has never previously been the case. This increases the pressure enormously for students continuing into Year 13 and contradicts the Minister’s hope of a “fair system” that aids a student’s “wellbeing”. Further, this extra pressure will not be accounted for in the future when the 2021 cohort of students compete for jobs with students credited by the much fairer system that has previously always been in place.

The second route of taking both AS and A2 units in 2021 not only means that Year 12 again contributes nothing to the A Level grade overall, but does not decrease the already immense pressures of Year 13 either. Instead, it simply places the entirety of the pressure from both years and combines them for exams in the Summer 2021 exam series.

This is not fair, and we shouldn’t be confused by the statements released into believing it is.