Half of the course is examined and out of the way?

So different to over here, and we have to do so many more subjects too - we have fifth and sixth year, to do six to nine subjects, examined in all of them at the end of sixth year, and then depending on the amount of As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and honours/pass - get specific amount of points to each grade, and then add up the points.

Then colleges will have each degree set to an amount of points for ex Primary Teaching might be 415 - oh I forgot to say that only your best six subjects are added together, so you get points out of a total of 600.

Its evil, and so hard.

We have exams at the end of year 11 (5th year) in about 10 subjects, some do more some do less. These are GCSE's. Then you do AS level exams at the end of lower 6th (6th form), you get grades for those, and you carry on to A2 with which subjects you do better in. At A2 you are examined again and those grades plus your AS grades are averaged out to give you a final grade. Your grades are converted into points: 120 for an A, 100 for a B, 80 for a C, 60 for a D, and 40 for a C. Then you ill know if you have got a university place by the amount of points they wanted when they gave you a conditional offer.

Yup we've those two, except it takes you from 1st year up to 4th year and you study 11 subjects I think - compulsory :-/ Geez. Systems are so confusing. Let's just bring in the American grading now to totally frazzle my brain

Woohoo, I got an A for my music AS!

Performing- 83/90
Composing- 88/90
Listening and written paper- 120/120

Well done everyone else who got their results!!!!!

Hey that's really good, I wouldn't worry about your D grade especially as you got into your choice of university. I wish I had got two Bs and a D when I took my A levels. My results were awful but then I didn't do much work when I was in the sixth form so it was my own fault. Sixth form students were a lot more bone idle in my day, no wonder the results are so much better now.

Well done all of you. Now relax and enjoy the rest of the summer.

Cheers

Katyjay

My breakdown was

AS -

Listening exam 96/120
Composition 59/90
Performing 88/90

A2 -

Listening exam 64/90
Investigation, Report and Composition 84/120
Performing 48/90

I don't understand how they calculated these UMS marks

Well done to everyone all those reults are great i'm gutted i got a D in music AS i dont understand where i went wrong!

Well what was your breakdown of marks

I don't know yet i'm going to try and get them today-my head of sixth for emailed me them. Nobody got higher than a D in music at my school!

Ok, what exam board was it?

Edexcel, im so gutted its what i wanted to do at uni

Ah well I don't hold high hopes for any Edexcel marking to be honest

How do you mean? I dont want to blame other people and i suppose it will make more sense when i can see the breakdown but my school was teaching people who'd never done music before and we didnt properly start the syllabus till Jan, they didnt have enough techers so we had 3 hour lessons a week half of which were taking by student teachers! But it doesn't help me if i want to study it at uni tho! I just feel like i put in so much effort and i've come out with nothing.

Ok well reading that it sounds like your teachers were probably partly to blame!

If you want to do it at uni, I think you should re sit some modules you did bad in.

I don't like Edexcel, a lot of people have problems with their marking.

They lost the performing cwk of one of my best friends which was about 70-80% of her final year marks. That is stupid and not on in my opinion.Luckily her uni still accepted her despite the Edexcel ######- up. I'm so proud of her but I feel sorry that hre whole music class had to go through the worry of not getting in. She got a D overall but should have got higher. I think they are re-marking it- and so they should. Stupid exam board

Anyway rant over

It's funny u say that, one of my friends sisters got an A at AS was ment to be going to oxford but they marked her down on her performing in A2 although everyone who saw it doesnt get why, so she didnt get to Oxford.

Exactly, in my opinion there is definitely something weird with that exam board!

I know friends that took AS last year and got marked down a lot, and in the end it is going to cost them.

Luckily the people I know who have had this problem have turned out ok in the end , but one day it will really affect someone

ive got my breakdown and the reason i did so bad was the written and listening paper 38/105! its totally arwful and i actually thought id done well on that!

Will your school allow you to resit it? I think that would be wise, if you do well on that you could pull your grade up to possibly a B.

I met someone in that position, too. She played the same pieces in her DipABRSM a month later and got a Distinction.

The college I teach at lets only a few students do the recital option at A2 now. Nearly everyone has to do composition, as the mark is not based on what happens in one 20 minute session.

My break down:

Performing 67/100
Composing 87/100
Written paper 97/100

My results were;
A in Music
A in Maths
C in Further Maths
C in general studies

which wasn't the AAB I needed for Oxford, and they wouldn't reconsider despite the distinction in grade 8 theory. annoying, but I'm off to Birmingham Uni in September!

my breakdown for Music (AQA) this year was;

90/90 recital

120/120 investigation, project and composition

88/90 listening paper.

congratulations to everyone, the waiting is finally over!

hornplayer x

They're really good results Hornplayer!

Mine were:

60/90 for performing-deserved what I got because I didn't concentrate enough in the actual exam
75/120 for invest report and comp- could've been better, especially condisering the work i put in!
90/90 for the written paper- well pleased!

Perhaps it's to do with the moderation: the external examiner only listens to a selection of the candidates' performances; if, in their opinion, they have been too generously marked by the teacher, everyone's marks are lowered by a fixed percentage. Really, it's a bit off, but short of having an external examiner to listen to every candidate there's not much they can do.

Unless I'm way off and the external examiner listens to everyone at A-level - I'm going off what's done in other subjects for coursework - in which case it sounds like EdExcel being typically fishy

Hornplayer - sorry to hear about you not making it to Oxford, especially on Further Maths - you'd think they'd be lenient given how hard it is to pass it, let alone get a C; in my experience, it's much harder than other A-levels. That aside, I'm sure you'll love Birmingham when you get there though - give it a week and you won't look back

As far as I'm aware, Edexcel does all the marking for the final recital, it's not teacher-assessed at all.

Funnily enough I had a long chat with the academic tutor at the particular college and she said that they had to treat all the different A levels equally. She didnt understand music grades, so grade 8 dist in theory meant nothing to her. Also, after asking them to reconsider my case (if you don't the grades, you're automatically declared "unsuccessful" without consideration from the tutor that interviewed you) and apparently the decision doesn't lie with the tutor who interviewed you, or even a music tutor, but the principal of the college.

Now I know Oxbridge with attacked by the press, especially the Guardian about the lack of state school applicants (despite the large rise in state school numbers offered places), but surely the small number of oxbridge applicants who don't get quite get the grades in un-related subjects could be considered by the subject faculty, and not the principal? The tutor I spoke to basically said I should have taken an easier A level if I thought Further Maths was going to be too hard. A warning to all people considering their A level choices in year 11. But anyway.... I'm more than happy with Birmingham, great facilities, great tutors and a great city.

Well done everyone, and enjoy the weekend.

hornplayer x

If they are that inflexible... in my experience of people getting or not getting their marks, it seems that almost everyone (whether they get their first choice or not) ends up thinking their college or uni is the best in the world and they were meant to go there. So go to Birmingham and ENJOY!

I am really happy to go to Birmingham. The deal for music is that they pay for lessons at the Conservatoire for two instruments for ht e first 2 years, and then only your principal instrument for your last year. Also I've met one of the horn tutors at the Conservatoire and he was going to teach me if I had got in to Oxford. So all's well really.

hornplayer x

Cool!

Well done everyone for some really good results! Sorry this is late but I have only just come back from my summer adventure!

Congrats to everyone too - the results came out while we were on holiday, and after we got back I somehow forgot to post saying 'well done' and was only reminded of it because of the GCSE results today! Apologies for the delay - still, better late than never!

WELL DONE!

Birmingham's brilliant! You'll have a blast There's always opportunities to get yourself involved, and on such a great instrument

Suzy ~ ex-horn player

i must add my congratulations too! well done!!