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Taking Resits in 2020
Rachael Essex • Sep 01, 2020
Exam Resits in 2020 - What Are The Options?
After all of the drama and controversy surrounding GCSE and A Level exam results this year, it’s not surprising that many students are now thinking about resitting some of their subjects.
So what are your options? How important are the results? And how does it all work? How can you make sure you get a better result the second time around? Can you even take an actual exam!? We’ve answered some of your most asked questions below!
GCSEs are important! They are usually the last time that your general learning will be assessed before you narrow down your focus to more specific areas. The content you learn for your GCSEs (and the skills you pick up whilst doing so) provide the building blocks for your future education, be that A levels or anything else. Not quite getting the grade you want is annoying, but it could also be an indication that you may have missed a few essential skills along the way, and you might be doing yourself a disservice by moving forward without them.
Don’t panic! Resitting doesn’t mean that everything else you had planned has to be put on hold. Most schools and colleges will allow you to study for resits alongside other courses, and some A level colleges will take students without a full set of grades, provided that they commit to resitting GCSE whilst studying for their A levels.
If you’re an A level student, chances are you selected your A level subjects for a reason - hopefully you picked subjects that you’re interested in - but you likely chose at least a couple of them because you’ll need them to get wherever you want to go next.
Thankfully, universities are being super flexible on entry requirements this year. Holding places and often admitting near-miss students who would perhaps have got the right grades had 2020 been a more ‘normal’ year. But if you're not a ‘near-miss student’ or your choice of university really isn't that flexible, then resitting might be the best option for you.
Looking ahead to future employment opportunities, it’s often thought that once you have your degree, your GCSEs and A levels won’t matter any more, but this isn’t always true. A levels in particular are known to be very tough, so being able to show high grades here is going to be a huge draw from potential employers. If you’ve spent two years slogging your guts out on a maths A level for example, then you definitely want to be walking away with the grade you deserve - maths and all of the sciences are particularly highly rated! Finally, more than 6% of students drop out of university before completing their degree - what if you don’t like it? Or have to drop out for another reason? In this instance your A levels and GCSEs are going to become much more important than you expected.
If you want to resit any exams you’ll need to tell your school or college and they’ll need to agree to submit you for it - if they don’t agree for any reason you can always look to find another school or college that will allow you to take it there. (Just give us a call if you need any help with this.)
Once you’re up and running the first thing to do is to speak to your teacher about how you can improve your grade and where things might have gone wrong previously. Given that this year’s results were eventually awarded based on teacher opinions, if you’re unhappy about your grade we know that this could be easier said than done! If you are able to work things through with your teacher, then great! If not, then you might need an external, independent professional (like us!) to help. We offer free assessments of where you’re at now, and can provide the additional tutoring you’ll need to go above and beyond your previous work.
The good news is that at the time of writing this article, the Autumn exam series (which WILL be ‘proper’ exams taken in your schools normal setting) is going ahead as planned. Exams will be taken in October and November with results released in December and January. The BEST news is that there’s nothing to lose! If you resit and get a lower grade than before, you’ll still keep your higher grade. It’s true!
Most importantly, you need to know that resitting is the right thing for you. Once your mind is made up (or even if you’re having a tough time making up your mind) we’d love to hear from you.
Good luck!
New course starting after Feb half term
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