Has an extra year been inserted into pre university schooling?

westernpromise

I did my A Levels at 17 and had I gone straight to university in October I'd still have been 17 when I started there. Others in my A Level year were 17 as late as April or May, i.e. 2 months before their As, so they were 18 towards the end of their first year at university.

This was nothing unusual.

It seems this is impossible nowadays. Looking at the structure of both my daughters' schools, they will be 18 six months before they do their A Levels, and if they take a year off, they'll be 20 in their first year at university.

Does anyone know when this changed?

GunJack

It was 18 for unii by 1986 (O-levels to 16, A-Levels to 18 then uni). You left secondary school @ 15?

"In England and Wales, this age has been raised numerous times since the introduction of compulsory education in 1870. On 1 September 1972, the age was raised from 15 to 16, following preparations which began eight years earlier in 1964."

westernpromise

Thanks for that. Not sure how they brought it about but they do indeed seem to have inserted a year. Were those years the age by which you had to have sat them though?

I ask because I was 14 in the autumn term and did two O-Levels the following summer. I was 15 the next autumn term (obvs) and did five more the summer after that. Had I left school right after my clutch of five O-Levels, yes, I would have been 15. Two years later I did my A Levels (and a couple more Os in between). It seems it was optionally allowed to take them early.

Many but not all of my peers were that age. The youngest I know of was a bloke in my brother's year who was 17 in May and did his As in June. He must have completed university just after he turned 20.

166million

The youngest people in my year were born in August, the oldest were born the previous September onwards. So everyone would have been at least 18 going to Uni

GunJack

The age wasn't specifically for sitting the exams, there appears to have been no lower age to sit O- and A-Levels, just when you could leave secondary school.

I did a couple of O's in 4th year rather than 5th. Don't know if that now applies to gcse or not

AnotherJoe

I think you were early, or your school pushed people forward to take O and then A levels a year earlier than most. I dont know anyone who took O levels at 14 and i think possibly a few "high flyers' took just one or two at 15.

I was 18 when i took my A levels in the mid 70's and was part of the standard intake eg my peers would have been my age as well. Had i gone straight to uni i would just have been 19.

So, i think your supposition that what you did was the norm and everyone else got pushed back is incorrect, you were early.

westernpromise

It's odd because back then (1982) almost nobody took a "gap year". What happened was that you got a conditional offer from up to five places, and you went to whichever your A Levels got you into once the result was known.

The exception was the Oxbridge set, who sat an exam and had an interview in either the 4th term or the 7th term. Those who applied in the 4th term got a conditional A-Level offer (or not) based on that performance, and if successful, started the following October like those who'd gone the A-Level route. Those who went the 7th term route came back and did another term post-A-Levels, and did the exam and interview then. A higher standard was expected of 7th term candidates to reflect their additional year of study. 7th term candidates then left at Christmas and had 9 months to fill.

Aside from those and probably a number of the youngest A-Level candidates nobody much else did a gap year. Those who do must be 20 they year they arrive where in the past there were people who were 20 the year they left!

westernpromise

AnotherJoe wrote: »

I think you were early, or your school pushed people forward to take O and then A levels a year earlier than most. I dont know anyone who took O levels at 14 and i think possibly a few "high flyers' took just one or two at 15.

I was 18 when i took my A levels in the mid 70's and was part of the standard intake eg my peers would have been my age as well. Had i gone straight to uni i would just have been 19.

So, i think your supposition that what you did was the norm and everyone else got pushed back is incorrect, you were early.

Maybe. It came up when I was trying to cross compare my daughters' exam years with mine. Everyone did their first two O Levels in what you'd have called the 4th year; these were French and Maths, which at that point everyone had been doing for yonks, so it was thought everyone should be able to pass those. In the 5th form, you did five more, and in the first term of the Sixth, you did three more.

So the thinking was that the O Levels you did were distributed over 18 months. If we had had to do all nine in one big hit, I suspect they'd have all been sat a year later, in what was then the Lower 6th - which in turn would have pushed A Levels back a year.

GunJack

in our secondary, the top sets did maths & English language in the 4th year, the rest in 5th year. For us, 5th year meant English Literature and the old AO-level maths (so introducing calculus etc ahead of starting A-Levels).

This was mid-80s, and only rich kids had a gap year after securing and then deferring their uni place to start a year after their cohort.

AnotherJoe

westernpromise wrote: »

Maybe. It came up when I was trying to cross compare my daughters' exam years with mine. Everyone did their first two O Levels in what you'd have called the 4th year; these were French and Maths, which at that point everyone had been doing for yonks, so it was thought everyone should be able to pass those. In the 5th form, you did five more, and in the first term of the Sixth, you did three more.

So the thinking was that the O Levels you did were distributed over 18 months. If we had had to do all nine in one big hit, I suspect they'd have all been sat a year later, in what was then the Lower 6th - which in turn would have pushed A Levels back a year.

In my time everyone did pretty much all their 8 or 9 levels in the 5th year, certainly none in lower 6th. And that was as the same as my kids school some 30 years later. And AFAIK I think that was the norm then and now..

SingleSue

I left school in 1986, we did our O levels in 5th year and then it was 2 years for A levels....the same as it is today.