Huge thank you to all who attended our 6th form open evening last night! It was great to meet our future students. Missed the event? No worries! You can watch the live recording on out instagram page “hallcrossacademy6thform” Looking forward to seeing you in September! #post16destinationofchoice #post16 #6thform #alevel #openevening #6thformopenevening #liverecording #enjoyingexcellence
#Alevel
As one of the founding schools of @linacreins, it's been fantastic to welcome back one of our esteemed alumni, Fran, to discuss the programme with our current students. She's now thriving as a corporate lawyer in London, exemplifying the success that hard work and programmes like Linacre can bring. #linacre #uniprogramme #allumni #6thform #alevel #enjoyingexcellence
Best wishes to all those receiving A-Level, T-level, BTEC and other Level 3 results today!
Well done on your achievements. Be proud of your journey & how far you've come.
“For all that has been: thanks;
for all that is to come: YES!”
#ALevel
#ALevelResultsDay
@CHAChesham
Some good advice here about following your interests post-exams, and changing course if needed: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy112zr91vo #exams #resultsday #ALevel
The main issue I have with the Irish School #LeavingCertificate is that it doesn't have as much potential for smutty innuendo as the British #ALevel (or the old #OLevel)
Huge congratulations to our Yr12 student Will who out of 22,000 entries, is the area winner for the Anthea Bell prize for young translators. Awarded by @queenscollegeoxford an absolutely huge achievement. Well done Will. #youngtranslatoraward #antheabellprize #antheabellprizeforyoungtranslators #queenscollege #oxforduniversity #enjoyingexcellence #alevelspanish #spanish #alevel
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Our students had a great trip out to @unilincoln last week for their be inspired days. The students had a great day taking part in their business insight day and getting to see the campus. #beinspired #lincolnuni #lincolnunibeinspired #businessinsight #businessalevel #alevel #6thform #hallcrossacademy #enjoyingexcellence
Our yr13 A-level physics class today have been doing their required practical “Investigating charging and discharging capacitors” Great work. #alevel #alevelscience #alevelphysics #physics #requiredpractical #yr13 #sciencepractical #enjoyingexcellence
The year 12 biology students have had a busy morning practicing their dissection skills on fish gills. Thank you to B Taylor & Son @doncaster_market for providing the fish for our students. #alevelbiology #alevelbiologypractical #enjoyingexcellence #alevel #alevelscience #biology #biologypractical #sciencepractical
The chemistry labs have been busy with practicals in yr12 and yr13. Yr12 have been finding the formula of an oxide of copper while the yr13s have been doing one of their core required practicals measuring the rate of reaction by an initial rate method. #alevelscience #alevelchemistry #sciencepractical #chemistrypractical #alevel #6thform #requiredpractical #alevelrequiredpractical #enjoyingexcellence
Yesterday was the day that students in United Kingdom received this year’s A-level results. It seems the number of students getting the highest grades went up in England but down in Wales and Northern Ireland. That difference could be because of the timing of the transition from Covid-19 adjustments, with marks in Wales and Northern Ireland only returning to pre-pandemic levels this year; this may disadvantage applicants to universities this year, of course.
Another thing worth mentioning is that the number of students taking Physics A-level has increased by 12% this year, reversing a recent downward trend. In Physics, 31.5 per cent of students achieved the top grades. This was an increase from last year when 30.8 per cent were awarded an A or A*. That probably means that most students who applied to do Physics at university will get a place in their first-choice institution.
As always my advice to students who got disappointing results is
There’s always the clearing system and there’s every chance you can find a place somewhere good. If you’re reading this blog you might be interested in Physics and/or Astronomy so I’ll just mention that both Cardiff and Sussex have places in clearing and both are excellent choices.
At least you’ve got your results; students here in Ireland will have to wait next Friday (23rd August) to get to get theirs – not in the form of GCE A-levels, of course, but the School Leaving Certificate. I have been away all year so don’t know how admissions have been going for Maynooth but the intention seems to be to increase student numbers in any way possible despite the already huge student-staff ratio (the highest in Ireland) and lack of student accommodation. Anyway, Covid-19 adjustments are still in place in Ireland so the artificial inflation of Leaving Certificate grades will continue. It seems the Government doesn’t know how to get out of the system it has locked itself into and is intent on leaving it for the next Government to sort out.
#today waiting for my daughter to get back home after receiving her #ALevel #results, and catching up on the #NewScientist article splurge...
Will also have to go and buy a new rucksack as the current one is disintegrating rapidly...
I posted this on LinkedIn a year ago, but with #ALevel results due and people discovering that they need to go through #Clearing, there may be more folks here who need to read it:
There have been lots of articles in the news over the last few days about people missing their expected (or hoped-for) A-level grades, so I thought I'd share my experiences. My A levels were now more than half of my lifetime ago, so I am in a position to think about them with a bit more perspective than I was at the time.
When I was 17, I applied to four universities: Cambridge, Manchester, Warwick, and Southampton. My interview at Cambridge did not go well at all. They started by asking me an easy question but I knew that Cambridge interview questions were hard and so I assumed there was a trick. I didn't want to give the obvious answer because that would show that I hadn't seen the trick. After 5-10 minutes of evasion they told me the answer and moved on. Sure enough, the answer was the one I'd seen immediately. The question was intended to relax me by giving me something easy to start with but had done the opposite. The interview went downhill from there and I did not get an offer.
The other universities that I applied to did not do interviews. The open day at Manchester did a spectacularly bad job of conveying the excellence that I am now aware the department exemplifies, so I put Warwick as my first choice and Southampton as my second.
I remember going into school and opening my results in something of a state of shock. The offer from Southampton had been low, so I'd assumed that it was a safe backup. In spite of that, my grades were not good enough. When I called them, they did have some spaces free but needed my first choice to release me before they could make an offer. Warwick took most of a day to officially reject me, by which time Southampton had filled up the course. They could put me on a different course but not one I was interested in.
I then had some frantic time looking at the league tables for universities with clearing places left. Swansea was top of the list and I was fortunate that my parents were willing and able to drive me to an open day for clearing applicants. I was offered a place and, two weeks before the start of term, also a place in student accommodation.
In hindsight, going to Swansea was a great outcome for me (and not just because it is the university campus closest to the beach of all UK universities). One of the most important things that I discovered about a university education was that it isn't there to teach you things: You can do that yourself and will need to throughout your career. It's there to give you a guided tour of your ignorance.
I'd looked at courses with a lot of practical content because I knew that I didn't know the things that they were teaching me. The Swansea degree course was very mathematical. They acknowledged that, yes, there were physical machines that could approximate universal models of computation, but using them was a bit dirty. Proper computer science was done with mathematical formalisms, not with anything as mundane as a computer. The things I learned about on the degree course were things I didn't even know existed when I applied, yet have used repeatedly throughout my career.
At the same time, the course was not as challenging as somewhere like Imperial or Cambridge would have been. This meant that I had lots of time both for extracurricular activities (I ended up running a few student societies) and for learning about the things that I knew I didn't know. The university computer society (unfortunately named SUCS) had a number of members who were early contributors to Linux, for example, and gave a lot more useful mentorship in practical system development than is available at most universities.
For anyone suffering from poor A Level results, I have a few pieces of advice. Lots of people have probably told you that no one will care about your A Level results in a few years but that doesn't help you now. If you manage to get a clearing place, remember that this is just giving you a different set of opportunities. Someone at a second tier university who takes all of the opportunities that are provided to them will get a lot more out of it than a top-tier university who coasts along.
Getting a First from Swansea enabled me to do a PhD. Having a lot of free time enabled me to contribute to the growing F/OSS ecosystem and get a lot of practical experience. The latter of these gave me a number of consulting opportunities (from people that didn't care that I had a degree, let alone a PhD). This broad experience and the PhD allowed me to return to academia at Cambridge, where I remain a Visiting Researcher. Each new role has built on things that I've done before but not always in ways that I expected.
When I was a PhD student, someone drew my attention to a study of people who described themselves as 'lucky'. The common thread that they found was that these people were willing to identify and take opportunities that they were presented. I think this needs to be caveated with the fact that being able to fail at something and it not completely destroy your life is one of the key indicators of privilege but if you are able to move on from your A-Level results and find a place somewhere else, keep yourself open to opportunities.
With the benefit of hindsight and emotional distance, I think I can honestly say that my life has been far more interesting and my impact on the world much greater than if I'd been able to follow the plan that I had aged 17.
Yesterday was the last training session with our Y13 Football Pathway students. You have been brilliant ambassadors for the course, it’s sad to see you go. Wishing you every success for the future. #footballsthewinner @hallcrossacademype #footballpathway #alevel #6thform #6thformfootball @officialhallx #enjoyingexcellence #yr13 #leavers #yr13leavers #endof6thform
Just released: Biology A level - Cloning and Biotechnology Cheat Sheet by Anais_Pe
Download it free at http://www.cheatography.com/anais-pe/cheat-sheets/biology-a-level-cloning-and-biotechnology/?utm_source=mastodon
Here's their description of it: This is based on the OCR A Gateway spec for A level biology, Chapter 22 from module 6.
Specification reference: 6.2.1
@cheatsheets #CheatSheet #CheatSheets #science #biology #alevel #genetics #ocr #stem
Just released: Biology A level - Classification and Evolution Cheat Sheet by Anais_Pe
Download it free at http://www.cheatography.com/anais-pe/cheat-sheets/biology-a-level-classification-and-evolution/?utm_source=mastodon
Here's their description of it: This is a cheat sheet based on the OCR A Gateway Biology A level spec, Chapter 10 module 4.
Specification reference: 4.2.2
@cheatsheets #CheatSheet #CheatSheets #science #biology #alevel #exam
Thank you to @dbth_nhs for hosting our yr12 students at your Biomedical lab today. They enjoyed looking at how different samples are analysed at the pathology labs and getting involved with testing for gram negative bacteria and inoculations agar plates. #biomed #biomedicalscience #biomedlab #biomedicallaboratoryscientist #alevelscience #alevelbiology #biology #science #alevel #enjoyingexcellence
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