Posts Tagged ‘A-level students’

Record high for A-Level students – Congratulations!

Thursday, August 18th, 2011

Susan from Leicester has just emailed us this morning with the good news!

“Please let tutor Ian know that Mollie got a B in her Maths A- level exam and says she couldn’t have done it without him! 

Teenage students have scored yet again another record-breaking year of A-level results, with one in 12 exams achieving an A* grade. More than 384,000 students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will receive their A-level results today, we hope you will be one to celebrate the good news! Regrettably, there still will be students struggling to secure a place at University but despair not – help is always available.

Mr. Andrew Hall, chief executive of awarding body AQA, said mathematics had seen a five-year increase in uptake of 40.2%, which he said was “really significant”. On the downside, Mr. Hall also added: “For everything that goes up, something comes down. Modern foreign languages are in long-term decline here”.

There has been an increase in science subjects too. Mr. Dawe, chief executive of the OCR said ” I think the message is getting through now, if you have got mathematics, it is a passport to many, many options”

Chinese has seen a significant rise in comparison to last year, with entries rising from 2,372 to 3,237 although French is down 4.7% and German down 6.9%.

First Tutors would like to congratulate A-level students without forgetting the private tutors too! Many tutors have dedicated time, passion and tutoring experience into helping students fulfil their dreams.

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Preparing your child for A-levels

Friday, August 27th, 2010

With competition for university places getting steeper, the pressure on A-level students is more intense than ever before. So how can you prepare your child for sixth form without stressing them out? Here are a few of our top tips:

1. Your child may have mixed feelings about their A-levels before they’ve even started them. Assure your child that with the right discipline, they have as much chance as anybody else of attending a good university.

2. Unfortunately sixth form coincides with a very busy social time for teenagers. Explain to your child that if they do well in their A-levels they can socialise all they want at university. It’s worth keeping social activities to a sensible minimum for two years to secure a bright future.

3. Check that your child is happy with their choice of A-level subjects and that their choices are accepted by their target universities. The top institutions are very fussy about what they accept. If they’re not happy, they must tackle this and change subjects as early on as possible. Better to change and do some catching-up than to suffer later on.

4. Make sure that your child feels organised, happy and on top of things generally. Check in with them on a regular basis and reassure them that they can discuss any problems or issues with you – you’re there to help.

5. Encourage your child to supplement their studies with some well-chosen activities. Not only will these help to refresh and recharge their brains, but they’ll also look good on their UCAS forms. It’s often these activities which help candidates to stand out. Visiting old people’s homes, learning an instrument and taking the Duke of Edinburgh awards are good examples.

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5 common grammatical errors

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

Private tutors don’t need to worry too much these days about checking their students’ spelling because most work is completed using programmes such as Microsoft Word that have built-in spell-checkers. As long as these are set to UK English (instead of the default American English setting!) they do a fairly thorough job of identifying and eliminating the mistakes.

Grammar, however, is a different ball game. Words that are spelled correctly can still be put together incorrectly in sentences.  GCSE and A-level students need to know the rules.

Here are the top 5 common grammatical errors that our private tutors find in their students’ work:

1)    Split infinitives. “To boldly go” is a split infinitive. “To go” is a verb in its infinite (i.e. unfinished) form, so even though it comprises two words they actually operate as a single unit. The grammatically correct rendition of the famous line should, therefore, be “To go boldly”.

2)    Confusion between “they’re”, “their” and “there”. The first means “they are”, the second means belong to them; the third is a location, e.g. “over there”.

3)    Changing tense mid-paragraph. A common mistake encountered by English tutors in their students’ creative writing. “Nick shouted at his wife. She starts to cry” is incorrect. “Nick shouted at his wife. She started to cry” is correct.

4)    “You’re” vs. “your”. The first is an ellipsis of “you are”; the second means that something belongs to you.

5)    “Could of” and “would of”. These are always incorrect. The correct expressions are “could have” and “would have”. (“Have” is an auxiliary verb.) The common mistake occurs because “have” sounds a lot like “of” when it is spoken, especially in its contracted form, e.g. “I could’ve done that”.

Can you think of any more common grammatical errors? Leave a comment and let us know!

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