A levels from home

[J0Al1]

Hi

Anyone got any experience in this?

I did a BTEC at 6th form, which was fun, but got me nowhere...

I'm looking to do an a level ni Biology to help get me into hospital work...

Anyone done this or similar/ Any advise on which company to go with...

I was looking at this one . . £350 - OUCH!

https://cloudlearn.co.uk/a-level-courses/online-a-level-biology-course/?gclid=CNCiv5bP_7oCFUbKtAodQ0kAqg

[Aff]

I was never sure how these work, as far as I'm aware anyone can pay for the exams and be included. Do these companies charging hundreds just supply you with revision material? If so, that's all easily available for free online.
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[Aff]

This may be useful:

https://www.aqa.org.uk/student-support/private-candidates

Seems to get a bit more complicated when coursework is involved, but not impossible.
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[Lord Percy]

If you want to learn from home, DO NOT PAY FOR IT.

I taught myself A-level Maths. Paid about £400 for a home/online learning thing. What a waste of time.

They posted me some kind of learning pack with a massive folder full of learning materials, but it always just told me, 'read page X, page Y in the exercise book' (the exercise book was just the bog-standard thing that every school uses anyway, and I had to buy it myself).

In the end I was just reading the book myself and totally sacked off the learning pack they'd sent me. I stopped doing my 'Tutor Marked Assessments' (there was some kind of tutor guy I could email for help and send assessments to) because they were pointless too, since the exercise book had more than enough problems with answers provided.

Total waste of money. A-levels you can teach yourself. Well, when you do home/online learning, you are teaching yourself anyway. I have no idea what the £400 price actually covered.

Oh and you also then have to pay your own entry to examinations at a local college or private exam centre. That's usually another £200+ . (But if you're near Reading, High Down School allow external candidates to sit exams for far cheaper - that's where I went.)

I also taught myself A-level Physics - and this is where you may have a similar problem to me - I did all my studying at home, but I had to sign up to a 'local' (50 miles away) college course so that I could sit the lab exams in a school classroom with all the available equipment. That cost me about £600, because I actually signed up as a fully enrolled student on a weekly evening class, but I barely turned up - teaching myself at home was far easier, in my opinion. All it takes is a book and some motivation to learn.

To conclude - home learning providers are a a con, charging that much money for sweet FA. So just buy the relevant books and teach yourself (every exam provider - AQA, OCR, Edexcel, etc - have specific books that stick to their own syllabus). However you may be in a bit of a pickle if you find the Biology A-level requires you to sit a lab exam, in which case you'll have to sign up to a local college on an evening course or something. There may be ways round it.

Some info here: https://www.oxfordcollege.ac/information/78-a-level-biology-how-to-study-from-home

It looks like you can get around the lab element and do it all from home - although I'm not entirely sure because I only skimmed through the page.

[-Matt-]

If you are purely looking to study the A level i would just get enrolled as a private candidate somewhere, you can get all the material and teach yourself in your own time off your own back after that - it may not be particularly easy but its definately doable and paying someone else to get involved won't offer that much additional support considering the cost anyway.

Are you looking at hospital work in a general sense, or a specific roll that requires the biology qualification. If generally you may be better off looking at Health and Social care qualifications or Health Sciences that can also be done on a part time basis, or if looking into Nursing directly a HE Access Course for health professionals may be the quickest option.

[J0Al1]

Thanks for these replies. I don't have money to throw away.
I do however learn best by listening/interacting, so online/book based is going to be extremely challenging for me.

I was looking at an A level to set me up with whats needed to do this degree. . . .
'Operating Department Practice'... I'd love to work in an operating theater

It doesn't have to be Biology, but that seems most relevant.

Regret not going into medical work years ago!

[-Matt-]

Depending on the time frame you're able to complete the full A level in, and the requirements for the degree [can vary sometimes depending where you do it], it might be worth looking at a HE access course, which should take a year, possibly half the time of the full A level depending on how its staged and you manage to keep up with it.

I'm not sure if it works the same with the ODP degree as its a 2 year course IIRC but with your standard BSc degrees the cost of the access course using the 24+ Advanced Learning Loans system is also wiped off after completition of a higher level degree - so you would essentially be studying for free [you would need to confirm it applies to your planned course to be sure].

Similarly it can also [dependant again on the path youre taking, I don't know enough about the ODP course to be specific] look better having a broader range of unit-experience in a less specific health and social/science qualification - for example having credits for biology/health/clinical units compromising your total qualification, so you can demonstrate a broader range of topic knowledge as opposed to total focus on biology in your case.

[GhostRider]

From what I gather, home learning is not going to involve a lot of listening/interacting, and will likely be text reading materials and online work....

Fortunately you can find a lot of relevant materials in lecture form on youtube (search Dr Najeeb) and places like Khan Academy that do the job fine.

Other than that, find a relevant forum for discussion/clarification on parts you dont understand.

GhostRider
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[yambabe]

Have you thought about evening classes at your local college?

It's usually only a couple of hours a week in class (with a few hours home study as well) but you get the listen-and-learn interaction with a tutor and the chance to bounce ideas and questions off fellow students too.

I have found that for "standard" learning like GCSE and A levels the courses are usually cheaper than correspondence courses too. You also get the bonus of using the facilities at the college at a discount or even free (which can be really useful if they have a leisure centre!) and other perks such as Student Union membership and discounts.
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[Nick 50]

[Derivative]

I'll go out on a limb here and say that A-levels are predominantly book learned, even if you're in the classroom.

As far as I can tell performance in our classes was directly related to time spent going over the textbooks. The people that listened in class and did nothing else did fairly badly overall.

[Clanger]

Why not apply online for an NHS Health Care Assistant and then do your training on the job. Starting salary is around £16k. Experience AND training. Win win.
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[J0Al1]

Great - to study at a college I need GCSE Maths at A/B

I got a C I think

Why is life just full of brick F'ing walls.

[-Matt-]

Ouch that seems ridiculously high requirements, a lot of university courses only ask for C's

If you haven't already, its worth applying anyway sometimes, particularly as a mature student they can be quite a bit more lenient if you're a little off the entry requirements for many courses, so long as you do a good application and show you're really keen. The grades requirements are often more to filter through school leavers who throw themselves into courses they barely know about or don't actually have much interest in a lot of the time.

If you do need to get the maths/english again you can do intensive night courses and get it out the way quite quickly

[J0Al1]

Man, I hate maths! Mind you, GCSE I should be able to cope with. God, I wish Id take school seriously and been pushed by my parents & schools... I was just left to drift - my life all over.

I looked at the Health Care A level and its much more lenient, so have emailed a college to see if that would give me an adequate door to the degree I want....

It would seem that different A levels require different pre-quals and therefore, I assume degrees will too.

I do know someone that could get me though maths easily, but id have to pay him.

[-Matt-]

I've been in a similar situation, it is very frustrating but plough on with it and it will pay off if you're determined. I didn't have any motivation in school so wasted the time generally, floundered between random colleges/courses after unsure of what i wanted to do alongside working here and there, until i went into healthcare and continued study in it since.

I haven't got much knowledge of the healthcare a-level, but it might be a better and cheaper option to look at health care assistant work - which will get you experience [very valuable for future education/job applications], and at the least part time money. You should also find a job/start the qualifications doing this very quickly as its not done on a term-basis so it might be worth it time-wise particularly.

Alongside working as a healthcare assistant most employers will offer NVQ level 2/3 or similar level qualifications that you can learn and be assessed on within the job. Level two is 6-9 months, level 3 9-12 on average - you may be able to go directly onto 3 but sometimes its a stepped-progression. If the employer doesn't offer it, plenty of additional organisations will for somewhere in the region of 500-900 quid, again coming to assess in the work place - usually for as little as an hour or two a month to hand over new work and collect current stuff, so its not a burden time wise at all.

You could of course do the A-level if its similar but i presume its full time over 2 years as a guess So you're looking at no work and probably fees or at least additional loans to payback gradually in the future, so weigh it up financially before you go for either.

The benefit of the NVQ/similar route also is they usually incorperate what was 'key skills level 3' before - i forget its current name but it essentially will bring you up to grade C maths and english once you finish, and is very easy compared to an actual GCSE course as it revolves around a few reports and a multiple choose test on each. It won't get you the A/B equivalent they're wanting ideally, but its useful either way, and even if you got C's at GCSE you may find [usually over 3 years] they're no longer considered relevant by most, annoyingly

Have a look at access to higher educaion courses too
example - https://www.thecollege.co.uk/courses/access-he-health-professions-midwifery-nursing-and-health-professions
They may not be nescessary, or perhaps a bit over the top even for the degree you want i'm not sure, but they may be the quickest and most direct route - and again incorperate english/maths to the relevant standard if required.

Experience is a big factor though - i was accepted to do a mental health nursing degree despite lacking quite a lot of the entry requirements on the basis i'd worked as a healthcare assistant in a dementia unit and showed a real desire to it, over people who had well above the entry requirements.

[-Matt-]

And there concludes my teflon-essay

[GhostRider]

[-Matt-]